cotton output each decade from 1800 to 1860. Cotton exports provided more than half of all Americans exports from 1815 to 1860. Defenders of slavery and of the south argued with much truth that King cotton ruled the American economy. It was because of the economic power of the south that slavery was kept alive. Southerners where allowed to rule congress with the passage of the three fifth compromise. Their power kept slave owners in the office of the presidency, and kept movement toward the abolition of slavery off the floor House of Representatives, and off the floor of the United States Senate.What helped to compound the conflict between American ideology and slavery was the evolution of slavery as a sectional institution. Although the signers of the Declaration of Independence represented thirteen slaveholding states, by the time of the ratification of the Constitution, five states had ended slavery outright or were gradually abolishing it; by 1804 half the nation had taken steps to end slavery. This geographical isolation also led to increasing political weakness for the slave South. By 1810 the Northern population had surpassed that of the South, and thus the free states dominated the House of Representatives. In the next half century this Northern domination of the House became overwhelming. After the admission of California to the Union, in 1850, there were sixteen free states in the country and only fifteen slave states. In addition to controlling the House, the North now controlled the Senate as well. The 1860 presidential election showed that the North could control the White House. Without getting a single electoral vote from any slave state, Abraham Lincoln won 180 electoral votes, while the combined total of his three opponents was only 123. By 1860 the South's geographical and political isolation undermined the section's political position within the country. By this time American slavery was also peculiar because it was...
