There are some whom might argue that the most important issues that have challenged American democracy throughout are history are issues of war, i.e. specifically the challenge of the British in the War of Independence and the assault of the Germans during World War II. However, if we look at solely domestic issues that have challenged American democracy throughout our history, few have been as pervasively or historically significant as the issue of race relations.
There are two periods of history that threatened in the words of Abraham Lincoln to create a house divided in America, a house that once divided would fall. Both of these periods are adequate to give validity to the issue of race relations representing the most significant challenge to American democracy. The first was the period of the Civil War in the mid-1800s; the second was the period of Civil Rights activism during the mid-1900s. At a time when our nation was still developing, issues of race threatened to break it asunder. The slave-owning states in the south became pitted against the non-slaveholding states in the north. While some argue economic interests were a primary factor, slaves were a valuable economic resource to the south so slavery was indeed the crux of the matter. As Alexander Stephens wrote in 1866 “African slavery as it exists among us…was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, has anticipated this as the ‘rock upon which the old Union would split.’ He was right” (Unger 271).
While the issue of slavery in the 19th century remained a conflict between abolitionists and militant slavery defenders, it did not threaten national unity because neither side was strong enough to affect such change. However, once slavery became tied to the issue of expansion in the west it boiled over as an issue that threatened the existence of the country itself. The election of Abraham Lincoln, e...