The land and locality-based culture of the South reflected their view of the nation’s identity as a group of states that worked together to a point, but had their own political institutions and laws that overruled any federal authority. In contrast, the North had a national identity of a nation where a man could advance himself regardless of where he came from. This identity required a nation where no state was greater than the federal government, because a strong central power to regulate trade and economy was necessary to allow for advancement. The growing divide between the two regions made it increasingly difficult for them to find common ground on which they could compromise. The South needed a weak union to preserve their agricultural, slave-based system, and the North needed a strong one to regulate trade and keep the states cooperating. Those differences could not be solved peacefully, and were settled in the Civil
The land and locality-based culture of the South reflected their view of the nation’s identity as a group of states that worked together to a point, but had their own political institutions and laws that overruled any federal authority. In contrast, the North had a national identity of a nation where a man could advance himself regardless of where he came from. This identity required a nation where no state was greater than the federal government, because a strong central power to regulate trade and economy was necessary to allow for advancement. The growing divide between the two regions made it increasingly difficult for them to find common ground on which they could compromise. The South needed a weak union to preserve their agricultural, slave-based system, and the North needed a strong one to regulate trade and keep the states cooperating. Those differences could not be solved peacefully, and were settled in the Civil