How did the market revolution and westward expansion heighten the nation's differences?

The Market Revolution demonstrated that the two regions of the United States, North and South, were moving in opposite directions. The North, having more internal improvements and population, focused on producing goods such as textiles and other manufactured goods. The Northeast soon became one of the world's sources for cloth. The South, a land of farmland, focused on the production of cash crops, mainly cotton. Due to a shortage of laborers that plagued the South...

The Market Revolution demonstrated that the two regions of the United States, North and South, were moving in opposite directions. The North, having more internal improvements and population, focused on producing goods such as textiles and other manufactured goods. The Northeast soon became one of the world's sources for cloth. The South, a land of farmland, focused on the production of cash crops, mainly cotton. Due to a shortage of laborers that plagued the South from the beginning, this cotton was largely worked by slaves. Much of this cotton went to Northern and British textile mills. When some began to question the morality of slavery, Southern plantation owners pointed out that their cotton production helped to power the American and the world economy. The South became dependent on Northern goods and imports as it had few factories. Southerners became hostile to any attempt to raise tariffs, while Northern manufacturers appreciated any protectionist tariff that would make their products more competitive in the marketplace.

Westward expansion helped to drive the nation apart as well. When Missouri wanted to come in as a slave state, the Senate worried that it would create an imbalance between free and slave states. This could potentially lead to more legislation that would help slaveowners. In the Missouri Compromise, all land south of the Missouri border would be slaveholding and all land north of the line (except for Missouri) would be free. Maine was taken into the Union as a free state to reset the balance between free and slave. This was the Compromise of 1820. Many abolitionists said that the Mexican War of 1846–48 was an unlawful land grab by Southern slaveholders, and the new territory acquired in this war became a serious issue between Northern and Southern congressmen, who were then feeling even more pressure from their constituents as slavery was becoming more vilified and more profitable. This would end in the Compromise of 1850. Westward expansion only served to make the problem the nation faced at its birth worse—should the nation allow slavery? This would ultimately end in the Civil War.