The Southern Plantations were owned by Oligarchs that depended on slavery for planting and harvesting the most important and cash productive crop at that time, cotton. Slaves were expensive and many plantation owners performed their own breeding of slaves in order to increase their fold. The southern states were powerful and Slavery was an issue from the birth of our nation. Go back to the Lincoln Douglas debates. What was it about? Lincoln; "A house divided cannot stand". It was a fundamental difference of opinions on race, equality and our Constitution. Douglas opines that the Constitution was written by white men only for white men. Lincoln contended that the textual definition would include all men of any color. Our founding fathers regarded the institution of slavery as "a moral evil that must disappear". Some were slave holders but it was a compromise that most probably should have been fixed at that time. At the time of the war the south was full into slavery and wanted to expand it. It was not dying and would not have any other way. It is a shame it cost the lives of so many brave men on both sides most of which had never owned a slave and would never own another person. Most people and most importantly Obama do not under the 3/5th rule that was debated at the constitutional convention. " When the Constitutional Convention debated the issue of how to count population for the purposes of representation, the Southern delegates to the convention would have been pleased if nonvoting slaves had been counted as full persons. That way the Southern States would have had a greater representation in the House of Representatives." The issue of Slavery is not compatible with our Constitution. It never was. It was the unspoken horror of compromise that delayed the resolution. It was a resolution that would have to be addressed in the future and so it became.
