As long as slavery was able to expand into new territories it was economically viable for the planter-aristocracy. However, it was an anti-capitalist economic system that essentially stagnated economic growth and development in the southern states. Slave holders were not adverse to moving all they had further west in order to gain more land at cheaper cost. One of the Republican Party's main platforms was the end of the expansion of slavery into the new territories. Their hope was that slavery would eventually wither and die out, because without new territory to expand to it was no longer economically viable. The planter class realized this, and when Lincoln was elected, they seceded.