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12 The American Civil WarThe antebellum South was a land of prosperous cotton
plantations. Even after the war. cotton remained king of
agriculture. (Edimedia)emerged in its place was a Democratic Party
that spoke to those who considered
themselves victims of the ever-changing
market place, and a Whig Party that spoke
to those who considered themselves the
winners or benefactors of the changing
market place. By and large, Democrats,
largely rural, championed a negative use of
the government in the economy, attacked
banks, opposed tariffs, and wanted to be left
alone in their manners and morals. Whigs
promoted a favorable and progressive use of
the government in promoting economic
change, and endorsed banks, higher tariffs,
and free labor.
Ironically, in the pre-Civil War decades,
these conflicting beliefs formed a strong
concept of Union. However, they also
allowed a significant degree of sectional
strife to emerge. In 1832-33, in response to
the tariff of 1828, South Carolina Planters
led by John C. Calhoun forced a theory of
nullification on the presidency of Andrew
Jackson, whereby an individual state could
nullify a federal law: that is, declare the law
void within its borders. A crisis was averted
as both sides compromised and claimed
victory, but the significance of nullification
was that Southerners came to believe they
were a permanent minority. On the heels of
Nat Turner's bloody slave uprising in
Southampton, Virginia, in the summer of
1831, Southerners convinced themselves
that their worst fears were before them. In
the context of the Missouri Crisis, the
Southern populace came to believe that the
horror of losing independence could not be
escaped. Concern over economic decline,
combined with alarm over slave uprisings
and the rise of abolition in the North,
encouraged several Southern states to
tighten slave codes and pass laws to
suppress abolitionist speeches in the South.
The expansionist impulses of Americans,
or 'Manifest Destiny' as it came to be
known, continued in the 1840s with the
admission of Florida and Texas as slave
states. The crisis over Texas's admission
erupted in a war with Mexico that lasted
two years and ended with the acquisition of
Mexican territory. By gaining a land mass
that nearly doubled the size of the United
States, Americans faced the continuing
dilemma of making the Federal government
responsible for protecting the baggage of
slavery that accompanied expansion.
By mid-century, American republicanism
was facing a national crisis. The acquisition
of Mexican land forced Americans to
consider whether the newly expanded
Union would be one with or without slavery,
Land was losing its value in terms of