Slaverys sultry hands have clutched the cultural landscape of America since the first

African Slaves were brought to the shores of Virginia in 1619. Ever since, the greed for a cheap
and dependable supply of labor has secured slavery to the economy and political environment of
the infant nation. The unstable relationships between indentured servants and their employers as
well as the inability to enslave the natives have resulted in the economy, especially of the south,
to be dependent upon Black slaves to fulfill the heavy demands of labor. The writers of the
constitution predicted that slavery would meet its end at the dawn of the 19th century. However,
with Eli Whitneys invention of the cotton gin, slavery seemed to get a new lease on life. As
Slavery continued to thrive in the south, it stood as a catalyst for the Civil War. To take a look at
why, well have to see the necessity of slavery to the South, the antagonism against slavery in the
North, and the expansion of slavery in the west.

Slavery was intricately tied to the economy of the south, where cotton was king. The
global demand for cotton was a gold mine for the south, and cotton plantations contributed to the
prosperity of the South. Cotton processing was a very labor-intensive process, and unlike the
more industrial North, the South lacked the influx of immigrants that can supply the heavy
demand of labor. Thus, Black slaves were used to fulfill this need for labor, and as a result, the
South was fiercely defensive of this social institution. Slave owners lobbied for laws that would
protect slavery, such as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which allowed escaped slaves to be
indicted and captured by their owners. This controversial act, which allowed judges to earn
double if he rules in favor of returning a suspected escaped slave.

In the North, where slavery was becoming increasingly antagonized, the abolitionist
movement began to take hold. Harriet Beecher Stowe's bestselling Uncle Toms Cabin shocked
northern readers with descriptions of the horrors of slavery and only furthered the Norths
repulsion towards slavery. Other abolitionist literature included Frederick Douglass
autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, which shared a
captivating narrative of the authors experience as a slave; and William Lloyd Garrisons
abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator. As the abolitionist movement grew, abolitionists helped to
free slaves and lobbied against the expansion of slavery - and thus becoming a legitimate threat
to slavery and slave owners.

With the US victory in the Mexican-American Wars and the addition of territories into
the Union, slaverys expansion would become an issue that would divide the nation - the North
wanted to stop the expansion of slavery while the South sought to increase it. The Missouri
Compromise of 1820 sought to solve tensions by establishing a balance of power. This
compromise held the Union together for several decades, but after the Nebraska-Kansas Act
disrupted this balance, and the landmark Supreme Court decision Dred Scott v. Sandford that
upheld slavery, the compromise was struck dead. Another attempt at compromise was the
Compromise of 1850, which abolished the slave trade in Washington D.C. and revised the
Fugitive slave act. The Compromise only further drove divisions between the North and the
South - the South felt this compromise was too anti-slavery, the North felt that it was too lenient
towards slavery. This failure to successfully compromise and the rise of sectionalism would spell
the rift between the North and South to become inconsolable without conflict.