The war was fought primarily as a war of liberation from the Union and restoration of equality, but during the war, the more industrialized Northern States recognized the slaves' release in states that fought against the Union, but approved the continuation of slavery in the Union states that had slavery. The Southern States based its economy on the maintenance of slavery. The majority of southern states felt that slavery could be abolished in the south because then an economic collapse would occur. Furthermore, many poor whites in the South were against slavery, this pressed their financial situation and made it more difficult to get work. Still others white people, for example, Robert E. Lee, was opposed to slavery on purely moral grounds. Some hostility arose …show more content…
When the Supreme Court invalidated a law from 1850 which said that runaway slaves must be returned to their owners, this aroused great displeasure in the south while the north’s John Brown gave his support to the establishment of a republic of runaway slaves. Brown, and eighteen Northerners, occupied a federal building in Harpers Ferry, Virginia 1859. He killed the mayor and took some of the city's leading men prisoner. Brown was detained later and convicted of murder and conspiracy and treason against the state of Virginia. His death made him a martyr for the opponents of the slavery and he was called a