Congress and members of the government knew this was a very significant issue, but they did not want to cause change in the new country, hence have mob groups and battles fought over it. They decided to ignore it, or better yet, hide it from the public eye. People knew that slavery was a main topic, but seeing that the government was not mentioning it, then why bother? The public never mentioned it either. Until 1818, the United States had consisted of ten free states and ten slave states. When Illinois became a free state, Southerners thought Missouri would be called the 11th slave state to maintain the balance of free states to slave states. Alabama was then called the 11th slave state. Southerners complained and talked of civil wars, so the only way to resolve it was to come up with the Missouri compromise. This compromise said that Maine would become a free state and Missouri a slave state. So if they were to bring up the issue of slavery and argue about it in congress and in the senate, then it would ruin the unity of the country and cause wars between the North and the South. The Government thought it was not worth the jeopardy of the country s unity just to resolve a slavery problem, so by balancing slave states to free states they were hiding the important facts. The Government had the wolf by the ears , but they chose not to act upon it and ignore the big picture for the time being. Another political problem occurred. It was at the time of the abolitionists. Slaves could go back to Africa as long as they were not part of the American society. They were claimed to be an inferior race to any other race that was living in the country or visiting the country at the time.
As for religion, farmers and plantation owners believed they were granted the gift and the power by god to rule over these poor human beings. Their beliefs consisted of being on a higher standard than the black people, resulting in poor slave treatment, governing them and setting limits to everything they did. For slaves not to get powerful and rebellious, fearful plantation owners were trying to stop them from preaching and praying in front of others. It was believed that there self esteem and their faith in God would build up and push them to go against their masters wishes and help others alike to form groups and revenge their owner s ways by killing them and their families.
These were just some of the reasons why Slavery strengthened during that time period and why it took so long for congress and the government to finally come up with a solution to resolve all of this inhumane treatment.