Pre-Civil War Tensions

1824-1860. During this time period, also known as the Antebellum period, the explosion of the cotton economy made the way for the expansion of slavery and the move towards westward expansion. Abolitionists like the Grimke sisters started to speak about slavery and many slaves tried to escape using established routes like the Underground Railroad. The tensions that arise between the South and North about class difference, land and slavery eventually lead to Civil War.