While there were squabbles over the tariff, the bank, internal improvements and land policies, the most divisive sectional issue was slavery, although the issue generated surprisingly little controversy from 1789 to 1819. As had been true at the time of the Constitutional Convention, many people believed that slavery would eventually die out. Indeed, although slavery existed in the North until into the 1840s, the numbers were small, and all northern states had provided for its eventual end.39 Slave importations increased during the 1790s, but the slave trade was quietly abolished in 1808, when all the states except South Carolina had ceased to import slaves. The shift to less labor-intensive crops in states like Virginia meant that many regions had an excess of slaves and no need for imported slaves, which led to the internal slave trade that continued until the Civil War.
AS mentioned above, some of the framers of the Constitution had felt, perhaps reasonably and sincerely, that slavery was diminishing in the United States. In fact Virginia had reduced its number of slaves substantially during the 1780s. Virtually all of the founding fathers looked with disfavor on slavery; Washington, Jefferson, Madison, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, George Mason, and numerous others were more than a little uneasy about the institution in the country based upon the notion that "all men are created equal."
A major factor in the evolution of slavery was the invention of the cotton gin, attributed to Eli Whitney, but probably invented by a slave. The cotton gin transformed the cotton industry and made it possible to produce more cotton of different varieties faster and more cheaply, thus allowing Southern cotton interests to make substantial profits. At the same time, the textile industry in England, which was at the forefront of the first industrial revolution, created a great need for supplies of cotton. The demand kept prices up, and merchants and traders in the Northeast profited from the traffic as well. Thus cotton—and slaves— continued to drive the engine that drove the Southern economy.
By 1819 free and slave states had entered the Union in equal numbers, and slave-produced cotton became king in the South. Southerners ardently defended slavery while most northerners were indifferent, believing that slavery was a local issue. Many westerners, especially native southerners, also supported slavery. The moral issue of slavery, always lurking in the background, was not prominent in the early 1800s. The first crisis over slavery since the Constitutional Convention occurred when Missouri sought to be admitted in 1819. (The Missouri compromise will be discussed below.)
Around 1830 the abolitionist movement began and opponents of slavery began to challenge the "peculiar institution" on moral, humanitarian, religious, and libertarian grounds. Jefferson's statement that, "we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go"40 lost traction once the moral issue began to be raised. The issue of slavery was not always at the forefront of public debate, but as the years went on and the abolitionist movement grew in strength, the moral issue could no longer be ignored.
Many southerners who were opposed to slavery stuck with it because of large amounts of invested capital in land, cotton and slaves. Many Northerners who opposed slavery were also afraid of a flood of cheap labor into northern manufacturing if the slaves were freed. Southern non-slave owning farmers who could not afford slaves resented what they saw as unfair competition from slave labor. Most were small farmers; large farms could hardly operate without slaves. In 1819 the federal government offered a $50 bounty to informers of illegal slave importers. The foreign slave trade was declared to be piracy, and the death pe-penalty was authorized for American citizens engaged in the international slave trade. The controversy over slavery would continue until the Civil War broke out in 1861.
World History
