Ideas such as moral suasion and total emancipation were hotly debated, in part because of the religious movement that was occurring simultaneously. The market was growing very quickly and the invention of the steamboat and the Erie Canal only made trade more accessible and affordable. The antebellum period foreshadowed an American future in which slavery would be abolished and commerce more accessible. Together, these events strengthened America both morally and economically. As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in 1837: “We will walk with our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak with our own minds. Citizens of the United States recognized the value of freedom and independence, but during the antebellum period and up until the Civil War, many Americans had to decide who should or should not be