The Election Of 1848 And Emerging Sectional Divide Between...

Semester Long Research Paper The election of 1848 revealed and emerging sectional divide between the north and the south over the issue of slavery. The was the 16th presidential election held on November 7, 1848. Zachary Taylor, who was a member of the Whig party won over Martin Van Buren of the free soil party. Slavery was defined as a legal or economic system in which principles of property law were applied to humans allowing them to be classified as property, to be owned, bought and sold accordingly, and they could not withdraw unilaterally from the arrangement. Two societies, two regions, the north and the south had very different views on slavery and struggled to be on the same terms. Slavery was basically claiming human beings as property. Slavery was very crucial and accepted in the southern states. In the south, slavery was considered a necessity in order to maintain the agricultural economy of the entire region. The fertile soil and climate of the southern region made it ideal for large scale farms (plantations) and crops like tobacco and cotton. Slavery was a southerner’s way of life as economic growth stimulated from the ever-expanding system of staple crop production, notably cotton that depended on the labor of at most 4 million slaves. Slaveholders worked these African American slave’s days in and out on plantation farms growing crops mostly cotton that was also sold to the north! The southerners protested that slavery could not be eliminated withoutShow MoreRelatedThe Expansion And Sectionalism Throughout American History1777 Words   |  8 PagesThe expansion and sectionalism throughout American history, the colonial resistance to the proclamation line had been one of unifying factors that had committed many English colonists to revolution and helped spread an emerging nationalism.   The exciting textbook American Nation, states that, American independence and control of a wide and rich domain were the most obvious results of the Revolution.   The revolution provided access to vast western lands and for many years western expansion would