![]() While northerners appealed to their states’ rights to refuse to capture people escaping slavery, white southerners demanded a national commitment to slavery. Northerners and southerners came to disagree sharply on the role of the federal government in capturing and returning these freedom seekers. As the North gradually abolished human bondage, enslaved men and women headed north on an underground railroad of hideaways and safe houses. Constant resistance from enslaved men and women required a strong pro-slavery government to maintain order. Southerners feared that without slavery’s expansion, the abolitionist faction would come to dominate national politics and an increasingly dense population of enslaved people would lead to bloody insurrection and race war. Northern workers felt that slavery suppressed wages and stole land that could have been used by poor white Americans to achieve economic independence. ![]() Battles emerged over the westward expansion of slavery and over the role of the federal government in protecting the interests of enslavers. Slavery’s western expansion created problems for the United States from the very start.
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