It was about the governmental balance of power, of course. But it was also about slaveholders wanting to expand their wealth. While chattel slavery in the antebellum south wasn’t capitalism, with the invention of the cotton gin and de facto “industrialization” of cotton production, these slaveholders were generating large surpluses that needed to be reinvested i.e. capital. Couple that with the fact that slaves literally reproduce themselves and they need to have somewhere to work in order to generate profit or at a minimum preserve themselves, southern slavers eyed the west greedily. They needed western states to be slaves states so they could purchase large tracts of land and move their slaves out there. Forcing slavery to exist only in the south would create a situation where slaveholders would not only not have outlet for capital reinvestment, but also no outlet for a growing slave population.
Exactly. The cotton gin is so often an under looked invention in American history, but it single-handedly solidified the power of slave owners and their reliance on slave labor. The promise of new lands to extract value from via plantations must have been extremely tempting to the slave owners.
Wage labor - and a class of workers who have nothing to sell but their labor - is a part of what defines capitalism. I mean, I don’t want to be so rigid as to say the economic system in the South was nothing like capitalism though, these things don’t always have firm boundaries.
Edit: I’m literally a communist, in no way should my explanation be considered “defending” capitalism. Chattel slavery and capitalism were inexorably entwined together, I’m just getting into the weeds on definitions.
It was about the governmental balance of power, of course. But it was also about slaveholders wanting to expand their wealth. While chattel slavery in the antebellum south wasn’t capitalism, with the invention of the cotton gin and de facto “industrialization” of cotton production, these slaveholders were generating large surpluses that needed to be reinvested i.e. capital. Couple that with the fact that slaves literally reproduce themselves and they need to have somewhere to work in order to generate profit or at a minimum preserve themselves, southern slavers eyed the west greedily. They needed western states to be slaves states so they could purchase large tracts of land and move their slaves out there. Forcing slavery to exist only in the south would create a situation where slaveholders would not only not have outlet for capital reinvestment, but also no outlet for a growing slave population.
Exactly. The cotton gin is so often an under looked invention in American history, but it single-handedly solidified the power of slave owners and their reliance on slave labor. The promise of new lands to extract value from via plantations must have been extremely tempting to the slave owners.
How was it not capitalism? They literally bought and sold people.
Wage labor - and a class of workers who have nothing to sell but their labor - is a part of what defines capitalism. I mean, I don’t want to be so rigid as to say the economic system in the South was nothing like capitalism though, these things don’t always have firm boundaries.
Edit: I’m literally a communist, in no way should my explanation be considered “defending” capitalism. Chattel slavery and capitalism were inexorably entwined together, I’m just getting into the weeds on definitions.