Ghana and Mali were two of the most notorious empires of West Africa during pre-colonial times. The wealth of these two empires lied largely on the abundance of the natural resource of gold in these territories. Ghana and Mali profited mostly from the trans-Saharan gold trade, selling their gold to distant merchants through Berbers that utilized camels that carry large loads of the product.
Because they could be turned into slave states, giving more power to the slaveowners in the south. Also, expansion policy and the dram of Manifest Destiny played a part in desiring that land.
The South was fighting a defensive war. The confederates prefer a defensive doctrine to defeat the numerically superior Union forces and to invite foreign powers especially Great Britain in their side thus winning the war against the Union forces in the American civil war.
