Proslavery movement was an attempt by Southerners to justify and expand slavery in America between the 1830’s and 1860. Southerners argued that both the Bible and history endorsed slavery, that emancipation (freeing the slaves) was impractical, and that slavery was necessary to save the Southern economy. John C. Calhoun and other well-known Americans defended slavery. They called it “the law of nature,” “a positive good,” and “the greatest and most admirable agent of civilization.”
The proslavery movement wanted to extend slavery into the Western territories and wanted to add Texas to the Union. Former President John Quincy Adams called the Mexican War (1846-1848) “a slave-power conspiracy,” a means to gain more slave territory. Abolitionists condemned efforts to acquire Cuba as an attempt to add another slave state. In the late 1850’s, some Southerners wanted the foreign slave trade reopened. The American Civil War (1861-1865) destroyed slavery in the nation and ended the proslavery movement.
