HIST 2061 Chapter : Mid Term Essay
Document Summary
Before the civil war, the u. s. economy depended greatly on slave labor in the south and textile factories in the north. The two were also in agreement that the african-americans were an inferior race. Even most abolitionists and abolitionist groups did not believe in equality of the races. Acquiring new territory lead to the debate on slavery expansion, which sparked the principal conflict of free labor vs. slave labor. The argument from the north was that slave labor kept poor white laborers poor and made no room for a middle class, but this ideology threatened southerners" economy. The main reasoning for the civil war was not to abolish slavery completely, but to prevent the expansion of it and started as a white man"s war. Slavery made america"s economy boom around 1783 with eli whitney"s invention of the cotton gin that created an alliance between the north and the south on the issue of slavery.
