Making Connections

1. How did cotton’s profitability shape the region’s antebellum development?

2. How did southern white legislators and intellectuals attempt to strengthen the institution of slavery in the 1820s? What prompted them to do this?

3. Discuss the variety of ways in which slaves attempted to resist slavery. What were the short- and long-term effects of their efforts?

4. Despite vigorous political competition in the South, by 1860 legislative power was largely concentrated in the hands of a regional minority—slaveholders. Why were slaveholders politically dominant?