During the antebellum years Northerners spouted ideas of anti slavery and chastised the South because of it. In truth however, most could not be characterized as true Abolitionists. Abolition is defined as the act of doing away with or the state of being done with. I support this statement and will prove that the Northerners are not true abolitionists. In actuality Northerners did help African Americans achieve freedom but did not "do away with" slavery. .
Over the decades the country was divided between those who desired an America whose labor was legally free, and the North who believed that only a system based on slave labor could guarantee social order, as in the South. Eli Whitney's invention of cotton gin vastly increased the expansion and consolidation of slavery in the South, and encouraged the acquisition of new territories. The opening of the new lands in the west after 1812 greatly extended the area available for cotton cultivation. Cotton culture moved rapidly from the Tidewater states on the East coast through much of the lower South to the delta region of the Mississippi and eventually to Texas. Sugarcane, another labor -intensive crop, also contributed to slavery's extension in the south. The rich, hot lands of southeastern Louisiana proved ideal for growing sugarcane profitably. By 1830 the state was supplying the nation with about half its sugar supply. Finally, tobacco growers moved westward, taking slavery with them. .
As the nation expanded westward, the question of whether to allow slavery in newly acquired territories arose. In 1819 Missouri, this had 10,000 slaves, applied to enter the Union. Northerners rallied to oppose Missouri's entry except as a free state, and a storm of protest swept the country. For a time Congress was deadlocked, but then Henry Clay arranged the Missouri Compromise. Missouri was admitted as a slave state at the same time Maine came in as a free state.
