The South's attempts for expansion, justified by the economic need for more land and therefore increased utilization of the growing slave population, appears to have a deeper motivation, the need for the vindication of Southern life. David Herbert Donald, in “Why the War Came: The Sectional Struggle over Slavery in the Territories,” provides a counter view to the South's claims it needed expansion to monetarily survive stating, “there was no special reason why –- apart from the generally expansive temper of all Americans --- for the economic reasons it had to be extended into additional territory.” Why then did the South push so hard to “expand or die”? The South strikes back with calls for expansion due to the belief “they were daily threatened
