Answer:
Southerners argued for states rights and a weak federal government.
Explanation:
It is however possible to give a general perspective behind southern states reasoning.
Slavery is the most apparent example. I won't go into depth because it's been discussed several times. Slavery, on the other hand, had far-reaching and multifaceted consequences in pre-war America. Slavery, for example, became one of the most contentious topics during westward expansion. It was one of the most pressing concerns to be addressed as new territories were established and new states were admitted to the Union. The reason was simple: a balance between slave and free states was required to preserve the Constitution and its amendments.''
The second thing, which is also tied to slavery, are the States rights,especially a right of individual state to seceede from the Union. The political and legal debates about this particular state right are still ongoing. The southern states decided that the matter was important enough to take up arms and fight over it.
Then there are social and economic aspects. The Southern society was extremely aristochratic. This doesn’t mean that in the North there was no aristocracy, but average person in the North had way more oportunities to make a good life. In the South, hard work, witts and ability would lead you only as far as your bloodline would allow it. Before the Civil War, USA politics were dominated by Southern politicians, and there is no better evidence than preservation of slavery which couldn’t be abolished through politics in the Congress.
North and South were also opposites when it comes to production. South’s main cash products were sugar, tobacco and cotton. However they were mostly exported as bulk products and shipped to either North or Europe where other would make a final product that can be sold at much higher cost (like clothes). North started to become more independent from European goods. It still imported a lot of them, but factories and industries were built that aimed to make those same products at home and not to import them from overseas. South was unable to form any substantial industry, apart from cotton gin they never developed any industty aimed at making the final product amd exporting it.
This two reasons esentially made South a reneisance society in industrial revolution world. The average Southener was disgusted by crowded industrial cities of the North, where people lived in conditions that were often worse than what slaves had to endure. The society of the South resisted industrial progres from its very core.
Thanks,
Eddie
