Slavery was the dominating reality of all Southern life, especially aspects of life relating to the economy and politics. From the years 1840 to 1860 slavery had a great impact on economics and politics because it played such a critical role. Slaveholders only included a very small amount of the population in the South. About one-fourth of the population in the South owned slaves. Yet, there was an undeniable impact of slavery on the economy of the South. In the 1840’s and 1850’s the South had become mostly a cash crop agricultural economy. Without slaves, people were only able to keep small farms that barely made enough money. Crops like cotton were produced in the South and were in high demand. The increase in demand for these products …show more content…
The South wanted to add more slave states that would upset the balance of the Missouri Compromise. Previously, there was a balance between equal number of slave states and free states. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 prohibited slave states north of the latitude 36’30’. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed on May 30, 1854 and was created to repeal the Missouri Act. This act allowed territories to decide if they wanted to be a free or slave state based on popular sovereignty. Kansas entering the union as a slave state would upset the balance the Missouri Compromise had set. This act was a temporary fix to a problem that would exist for years to come. This act proves that slavery dominated political life of the South. The Compromise of 1850 was a series of five bills passed by Congress regarding confrontation about free and slave states over territories acquired by America after the Mexican-American war. The compromise created stronger fugitive slave laws. In the Dred Scott decision Supreme Court Justice Robert Taney declared slaves as property. In 1857, Taney declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional and it should not be illegal to have slaves anywhere. He believed slaves were property therefore, Dred Scott had no right to sue his master for taking him to a free state. This infuriated many abolitionists Political issues of the South centered on slavery. The South fought every chance they could to keep their