Polarization

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The North and the South were very different during the antebellum period. For starters, the northern economy boomed because of their industrialization and textiles, while the southern economy boomed off of cash crops like cotton. These cash crops were produced by slaves who were forced to work on southern plantations. Many white citizens in the North cared little about slavery, since this institution was depended on more in the South than North. However, this changed when the South’s Cotton Kingdom grew. This required the need for more land, which motivated Southerners to expand their plantations west. This movement was called Westward Expansion. The expansion attracted the attention of many Northerners because they did not want the South to convert territories won by the Mexican war to slave territories. This conflict polarized the nation, and leads to the Civil War. The Kansas Nebraska Act and the Dred Scott case were the leading factors that helped polarize the nation because these event turned the North and the South against each other due to their opposing ideas on slavery, which ultimately lead to the Civil War. The Kansas -Nebraska Act was one of the main factors that polarized the nation leading up to the Civil War. The Kansas –Nebraska Act stated that popular sovereignty would be the deciding factor in whether or not the territory would be free or slave. This motivated many abolitionist and slave supporters from the North and South to move to western territories. This would ensure that the vote for slavery would be in their favor. Knowing this, Senator William Seward, an abolitionist, said, “We will engage in competition for the virgin soil of Kansas, and God give victory to the side which is str... ... middle of paper ... ...y should be able to stay and become a free black. Not only did the white citizens hate it, but the free blacks were getting scared. Southerners were illegally capturing free blacks and bringing them to the South for profit. Now that Southern slave owners could bring their slaves to the North, one could not tell the difference between a slave and a free black. This would give Southerners an excuse to claim free blacks as slaves, since they could easily say they brought the slave North wit them. This would obviously upset Northerners because many were abolitionist who wanted to end slavery, so they believed that capturing free people for profit was wrong. In summary, the Dred Scott case favored the South, and its ruling angered the North since it was perceived as unconstitutional. Because of these reasons, polarization in America got worst, and the Civil War occurred.

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