For many Europeans, their first stop in the New World was New York. The Statue of Liberty stood at the entrance to New York Harbor, the torch in her hand burning day and night, broken chains still hanging from her feet.
But for enslaved people, New York was not their landing point. Since New York was a free state, they were usually sent through the Gulf of Mexico to New Orleans, then transported along the Mississippi River to slave markets or buyers' plantations, clanking in chains the whole way.
Although America had banned the overseas slave trade in 1808, the trade had never truly stopped. However, new immigrants generally had no interest in Southern plantations. They had come to America for the Gold Rush.
For several decades before 1840, America's population had still grown "naturally." Under the United States Constitution, a census was conducted every ten years. At that time, the South and the North were still fairly evenly matched, each accounting for around fifty percent.
Yet in the early years of the nation, the Southern states had larger populations than the Northern ones. That was why Thomas Jefferson had been able to win the presidential election in 1801. By 1860, Abraham Lincoln could become president with the support of the North alone.
According to census data, during the Civil War the North had a population of twenty-two million, while the South had only nine million. For the slaveholder bloc, which relied on population to gain an advantage in federal politics, this was a devastating blow. Even reforms like those of the Magical Congress of the United States of America and the Parliament of England could not change that, let alone with the Missouri Compromise hanging over them.
The discovery of gold in California in 1848 accelerated the process: people