American Slavery: History in an Hour. Kat Smutz

in 1767 to settle a dispute between Pennsylvania and several neighbouring states, became known as the line of division between ‘the North’ and ‘the South’, as well as the imaginary boundary between states where slavery was legal and where it was not.

      The movement to abolish slavery had begun in the North and was stronger there as the economy revolved around industry and there was little need for slave labour. The South was an agrarian society, dependent economically upon crops such as tobacco, cotton, sugar, rice and indigo, all of which were labour intensive. There were slaveholders throughout the United States, and some of them saw slavery as wrong. But they were left with the question of how to rid themselves of it without destroying the economy of the South. Many of them had been born into the practice, it had always been a part of their lives, and the idea that it was wrong was confusing for some.