The Constitution and the Civil War Any combination of words is open to interpretation, especially an intentionally vague document like the Constitution. By being open to radically different interpretations, the Constitution became a weapon for sectional discord and tension in the years preceding the Civil War. When it was framed the Constitution was deliberately ambiguous on the subject of slavery, even though men like Thomas Jefferson were for outlawing the institution and others, southerners for …showed first 75 words of 1020 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1020 total…s. The Constitution was but a thin veil over an ugly sore on American society, over a racial conflict so deep that no document could ever provide a solution. The nation was doomed to rend itself apart from the start, and the ambiguous Constitution was only a band-aid on a fault line. The real problem was more profound and this nation of today, rebuilt from the ashes of a civil war, struggles with it still.