The Similarities Between Slavery And The Hoover Dam

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Slavery was closely similar to the Hoover Dam. The Hoover Dam supplied electricity to citizens in Colorado, just like the slaves provided farmed products and free labor. Every system, however, included at least one flaw. The rising water in the dam was the equivalent of the rising issue of slavery. The conflict would continue to rise and eventually, it would break out into a massive war across the nation. Slavery was a controversial term between the Northern and the Southern states in the early US. The South was a tremendous supporter of slavery. The Southern farmers relied on the slaves to farm and finish labor. The North, on the other hand, despised slavery and wanted to banish it. A series of horrendous events led to what is now known as …show more content…

Slaves were thought to be a substantial part of the economy, especially in the South, because slaves were the ones who farmed and produced the products in the South. The South sold those products to the North, which in turn, used the Southern products to provide manufactured goods. Thomas R. Dew was a strong supporter for slavery: “It is, in truth, the slave labor in Virginia which gives value to the soil and to her economy,” (Thomas R. Dew, Review of the Debate in the Virginia Legislature of 1831 and 1832, in Martin W. Sandler et al., The People Make a Nation, Allyn and Bacon, 1971). People wanted slaves to increase production and make living more efficient. The free citizens could focus on …show more content…

In a country that was supposedly united as a whole, that unity was collapsing in on itself and composing a war that was just under the surface of the conflict. Abraham Lincoln, before his presidential election, made an awe-inspiring speech about the issue of slavery: “In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand,’” (Abraham Lincoln, speech when accepting the Republican nomination for US Senator from Illinois, June 16, 1858, Springfield, Illinois). The people of the US, including its senators and presidents, grew increasingly differentiating in their sentiments of slavery to the point of serious conflict. People were murdered, brutally injured, or financially hurt in the name of slavery; for and against it. Many of the laws passed for slavery caused citizens to rebel and act out against the government. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 was the epitome of these rebellions. The Kansas-Nebraska Act stated that popular sovereignty would be used to establish if a state was a free state or a slave state. This act abolished the Missouri Compromise Line, which allowed all states North of the line to be free states and all states South of the line to become slave states, ("Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854." N.p.: n.p., 1854. 1. Print). The rivalry between antislavery and proslavery that followed this act