Making Connections

1. Question

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

2. Question

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

3. Question

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

4. Question

   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?