Does anyone know why the South wanted to expand slavery thoughout the nation?

Question

I know they wanted slaves to do the work on all the land they had, but what else?

Answer 1

They refused to rotate their crops for religious reasons, consequently most of their cotton growing land was spoiled and unproductive. They had to get new land or their way of life would be ruined. Most of the big plantations by the Civil war were failing due to poor soil conservation.

Answer 2

ver is right on point about the political situation. The slave states had to preserve senatorial equality with the North to stop any adverse legislation.

Economically, simple. More slave states, more room for the plantations to operate, more opportunities for the sons of slaveowners or other upcoming young men. You can grow cotton, rice and sugar in California, for example.

At the time of the Civil War, the American South was the only place in the Western Hemisphere, aside from Brazil, where slavery was still practiced. Import of new slaves from Africa had been banned for years. International opinion was strongly against the slavery system.

But the South officially saw slavery as a POSITIVE GOOD for both the nation and the slave. The Southern senator John C. Calhoun made a speech on this very subject. You can impress your instructor by finding it and quoting it. The slaveowners rationalized their system by insisting it brought religion, civilization, and a proper relationship between the races -- as the Africans were racially inferior to the white.

So by insisting that slavery be allowed to expand, the South was denying the way slavery had been judged immoral and evil by Europe and the North.

Under the surface, many Southerners knew that the slavery system was evil -- for instance, the famous diarist Mary Chesnut, married to a South Carolina senator, said so -- privately, to her diary -- after the secession in 1861. As the war went on, many Southerners looked on the South's reverses as the judgment of God on the evils of slavery.

Slaves
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Honest to God, the above appeared in the margin space of this forum. Now wouldn't Calhoun be proud! Gotta get going to ebay because there's a lot of house and field work around here that needs tending to...

Answer 3

they wanted other states be made slave states to keep the voting in congress equal
so northern or non-slave states could not over power southern or slave states by a majority