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To: Mr Rogers
The issue wasn't slavery as much as it was political uniformity. The South was losing political power for every new state admitted to the union that was not a slave state. This was just fine for the interest of the north but the South saw the writing on the wall and decided that politically they were doomed to second class status by this arrangement. It is only natural that since the issue was whether or not new territories would be admitted as slave or non-slave states that the South would defend it's position on the matter as a political position.

Slavery was not the reason they left the union. Being screwed financially by the north and seeing that there would be a lessening of their political power to do anything about it was the cause.

95 posted on 01/11/2019 9:11:31 AM PST by Uncle Sham
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To: Uncle Sham

“The South was losing political power for every new state admitted to the union that was not a slave state.”

Ummm...every time a state is admitted, the previous states lose power. ALL of them. Northern states would lose just as much power as southern states.

What you mean is the pro-slavery block would lose power each time a non-slave state entered the Union. Which is true, but only on one issue: SLAVERY. Every time a non-slave state was added, the future of slavery was more in doubt. But that leaves the issue as one of SLAVERY.

Meanwhile, it is important to note this was NOT like the American Revolution. The revolution removed a KING. Taxation without representation. But the South retained representation.

In fact, the South was OVER-represented because every slave counted as 0.6 persons for representation, but no slave could cast a vote. In Alabama, for example, 45% of the total population were slaves. 435,000 slaves. Gave Alabama credit for an additional 260,000 in population, although none of that 260,000 had a vote. With a voting population of 500,000, Alabama got representation for about 750,000 people. Every white voter in Alabama got to cast 1.5 votes!

However, the white population in the South was increasing faster than the black population, so each year the powerful in the South became a little less powerful.


98 posted on 01/11/2019 9:57:56 AM PST by Mr Rogers (Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools)
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