The North and the South stood as two distinct regions during the antebellum period in America. The North and the South were rapidly diverging in all aspects: cultural, economic, and technological. The Northern industrial sector was modernizing the North, and the economy was starting to become more dependent upon manufacturing. Culturally, the Women's Rights movement was advancing as more and more women fought against the Cult of Domesticity. Women entered the "man's sphere" and began to work in factories. In the South cotton became the cash crop and slavery was an integral part of their economy and culture. The views propounded by Southern elites of their home region and its way of life did not resemble those held by Northern observers of the …show more content…
The War of 1812 followed by the Treaty of Ghent spilled worthless British goods into the American economy. The economy began to feel the impact as more and more Americans stopped purchasing domestic goods. To prevent it from cracking, Congress passed The Tariff of 1816 which encouraged the growth of American industrialism. One of the sparks that began the Industrial Revolution was Samuel Slater. Samuel Slater was a factory worker in Britain. He stored plans of how British factories were built in his head when he came to America. Along with his investor Moses Brown, Slater built his first textile mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Other mills began to develop after the first mill was built. Also, the steamships fulfilled the requirement for large amounts of labor during the Industrial Revolution. Steamships allowed for a faster and safer travel across the Atlantic Ocean, which encouraged more immigrants to travel to America. The Irish were one of the largest early immigrant groups. In the 1840s, the Potato Famine killed two million people in Ireland. Thousands of Irish people crammed themselves into steamships and arrived on the shores of Boston and New York within ten to twelve days. Having little to no money they boarded in small port towns and took jobs in factories and railroad construction. They were one of the many types of people that fulfilled the need for manual …show more content…
The South considered agriculture, especially the production of cotton, to be the crux of their economy. The South was producing half of the world's cotton. Sprawling estates and plantations with hundreds of slaves running them dotted the southern region. Eli Whitney's cotton gin made cotton production easier, faster, and it revived the industry once again. Soon, tons of cotton was being traded in foreign countries and in the North. Cotton was a fast cash business, but it ruined the soil, leaving the plantation owners to constantly be looking for new land. In little to no time, the South had become a one-crop economy with everything becoming dependent on cotton sales, which were dependent on other factors such as demand for cotton goods. One of the most lucrative, horrifying, and large businesses was the slave trade. Many Southern whites considered slavery a necessity for their economy. The South was able to produce these enormous amounts of cotton because of the manual labor provided by slaves. In the beginning, during the era of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, slavery was considered a necessary evil. However, views of slavery were rapidly changing and by the Jacksonian era, many Southerners saw no other option than slavery. William Harper, a jurist in South Carolina, ventured to say, "The cultivation… of great staple crops cannot be
In contrast to the many economical differences of the industrial north and agrarian south, few similarities arise in the struggle of sectionalism. Both the societies consisted of utilization of trade, westward expansion, and the use of unskilled labor. The north's industrial businesses such as textile industries demanded the south's production of cotton in order to maintain its market with oversees buyers. Also, the fight for westward land was among the many conflicts between the north and the south. And the use of unskilled labor was highly shared between these two economies. In the south, the use of untrained African slaves was its main entity to economic success. Like the south, the north used amateur workers in its industries to boost its production.
The North’s economy was based on textiles, shipping, and skilled trades. Their climate was not suited for the same type of agricultural products that the South produced like cotton, sugar, rice and tobacco. Northern states like New England manufactured and shipped goods like guns, clocks, plows and axes (page 399). One reason for the South’s dependence on slavery is because their economy relied on the existence of slave labor. For example, the cultivation of cotton depended largely on slave labor, with 75% of the crop grown on plantations,
The South, on the other hand, had very little capability to manufacture. They depended on agriculture and staple crops. Henry Louis Jr., a college professor and director at Harvard University, said, “Cotton was one of the world’s first luxury commodities, after sugar and tobacco, and also the commodity whose production most dramatically turned millions of black human beings in the United States themselves into commodities.” After the invention of the cotton gin, the more hands that were being used meant the more money the South could make thus causing the South to depend on its slaves and cotton
Due to this, the economy of America at this period of time was centred around cotton and as Clement Eaton stated, 'After the invention of the cotton gin in 1793, the tempo of life in the South quickened.' The industry was able to achieve large profits through the use of slaves-the cheapest labour of all-and eventually 'Three-fourths of the world's supply of cotton came from the southern states.'
The South expressed their pride over their cotton-based economy system. Due to the fertile lands in that region, cotton was found to be a valuable cash crop, providing more than half of the world’s production of it. Consequently, the South believed that they played an integral part of the Union. James Hammond showed how much pride he had in the Southern economy when he said, “The South is perfectly competent enough to go on, one, two, or three years, without planting a single seed of cotton. I believe that if she was to plant but half her cotton, it would be an immediate advantage to her”. Through this speech, he expressed the crop as “King”; by using this title, the Southerners portrayed cotton as the honorable and indispensable figure in their economy. It was the staple crop of the South, and without it, the region’s economy was collapse. However, the popularity of cotton production made Hammond and many other Southerners believe that the cotton-based economy would help the region stand on its own as a Confederacy. Due to the Southern pride on how indispensable the region was internationally, the South believed their exports of cotton overshadowed all other exports from America, even though some crops were more profitable than the cotton.
The crops grown on plantations and the slavery system changed significantly between 1800-1860. In the early 1800s, plantation owners grew a variety of crops – cotton, sugar, rice, tobacco, hemp, and wheat. Cotton had the potential to be profitable, but there was wasn’t much area where cotton could be grown. However, the invention of the cotton gin changed this - the cotton gin was a machine that made it much easier to separate the seeds from cotton. Plantation owners could now grow lots of cotton; this would make them a lot of money. As a result, slavery became more important because the demand for cotton was high worldwide. By 1860, cotton was the main export of the south. The invention of the cotton gin and high demand for cotton changed
The Slaveholders had their slaves doing their dirty work for them such as, maintaining the farms, picking cotton, etc. Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin and this made it a lot easier for the slaves to pick cotton, which became the principle export commodity of the United States. According to the article, Southern Society and the Defense of Slavery the cotton gin made the aggressive use of slave labor economically dominant. In the North slavery wasn’t as dominate as it was in the South. “Slavery was an institution established and regulated in detail by law.
While the participation in the global slave trade was ruled unconstitutional, over 1,000,000 slaves from the tobacco-producing Upper South to cotton fields in Lower South between 1790 and 1860, (American Yawp). This came from the shift in Southerners point of view from “Slavery is a necessary evil,” to “Slavery is a positive good.” The rise of Cotton wed the South to slavery, without it there could be no cotton kingdom. Although northerners were involved first handedly with slavery, their factories fueled the demand for slave-grown southern cotton and their banks provided the financing, (Cotton Revolution, American Yawp). Despite the ban on slave trade, the number of slaves in the South increased by 750,000 in 20 years (Old South Powerpoint). Many replaced the famous “Cotton Belt” to “Black belt” not to describe the rice color of the land but the people that worked on that
Throughout the 19th century, the distinctions between the North and South in the United States were controversial. Prior to the Civil War, the North consisted of business owners and middle-class men. The South consisted of mostly farmers. The North was industrial, using railroads and factories. The South was agricultural, with mostly farms and plantations. The North paid their labor workers. The South used slaves. Not only did their opposing views on slavery and the separation of the two cultures, tensions arose that eventually led to one of the most gruesome wars in history.
Southern economy was the center of plantation that cultivated cotton. Many the rich started to carve the plantation to earn money by exporting cotton. They needed a lot of labor and slavery was proper to use. The majority of white southerners did not own slaves because planters monopolized the best land. They could not help taking possession of the land that was not proper to cultivate cotton. Most of them earned a living by self-sufficiency even though the slave population was growing: from 697,624 in 1790 to 3,953,760 in 1860.
With Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin in 1793, cotton became very profitable. This machine was able to reduce the time it took to separate seeds from the cotton. However, at the same time the increase in the number of plantations willing to move from other crops to cotton meant the greater need for a large amount of cheap labor, i.e. slaves. Thus, the southern economy became a one crop economy, depending on cotton and therefore on slavery. On the other hand, the northern economy was based more on industry than agriculture. In fact, the northern industries were purchasing the raw cotton and turning it into finished goods. This disparity between the two set up a
And its abolitionist and free thinking.Meanwhile, the south’s colony is characterized by the controversy of slavery and the cash crops they produced
During the Antebellum period, the North and South were divided into two sections. The North opposed slavery while the South believed that it ultimately benefitted society, creating conflicting views on many different issues. The issues that were brought about during the antebellum period between the North and the South were centered around what type of societies slavery created. Although the North and South had some similarities during the antebellum period, the North and South were consistently more different in many aspects.
The Antebellum period in the United States history was considered as time between 1820 and 1862. During this period, significant changes took place in terms of political, social and economic effects in America. The United States economy was changed from an underdeveloped country of frontiersmen and farmers into an industrialized economy. The South American depended on agriculture while the Northern part had many industries. The two parts differed in terms of slavery policies in the country as the south advocated for preservation of slaves while the North championed abolition of slavery policies. In addition, during this period the south and North had established distinct cultures because of their geographical difference (Mitchell, 8). The south had fertile soils and suitable climate that supported agriculture while the north had cold climate and rocky soils that could hardly support any farming.
With the economic system, the south had a very hard time producing their main source “cotton and tobacco”. “Cotton became commercially significant in the 1790’s after the invention of a new cotton gin by Eli Whitney. (PG 314)” Let