a_spencerI was curious about this, too. I’ve listened to both part 1 and 2 of “The political crisis of the 1850’s”… very insightful lectures, but I’m still a little confused about the whole situation.
I already know that the war was not because the north had any moral objection to slavery, I’m familiar with enough empirical date regarding that that I need no convincing. The question is, what was the war really about?
I just don’t quite understand the “It’s SLAVE POWER at work” rhetoric used by northerners in regards to southerners bringing slaves into the territories after the Mexican Session. Why did they (northerners) care?
You said in the lecture (after the northerners tried to block the Lecompton Constitution) that Northerners didn’t want the south to have more slave states – “They don’t want the South to have this continued role in dominating the government; they can’t stand it.” Why did the north care if there were more slave states? Because as you said before, they really wouldn’t have been “SLAVE STATES” because Slavery wasn’t really viable out west…
So if, because of the climate, the west would not have an agriculture/slavery based economy, like the south did, then the “American system” would not have been detrimental to western state’s economies (as it would be to their southron counterparts.)… So then, if they (western states) would not be negatively affected by the Hamiltonian-ism… why would they not support it? How does them being allowed to have slaves affect the “political economy” as the North feared it would?