Slavery Sectional Issue

Slavery: A Sectional Issue

From the time of the first exploration of the New World to the eve of the Civil War, slavery played a significant role in the development of the United States. Before the American Revolution, the North and South both practiced slavery. Whether the first African Slave trade between England and the West African Coast, or the last slave trade where Virginia and Carolina profited by selling slaves to the black belt states, slavery was a dominant presence for nearly three centuries. However, after the Revolution, the growing differences between the North and South regarding slaves made the country grow apart. The true problem centered on slaveholders’ rights within the Union and slavery’s expansion. Throughout
The innovative crop and production tools caused a steep increase in slavery. The slave population in the South grew from 700,000 slaves in 1790, to four million slaves in 1860. Slave owners in the deep South, specifically in Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana, had the most slaves due to the profitability of cotton. The new and very lucrative crop transformed slavery in the South to a much harsher and demeaning lifestyle. The cotton regimes were much harder than those of tobacco or rice (Silverman). There were no days off, and there was a bare minimum of food, clothing and housing for the slaves. Plantations grew to fifty or more slaves, and were run like military camps. Whippings became more common in order to keep the slaves on schedule and efficient, and the life expectancy for slaves became that of a poor white person (Silverman). The philosophy of the new slave –owning lifestyle in the South was perfectly captured in a quote by Alexander Stephans: “Its cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition” (McPherson, 47-48). This belief, shared by nearly all southerners, is what led to the secession that caused the Civil
The compromise stated that above the 36’30’ parallel was a free state and anything below it would be a slave state (Silverman). The Missouri Compromise only created more division of ideas between the North and the South. Northerners did not believe that geography should dictate whether slavery was legal, whereas the south believed that there should still be slavery all over the United States. Although this 36’30 compromise was first agreed on by both the North and South, the South had other plans about territory during this