Slavery+and+the+Republican+Ideology

RIL: Some people from both the North and South opposed or advocated slavery respectively in one similar way: numerous proslavery advocates and abolitionists claimed that if their opponents had their way, then the negative effects would be long lasting and their own policies would not last. For this reason, the North and South ironically used similar tactics as support for their own views about slavery. Some believed that in order for free society to continue, it must expand. Similarly, slavery was thought by some to be dependant on expansion. Because both sides of the slavery issue felt that in order for one side to prevail, it must spread into new areas, those in support of slavery and those against it held similar opinions as to what was necessary for their outlook to continue. A number of Northern and Southern advocates also believed that if they did not succeed through expansion and the other did, the consequences would be negative and powerful enough to affect future generations. It is ironic that both sides would use the same logic, except reversed, to gain support for their cause. Each held similar convictions if only inverted; some in the North believed that free states needed to expand to continue their power and that if slavery spread into the new territories the results would be catastrophic and some southerners believed that in order for slavery to continue it must extend to the West and that if free states were in the west, it would cause disaster. One of the reasons the opposing views could use similar reasons was because to each group the perception of right and wrong was in some ways different. Because they had different goals, what could be perceived as a positive outcome by one group, could be perceived as a negative outcome by the other group. This allowed for the ironic usage of like reasoning for the North and South both.