le Tom's Cabin. This book awakened the North to the wickedness of slavery and gainedthe support of the working classes in England and France. Hinton R. Helper's book, TheImpending Crisis of the South, attempted to prove that indirectly the nonslaveholdingwhites suffered the most from slavery. The third major field of discontent between the North and South was politics. Generallyspeaking, the North supported a strong, central federal government, while the South wasin favor of states' rights. As far back as 1793-1800, Alexander Hamilton of the Federalistparty, and Thomas Jefferson of the Democratic-Republican party, contended over theopposing types of government. Jefferson and his friend James Madison wrote the Kentuckyand Virginia resolutions. Both stressed the compact theory that declared states' rights tonullify unconstitutional legislation by the federal government. The War of 1812 was another wedge between the North and South. Federalists opposedthis war and lent money and food to the British. The crippling of the war effort and theoutright ridiculing of the Jeffersonian embargo were the two of the most damaging acts ofnullification in America prior to the events leading to the Civil War. The Compromise of 1850 aroused much hostility from the North and the South. Itadmitted California to the Union as a free state, thus tipping the Senate balancepermanently against the South. It also included the new Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, whichdeclared that fleeing slaves could not testify in their own behalf, and they were denied ajury trial. This law aroused strong opposition in the North. Massachusetts nullified this actby making it a penal offense for any state official to enforce it. In 1854, a new political party was organized in reaction to Stephen A. Douglas'sKansas-Nebraska Act. This Republican party, which was not allowed south of theMason-Dixon line, protested strongly against the gains of slavery. Their defiance of theSupreme Court's...
