That's just not what happened, slavery wasn't a main topic for the average person. Even in the south where there were slaves most people didn't own slaves. The

That's just not what happened, slavery wasn't a main topic for the average person. Even in the south where there were slaves most people didn't own slaves. The debate around it did exist but it was an infrequent topic. Much much more common was discussions regarding import and export issues and transportation networks. Support for the poor and insane were big issues. Religion and temperance we're far more debated than slavery. There's a lot of places to read newspapers from that time period online and you can see what topics were frequent and divisive.