- In the decades prior to the Civil War, the United States was growing rapidly.

The country added new territories and states, new inventions came to market and new industries emerged.

But underneath that growth was tension.

States disagreed over major issues, especially slavery and the balance of power, between the federal government and the states.

Those disagreements eventually led Georgia and other southern states to secede from the union and push the nation into a Civil War.

(gentle music) (graphics whooshing) When Georgia was founded in 1732, slavery was banned under the trustees rules, but due to the mounting pressure from a group of colonists known as the Malcontents, that changed in the 1750s.

Cash crops like rice, and cotton, were the backbone of the South's economy, but they required a great deal of labor to grow and harvest.

Because of this, some considered enslaved labor as crucial for economic success.

When Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793, cotton production skyrocketed, and so did the number of enslaved people in the South, especially Georgia.

By the mid 1800s, many white southerners defended slavery by arguing that their economy and way of life depended on it.

They even pushed for the expansion of slavery as new states and territories were added to the US.

The idea was that having more states that permitted slavery would help other slave holding states preserve the institution, maintain their political power, and support their economies.

Meanwhile, the Northern state's way of life was changing.

Instead of its economy relying so heavily on agriculture, the North built factories, railroads, and cities.

And its outlook on slavery was changing too.

More and more Northerners wanted to abolish or end slavery.

Abolitionists like Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and William Lloyd Garrison wrote about the horrors of enslaving people sparking national debate.

The growing difference between the North and the South created a cultural and political divide that would only get wider.

Another major issue was state's rights, a political argument about how power should be divided between state governments and the federal government.

Many Southern leaders argued that the federal government should not interfere with slavery in the states where it already existed.

At the same time, they also supported strong federal enforcement of laws that protected slavery and slaveholders' rights outside of the South, but not everyone agreed.

Many in the North argued that the federal government had final authority on national issues, including limiting the expansion of slavery into new territories, but they resisted federal laws that required northern states to help enforce slavery such as returning runaway enslaved people.

Disagreements over which powers fell to the states and which fell to the federal government were a major factor leading up to the Civil War.

And one of the first big tests of this clash came during the nullification crisis.

In 1828, the United States imposed federal tariffs or taxes on imported goods to help protect the North's new factories from cheaper British products.

The South, however, opposed these tariffs because it increased the cost of farming.

When the Northern states, which controlled the House of Representatives, voted to renew the tariffs in 1832, South Carolina threatened to nullify, or ignore the tariffs, and to secede from the United States.

President Andrew Jackson warned that he would use military force if South Carolina tried to leave the union and his threat was enough to keep the state from breaking away for now.

But the idea of secession stayed on the minds of people who cared deeply about the issue of state's rights, and it would become an even bigger issue in the decades to come.

So with all of this tension mounting, by the 1850s, the United States was more divided than ever.

Questions about slavery and state's rights had fractured the nation, turning the north and the south into enemies.

And soon Georgia and the rest of the south would have to make a choice, stay in the union or leave it.

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