The cotton gin. The slave population was decreasing but the cotton gin brought it up because now one man could process 50 pounds of cotton instead of 5 pounds a day. The Southern wanted more slaves to make more cotton because cotton was a very large profit for them. The cotton sold for high amounts. The reason it took a lot to process cotton was because the slaves had to removed each and every seed in the cotton by hand but the cotton gin made the fast a easy.
It was the cotton gin , growing cotton became widely profitable and easier , more slaves were needed it tied the economy of the south to slaves and cotton.
