| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article argues that the Missouri Crisis 1819-1821 was a consequence of growing concerns about geopolitical realignments in the post-Napoleonic world and the impending international recession. Scholars have typically explained the conflict over slavery's expansion as the last convulsion of the first-party system, a reflection of budding humanitarian considerations, or as a product of the growing contradictions between slavery and freedom in an era of an emerging liberal capitalist ethos and a democratization of American politics. The central element of the northern restrictionist position, however, was that slavery's expansion into the western territories would seriously impede the United States' ability to compete economically and mobilize militarily in times of war. In light of persistent tensions with foreign powers, the perceived risk of renewed great power warfare, international markets glutted, and every branch of the economy paralyzed, restrictionists saw the halting slavery's expansion as a necessary measure to save the federal republic.
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