Notes

Comparing the North and the South

The following article was adapted from the Civil War Trust and the History Channel.

Northern States

The northern soil and climate favored smaller farmsteads rather than large plantations. Industry flourished, fueled by more abundant natural resources than in the South, and many large cities were established (New York was the largest city with more than 800,000 inhabitants). By 1860, one quarter of all Northerners lived in urban areas. Between 1800 and 1860, the percentage of laborers working in agricultural pursuits dropped drastically from 70% to only 40%. Slavery had died out, replaced in the cities and factories by immigrant labor from Europe. Transportation was easier in the North, which boasted more than two-thirds of the railroad tracks in the country and the economy was on an upswing.

Far more Northerners than Southerners belonged to the Whig/Republican political party, and they were far more likely to have careers in business, medicine, or education. In fact, an engineer was six times as likely to be from the North as from the South. Northern children were more likely to attend school than Southern children.

During the first 30 years of the 1800s, American Industry was truly born.This new era introduced factories, with machines and predetermined tasks, producing items to be shipped and sold elsewhere. In 1790, Samuel Slater built the first factory in America, duplicating the secrets of textile manufacturing he brought from England. He built a cotton-spinning mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, soon run by water-power. Over the next decade, textiles was the dominant industry in the country, with hundreds of companies created.

A potato famine during the mid 1800s brought many Irish immigrants to American shores. Here, they played a huge part in the Industrial Revolution, particularly in Northern States, who saw a huge population boom during this time. Immigrants soon comprised 13 percent of the U.S. population. The newcomers tended to concentrate in certain states while avoiding others, and nine out of ten new immigrants went to live in the North.
The Industrial Revolution would not have been possible without this population boom. Canals and railways needed thousands of people to build them. Business schemes required people to execute them. The number of projects and businesses under development was enormous. The demand for labor was satisfied, in part, by millions of immigrants from Ireland, Germany, and elsewhere.

Southern States

The fertile soil and warm climate of the South made it ideal for large-scale farms and crops like tobacco and cotton. Because agriculture was so profitable, few Southerners saw a need for industrial development. Eighty percent of the labor force worked on the farm. In 1794, U.S.-born inventor Eli Whitney (1765-1825) patented the cotton gin, a machine that revolutionized the production of cotton by greatly speeding up the process of removing seeds from cotton fiber. By the mid-19th century, the South had a monopoly on cotton production, and cotton had become America’s leading export. Also, his invention offered Southern planters a justification to maintain and expand slavery even as a growing number of Americans supported its abolition.

Although two-thirds of Southerners owned no slaves at all, by 1860, the South's "peculiar institution" was inextricably tied to the region's economy and culture. In fact, there were almost as many blacks - slaves and free - in the South as there were whites (4 million blacks and 5.5 million whites). There were no large cities aside from New Orleans, and the smaller cities were located on rivers and coasts as shipping ports to send agricultural produce to European or Northern destinations.

A slightly smaller percentage of white Southerners were literate than their Northern counterparts, and Southern children tended to spend less time in school. As adults, Southern men tended to belong to the Democratic political party and gravitated toward military careers as well as agriculture.

“The Peculiar Institution” defined southern social and economic life. The industrialization of the North and the expansion of demand for cotton in the South shifted the balance so that it became a regional issue, as the southern economy grew increasingly reliant on slave labor. Two interdependent cultures emerged in the American South before the Civil War — the world the slaveholders created for themselves and the world of their slaves.

American slavery adopted many of its defining characteristics in the 19th century. Only about one-fourth of the 1.55 million white families in the South actually owned slaves. Of the slave owners, just one in seven had more than 10 slaves. Most Southerners were small farmers without slaves. The monolithic plantation owners who had hundreds of slaves were very few in number. But these wealthy elite dominated Southern government and convinced people that slavery was a normal way of life. Plantation life became the goal of the entire South, as poor white farmers aspired to one day become landholding planters—and slave owners—themselves.

In America, political, religious, economic, and social arguments in favor of the continuation of slavery began to emerge. Slavery became a completely sectional issue, as few states above the Mason-Dixon Line still permitted human bondage. These arguments also revealed the growing separation in the needs and priorities of the northern industrial interests versus the southern planting society.

Adapted from http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/civil-war-overview/northandsouth.html and http://www.history.com/topics/inventions/cotton-gin-and-eli-whitney
Document A
Slave vs. Free States, 1837 (Map)



Map retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_and_free_states#/media/File:US_SlaveFree1837.gif



Document B
Slave Populations, 1820-1860 (Maps)



Maps retrieved from http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/eamerica/site_maps.htm

Document C
Cotton and Slavery






Maps retrieved from http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/eamerica/site_maps.htm and http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/civil-war-overview/northandsouth.html

Document D
William Lloyd Garrison: “To the Public”

By 1820, slavery was outlawed in any states north of the Missouri Compromise dividing line. Without slavery, anti-slavery advocates grew more and more dominant, especially in Massachusetts. One of the most established abolitionists of the antebellum period was William Lloyd Garrison. Garrison was a white man from Massachusetts who used his newspaper, The Liberator, to speak out against slavery and to promote the rights of black Americans for 35 years. Below is an excerpt from his editorial, “To the Public.”

Assenting [agreeing] to the "self-evident truth" maintained in the American Declaration of Independence, "that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights -- among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," I shall strenuously [tirelessly] contend [argue] for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave population….

I am aware, that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire, to give a moderate alarm;... tell the mother to gradually extricate [remove] her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; -- but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.

Adapted from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2928.html



Document E
George Fitzhugh: Cannibals All! Or Slaves without Masters

George Fitzhugh, a social theorist from Richmond, Virginia, wrote Cannibals All! Or, Slaves Without Masters in 1857. Below is an excerpt from this book.

The Negro slaves of the South are the happiest, and,in some sense, the freest people in the world. The children and the aged work not at all, and yet have all the comforts and necessities of life provided for them. They enjoy liberty, because they are oppressed neither by care nor labor. The women do little hard work, and are protected from the despotism [cruel power] of their husbands by their masters. The Negro men and stout boys work, on the average, in good weather, not more than nine hours a day. The balance of their time is spent in perfect abandon [free-time]. Besides, they have their Sabbaths and holidays. White men, with so much license and liberty would die of ennui [boredom]; but Neroes luxuriate [relax] in corporeal [physical] and mental repose. With their faces upturned to the sun, they can sleep at any hour; and quiet sleep is the greatest of human enjoyments….

Adapted from the DBQ Project: DQBs in Ameri