Discuss the role of the "cotton revolution" and other factors in the expansion and transformation of slavery during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. (CO#1, #5)
Explain slavery's influence on national politics and the development of prevailing Northern and Southern views on slavery (CO#4, #5, #6/Gen.Ed. Outcome 4.2)
Slavery grew along with the United States, not just in the number of slaves but in the nature of the institution itself. It underlay the South's wealth and to a great degree formed the South's political and social identity.
The "cotton revolution" enabled the expansion of slavery westwards and the same time that the Northern states abolished it within their borders. The nation's westward expansion soon confronted the United States with several political controversies that reinforced sectional differences.
In preparation for our discussion be sure to read and view the Module Notes, Chapter 11: "The Cotton Revolution " in The American Yawp, Mullen, L. (2014), "These Maps Reveal How Slavery Expanded Across the United States ", and Freedom's Road: Slavery and the Opposition . In addition please read the following primary sources: The Missouri Crisis (1820) and Calhoun, J. C. (1837), Slavery a Positive Good .
Using the primary and secondary source materials above as evidence, consider the following in a post of at least 250 words:
How did the American system of slavery change by the early 1800s because of the "cotton revolution"?
How did different political, economic, and ideological differences between the North and South shape the debate over slavery in the early 1800s?