In the years before 1860, southern leaders arranged for the government to protect slavery. They kept its functions small to keep it from interfering with what they claimed was an economic institution, except when they wanted the government to exert authority to defend their property rights. When poorer men advocated roads or the dredging of harbors to spur economic growth, Democrats insisted that any federal assumption of economic activity threatened to crush American liberty. The federal government should simply deliver the mails, manage foreign affairs, collect the tariffs, maintain a small
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