Politicians just could not share the power because any amount of power is never enough for them. As for the southern plantation owners and their right to own slaves, this was not a big concern for most people, even for those who found slavery unacceptable for religious and moral reasons. Most believed that slavery should gradually wither away by itself. Of course, there were supporters of the movement to free the slaves. For example, John Brown, who was an abolitionist and one of the earliest in the history of civil rights, fought to end slavery. He did a lot and tried his best to stop slavery, and in 1859 he was hanged. Even though slavery was one of the reasons that led to the war, it was not the main reason. The politicians were ready to fight for the power, but not for the liberation of the …show more content…
One of these systems believes that slavery should not be allowed and has to rely only on free men, and the other wants to rely only on slavery (Foner 268). Of course, the intentions of one political system are humane and correct: every human has to be free and we have no right to own slaves, force labor, or prey on others. Although the struggle for the liberation of the slaves was only part of the war for power, it was a big step for humanity and particularly for people of color. The second political system, of course, did not agree with the first one. They could not just stop slavery. If they did, then who would do all the hard work, and do it for free? Slave labor was widely used on plantations, allowing American slave owners to make high profits. So, stopping slavery and freeing all of the slaves would have meant a decrease in revenue or even default on loans. In William Henry’s argument, he is saying that the United States cannot be both a slaveholding and a free-labor nation (Foner 270). It just has to be one or the other, because otherwise there will always be wars for one side or the