Page "American Civil War" Paragraph 12

Meanwhile the South of the 1850s saw an increasing number of slaves leave the border states through sale, manumission and escape.

During this same period, slave-holding border states had more free African-Americans and European immigrants than the lower South, which increased Southern fears that slavery was threatened with rapid extinction in this area.

With tobacco and cotton wearing out the soil, the South believed it needed to expand slavery.

The Deep South had advocates to reopen the international slave trade to populate territory that was to be newly opened to slavery.

Southern demands for a slave code to ensure slavery in the territories repeatedly split the Democratic Party between North and South by widening margins.