Final answer:
Northerners preferred that small farmers, rather than slaveholders, settle in the Midwest, supporting a free labor system offering economic growth and social mobility. This is true as part of the opposition to the extension of slavery in the West. The Homestead Act of 1862 facilitated this process, though sharecroppers in the South, often former slaves and poor whites, faced a different reality.
Step-by-step explanation:
It is true that Northerners wanted small farmers to own land in the Midwest to keep out slavery. This sentiment was part of a broader perspective that promoted a free labor system, where economic growth was fueled by workers earning wages and social mobility was possible, as opposed to the slave labor system of the South. Antislavery proponents in the North believed that if the West became a place for small, freeholding farmers, it would not only provide opportunities for white laborers but would also impede the expansion of slavery. Homestead Act of 1862 played a crucial role in enabling this vision by granting land to settlers who could cultivate it, although in reality, it was mostly white settlers who benefitted from such policies.
Sharecropping, which arose after the Civil War, primarily in the South, was a system where tenant farmers, including many former slaves and poor whites, worked the land and paid rent with a portion of their crops. This system often perpetuated a cycle of debt and poverty, as sharecroppers had limited opportunities to own land or improve their economic situation, contrasting the Northern ideal of small-scale landownership leading to self-sufficiency and progress.