Wikipedia entry,
My current perception of the times with that there was a lot of power playing going on between the south and north. Slavery was part of the issue and the visible issue. There was much moral objection to slavery but also power and practical aspects. Nothing is pure.
It appears the democrats wanted land expansion and the Whigs more technology?
Lots of power players influence ; railroad, steamboat, etc.
Lots of change which destabilizes everything. Very complicated times and very similar to today............
If we follow this model maybe I should place another order with cheaper than dirt.
Yes, there was certainly a lot of power-playing going on.
I don’t know know of any better description of the history of that whole era, politically-speaking, than Abraham Lincoln himself gave in his famous “House Divided” speech on June 16, 1858 in Springfield, Illinois.
A speech that almost certainly cost him the Senate race against Douglas, but ultimately gained him the presidency.
http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/house.htm
“Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention.
If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.
We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated, with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation.
Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only, not ceased, but has constantly augmented.
In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed.
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided.
It will become all one thing or all the other.
Either the opponents of slavery, will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South....”
Truly, any serious student of that era simply must digest this speech well, IMO.