Second, it was the mismanagement of the peaceful expansion of the United States that almost led to war. The Adams-Onís Treaty of 1821 unnecessarily renounced the right to East Texas, where American settlers were already arriving, leading to the Texas Revolution and the war between Mexico and America. The 1818 U.S.-U.K. Negotiators agreed on how to share Oregon Country except west of Washington, but if one did not get that on paper, false hopes could develop for BC, which James Polk had done during the 1844 election campaign and then sold to free his hands to go to war with Mexico for southern expansion. This annoyed the Northern Democrats enough to adopt Wilmot`s reservation, which denied any loot to the South. This led to a four-year stalemate, after which the South was ready to go to war for Southern California and New Mexico, of which it felt guilty. The compromise of 1850 avoided war for the time being, but left the South on the sidelines and flared up against the abolitionism of the North. In short, the history of antebellum America is full of concessions on the issue of slavery, including several decisive agreements with “Compromise” in the name. Foreign Minister William Seward also advised the new president to let the rebel states go and avoid acts that could upset the upper-south states.
He believed that the affected States would eventually recognize the mistake of their ways and promote reunification. “I don`t think it`s wise to provoke a civil war that starts in Charleston and saves an untenable position,” Seward said. Between July 1863 and April 1865, four national conscripts took place, which led to a reputation of 776,829 men, but only 46,347 of them were kept in service. Although most of the men who opposed and avoided compulsory military service did so legally, many still refused to report to the compulsory military service office and avoided it illegally. Between July 1863 and December 1864, 161,224 men could not show up. The large number of objectors of military service indicated resistance to struggle during the war. Some of these soldiers may have been both peace democrats and Southern sympathizers. Many were Irish Catholics who immigrated to the east coast and have already been mentioned. Another reason immigrants avoided compulsory military service is that they have just arrived in America. They didn`t want to fight and die for a country where they had only recently been. We had many chances to avoid civil war, which should not exclude the possibility of a (probably smaller and shorter) war limited to the Deep South, either at this time or at another time.
After the withdrawal of Reconstruction and the introduction of Jim Crow segregation in the South, a growing number of white Americans presented the Civil War as a tragic family opinion and not as a struggle for principles.