How did the western expansion heighten sectional conflict between Essay

How did the western expansion heighten sectional conflict between North and South - Essay Example The conflicts were so bad, though without the added political stresses that were in accompaniment of the territorial expansion, the civil war would not have occurred. The United States constituted of two clashing economies. The economy of the south was formed based on agriculture. Slaves became the chief source of labour in the South, for the sake of production of a suitable crop. The North, on the other hand, had an industrialised economy, that revolved around innovation of technology and had manufacturing factories. The North, however, did not make use of slaves to have a functional economy. This, as a result, left the South trapped in an agricultural system that was traditional, while the North seemed to advance on a daily basis. The economic discrepancies evident between the North and South were continually advancing and eventually climaxed in the Nullification Crisis in 1833. The United States had imposed protected tariffs on all goods that were being imported. This tariff proved disadvantageous to the Southerners because the prices of the many foreign goods they purchased hiked. Considering that the economy of the people of the South was not a manufacturing power, the Southerners had no option but to buy their manufactured goods from the North (Merk, 1995). The state of South Carolina then threatened to nullify the tariffs since they did not like the forced Northern convenience. Some days before the decision to nullify was made final, South Carolina suddenly ended the crisis to avoid facing the massive army of the US. The Nullification Crisis however, highlighted how different the economies of the North and South were. As a result, a tension, specifically between South Carolina and the union was created. South Carolina then realized that it had to convince more states from the South to join the rebellion if it had to override