The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism

Having “looked so imperiled” during “the thirty-odd years since the 1780s,” slavery is “[n]ow growing at a metastatic rate” (147), expanding and spreading across the United States. By the early decades of the 19th century, “virtually all white Americans [are] interested, almost all profiting in some way—financially, psychologically, or both—from slavery’s growing empire” (147). The only thing that seems to threaten the united interest, albeit only temporarily, is the Missouri Crisis, which takes place during the period of 1819 to 1821. From 1800, “an alliance between northern and southern pro-expansion white politicians who simply [refer] to themselves as ‘Republicans’ [dominate] American politics” (153), their alliance based on the profits both South and North gain from the slavery-dependent cotton industry. However, some northerners begin to worry about the “ever-growing weight of [southern] slave owners’ political power” (154). When white settlers in Missouri Territory petition Congress for statehood in 1818, northern representatives propose amending the statehood bill to include a ban on “the importation of more slave[s] into Missouri” and propose “free[ing] all enslaved people born in the new state once they [reach] twenty-five” (155).

The two sides are at odds, with “almost all northern representatives” being prepared to “vote against more slavery expansion” while southern representatives decide that “the right to expand slavery [is] inseparable from any other right that they [possess]” (155).