Freedom in Iran: Do they truely have a voice?

The people of Iran had wanted to overthrow the Shah and his dictatorship and bring democracy to their country. They had wanted change. Then, the clergymen had stood up offering to run the country they had always dreamt of. They asked the people of Iran if they wanted and Islamic republic or not. The people apparently chose the Islamic republic and it was established after the constitution was written. The clergymen then took their place. Based on the constitution, there always needed to be a supreme leader and so one was established. Little by little, they started to take the freedom away from people while taking advantage of their positions.

For many years the Presidential Elections had been going well. The preceding president of Iran, Mohammad Khatami, had supported the citizens of Iran and mostly ran a true democracy. After he was in office for two terms, it was time for the Presidential Elections. In Iran, there is a guardian council who determine who can be candidates for president. They have the power to dismiss the people they don’t approve of, and the people don’t think the same way as they do. This is a limiting factor in the voting process. The people of Iran can therefore only vote for the candidates that they guardian council liked and approved of.

The election day had been a complete mockery. The citizens had been voting for someone who was with the people and wanted to correct the laws. Seeing this, the supreme leader had dismissed everyone on his council and chose the president, giving the citizens the illusion that they had a voice. The election was then capped and, in a time too short for it to be possible that the votes were counted, the clergymen came to the conclusion that the president would be Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He was not who the people had been voting for. The people saw that there had been irregularities in the voting process. The government wouldn’t listen to the opposition and wouldn’t pay attention.

To this day, the clergymen have been eliminating (imprisoning) reporters, students, professors, thinkers, and journalists who have tried to surface the truth behind the head of the country. People are determined to fight without violence. What the Iranian people got, was worse than what they had.

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Events Important to Our Study of the Civil War

Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was a plan to help maintain balance between the free and slave states in the Senate if they were to admit California to the United States as a free state. It consisted of five laws, two that favored the south and two that favored the North. These are the laws:
1) Congress would admit California into the Union as a free state.
2) The people of the New Mexico and Utah territories would decide for themselves whether to allow slavery. (popular sovereignty)
3) Congress would abolish the sale of enslaved people, but not slavery, in Washington, D.C.
4) Texas would give up claims to New Mexico for $10 million.
5) A Fugitive Slave Act would order all citizens of the United States to assist in the return of escaped slaves and would deny a jury trial to escaped slaves.
The Compromise of 1850 is important to our study of the Civil War because many people had opposed to it and it only helped them see their differences in opinion clearer which would lead to disputes later on. The south thought that the north would be controlling the Government if it's population grew because it would have more seats in the House.

Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was introduced by Senator Stephen Douglas. It called for the creation of two new territories, Kansas and Nebraska, and stated that the people there would get to decide if they were to become free or slave states (popular sovereignty). The two territories were north of the boundary the Missouri Compromise had set. If the territories were to allow slavery, it would be the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was meant to please both the south and the north. Douglas knew the Southerners would accept it because there was a probability that they would be slave states. He also though that the Northerners would accept it because they thought that slaves weren't needed where cotton couldn't grow. This Act was passed by Congress.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act is important to our study of the Civil War because after it was passed, anti-slavery and pro-slavery settled in Kansas to effect the vote of weather the territory would be a free state. This led to violent raid and counter-raids. Therefore, this added to the tension between them that would soon lead to a Civil War.

Presidential Election of 1860
The presidential election of 1860 occurred when the North couldn't stand having a Southern leader and vice versa. It was clear that there were no national political parties. When the Democratic Party met in South Carolina to nominate it's candidate for President, the party broke in two because there were Southern Democrats who were for slavery and Northern Democrats who were for popular sovereignty. Eight Democratic states agreed to nominate their own candidate. Then there were the Whig and American Parties who formed to make the Constitutional Union Party and nominated John Bell. Then we had the Republic Party who nominated Abraham Lincoln who stood against the spread of slavery with moderate views on slavery as well.
In the South, the election was between Bell and Beckinridge. In the North, it was between Lincoln and Douglas. All the free states except for half of New Jersey were for Lincoln. He won the election without any votes from the South.
The Presidential election of 1860 is important to our study of the Civil War because it infuriated the Southerners that Lincoln was able to win without any votes from the South. They felt like they had no say in the government. This cause them to completely secede from the Union. It showed that their differences couldn't be solved easily. They didn't even consult the North showing their lack of willingness to talk and compromise. This is one of the final events that added to the tension between them that would lead to the Civil War.

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