The document discusses slavery and the antebellum South. It describes how the South was mainly agricultural with little industry and how power shifted to the Lower South as cotton became very profitable due to the invention of the cotton gin. Slavery was integral to the Southern economy and way of life, with over 4 million slaves by 1860 producing most of the world's cotton. Abolitionists like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman advocated for ending slavery, but the South strongly defended the institution of slavery. This set the stage for the future clash over the issue of slavery that would lead to the Civil War.