Answer:
The Cotton Gin.
Step-by-step explanation:
As early as the founding of the United States in 1776, there was a clear divide over the issue of slavery. The northern states gradually took steps to abolish slavery, with the New England states taking the earliest actions. By 1804 all northern states had abolished slavery, though some measures were more gradual instead of immediate.
Some mid-Atlantic states such as Delaware and Maryland, who would eventually join the Union, would not abolish slavery until ratifying the 13th Amendment following the Civil War.
In the southern states, the opposite was true. Following the formation of the new nation the institution of slavery became even more entrenched in this region.
The cotton gin played a major role in this, making cotton an extremely profitable crop that could be exported to the northern states as well as foreign European markets. The profitability of cotton would lead to the nickname “King Cotton” and it was known as “white gold”.
Eventually the issue of slavery would be a major factor that ultimately led to the Civil War. The role of the cotton gin and its resulting impacts led to marked changes in the southern economy, political realm and the institution of slavery.
The states’ belief in “King Cotton” was such that they did not believe they needed the Union for survival. It would ultimately prove to be their downfall.
While Eli Whitney designed the cotton gin as a machine to help save labor for harvesting cotton, ironically it may have upheld the institution of slavery, expanded it, and allowed it to become an even more dominant feature of the southern economy.
The cotton gin increased cotton’s productivity, which turned it into an extremely profitable crop. Coupled with the large demand from northern and British textile mills, cotton quickly became the featured crop of the south.