During the 1850s and 1860s in America, many new ideas arose from people in the North and the South on how the country should be. The North and South could not come to a consensus on political and economic issues. This sectionalism between the North and the South eventually caused the South to secede from the Union.
One economic issue that the North and South could not agree on was slavery. The economy of the South was mostly agricultural and they relied on slaves for labor. Once Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncles Tom’s Cabin, it became the best-selling book in that century according to Document 3. This book informed the Northerners of how terribly slaves were treated in the South. Many Northerners became abolitionists and tried to take action to end slavery. People in the South were completely opposed to the idea of ending slavery because their economic success depended on the labor of slaves. As shown in Document 5, Southern politician Albert Gallatin Brown would rather secede from the Union now because they are constantly gaining power and will use that power to emancipate their slaves.
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He represented the Republican Party which supported the abolition of slavery. According to Document 6, Abraham Lincoln also supported free territory which meant that he believed slavery should not be legal in new territories admitted to America. As shown in Document 7 most of Lincoln’s support came from the North. Lincoln winning the presidential election caused the South to secede because they did not agree with his ideas of free territory and the abolition of slavery. There were many economic and political factors that caused the South to be angry with the North. These issues in combination with each other eventually caused the South to get fed up and finally secede from the