The American Civil War - This Mighty Scourge of War

Introduction 11

These east-west connections brought
about by economic changes galvanized and
shaped antebellum American culture and
spawned a transportation revolution that
brought not only numerous Americans
into the market place, but also new

expectations. The revolution in transport
encouraged economic diversification, ethnic
diversity, and an emphasis on free labor.
These gave rise to an American middle class
characterized by a materialism and moralism
that sought to democratize the market
place. Middle-class ideals harmonized
with the Protestant work ethic to shape

an environment conducive to capitalist

expansion. This Protestant ethic prompted

many Northerners to embrace reform

movements that sought to regulate society

by helping persons who lacked self-control.

By the 1850s, they had targeted the

containment of slavery as one of their

primary interests.

Though there was a small aspiring

middle class of merchants, professionals,

and tradesmen in the South, the region was

bound to an agricultural slave society that

repudiated the wage earner. Consequently,

middle class reform remained predominantly

a northern phenomenon.

The challenge to slavery

In a republic that lacked any uniform

concept of citizenship, an interpretive

consensus of the Constitution, and a large

standing army and navy, and where liberty

and slavery coexisted, perhaps the only

clearly defined aspect was that states

possessed the exclusive rights to regulate

slavery within their jurisdiction. By 1820,

however, even those rights were being

challenged. The congressional sessions of

1819 and 1820 concerning Missouri's

admission to the Union as a slave state

attested to the unsettling aspects of

territorial expansion. The debates over

slavery brought Northern frustrations about

the institution to a climax and for the first

time disclosed a bipartisan Northern

majority determined to contain the

institution. The conclusion of the debates

produced the Missouri Compromise, which

admitted Missouri as a slave state and

Maine as a free state. Still, Missouri's

southern boundary, the infamous 36-30 line,

was extended westward through the

remainder of the Louisiana Purchase

territory. Above the imaginary line slavery

was prohibited and below it the institution

was permitted.

The combination of the financial panic of

1819 and the Missouri Compromise forced

the fracture of the Republican Party. What