Battle Cry of Freedom, The

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice. The path to the Civil War was shaped by decades of growing tensions between the North and South. These tensions stemmed from deep ideological differences over slavery, state rights, and the future of the nation. The institution of slavery was at the heart of these debates. In the South, the economy relied heavily on agriculture, especially cotton, which was farmed by enslaved people. The North, on the other hand, had a more industrial economy and was largely opposed to the expansion of slavery into new territories. These differences created an atmosphere of distrust, as both regions feared that the other would impose its will on the nation. One of the earliest signs of the division came with the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which was an attempt to balance the power between free and slave states. The compromise allowed Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state while Maine entered as a free state, preserving the balance. It also established the 36°30' parallel as the dividing line between future free and slave territories. However, the Missouri Compromise was only a temporary solution, and as the nation expanded westward, the question of whether new states would permit slavery became more pressing. In the 1850s, the debate over slavery in the territories reached a boiling point. The Compromise of 1850 was passed in an effort to calm tensions, allowing California to join the Union as a free state and implementing a stricter Fugitive Slave Act that required citizens to assist in the capture of runaway slaves. The compromise also allowed the residents of new territories to decide for themselves whether to permit slavery through a concept known as popular sovereignty. This was seen as a way to avoid a direct confrontation between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions, but it only intensified the conflict.