Chapter 8: Awakening of American Nationalism (Section 4)

While I was reading section 4 of Chapter 8, I wondered why Northerners wanted to stop slavery. The fact that words like "civil war" and "disunion" were thrown around because of the use of slavery in Missouri shows how important slaves were in the South. I feel like it is actually reasonable that the South needed slave much more than the North. It seems like there was more people residing in the North than the South. Not because of civil rights, the North no longer needed the slaves to work for them and sold them off to the South. The South not only rely more heavily on their plantations but also needed more people to work on their farm. At first, I was confused about why the North would actually support the discontinuation of slavery but later found the explanation above as a possible reason. Also, the Monroe Doctrine, I thought was one of the smartest things that the US could have said. Although it might not have meant anything to the Europeans at that point, these principles has helped us to remain a neutral country in a time of European upheaval and later successfully extend onto the West.