Sectional Tension In The Anebellum Period

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

In American Slavery 1619-1877 written by American Historian Peter Kolchin, he wrote “south developed as a true slave society, in which slavery served as the bedrock of the economy and of the social order” (Kolchin, Pg 29). This shows that the south relied on Slavery as a means to help run their society because being that the South was prominently farm country they needed to rely on slave labor to grow and sell their crops like cotton, tobacco and wheat which supply majority of their financial income. The south was never evolved into a more practical and modern way of life thus, the demand for slave labor in the south became increasingly more frequent, even when the need for slave labor according to the rest of the world was no longer a necessity. Just like the South, the northern states used slavery as their main source of income at first, however what set the North apart from the south is their advanced thinking. Slavery in the North while legal was not as excessive, in fact according to Kolchin, “ In most of the north, lack of substantial commercial agriculture preclude a demand for large scale forced labor; slaves served in a variety of capabilities, from house service to skilled crafts and day labor, but slavery did not serve as the basis for the economy” (Kolchin, Pg 27.) This depicts that while slaves did serve a purpose in the North’s financial

The Antebellum period from 1800 to 1850 marked a time of sectionalism in American history. Furthermore, new territories gained during western expansion added to this conflict between different sections of America. Southern states wanted new slave territories, while the North wanted to contain the spread of slavery. While Western expansion contributed to growing sectional tensions between the North and South from 1800-1820, sectionalism intensified significantly from 1820-1850.

The introduction of Africans to America in 1619 set off an irreversible chain of events that effected the economy of the southern colonies. With a switch from the expensive system of indentured servitude, slavery emerged and grew rapidly for various reasons, consisting of economic, geographic, and social factors. The expansion of slavery in the southern colonies, from the founding of Jamestown in 1607 to just before America gained its independence in 1775, had a lasting impact on the development of our nation’s economy, due to the fact that slaves were easy to obtain, provided a life-long workforce, and were a different race than the colonists, making it easier to justify the immoral act.

During the early 17th century slavery was being practiced in the South for over 350 years. They were forced to work the production of tobacco, crops, and later cotton. When the cotton grin was evented in 1793 along with the growing demand product in Europe. The slaves had become a use to the South and it formed a foundation for their economy. Going into the late 18th century there were problems with slavery and they are the abolitionist movement, the Missouri Compromise, the Dred Scott Decision, and Abraham Lincoln.

Slavery was a very divided issue in early American history. It was the backbone of the southern economy and lifestyle, but also a immoral way to treat people that was contradictory to ideals which America liberated itself upon. Slavery continued to expand because of new economic growth, but many slaves were also freed from their bondage during this time because of religion and the new ideologies that America gained in becoming a country. Most slaves responded to these hardships hardship through active and passive resistance, whereas free African Americans became more outspoken and formed communities in response.

The South, on the other hand, was highly dependent upon the institution of slavery. It was still primarily an agricultural society that needed as many laborers as possible in order for the plantation owners to make ends meet. According to historian Douglas Harper, “In 1793 came the cotton gin, which brought a 50-fold increase in the average daily output of short-staple cotton, promoted the rapid expansion of a ‘cotton kingdom’ across the Deep South, and made large-scale slavery profitable.” Because of this, the slave became an essential tool to the farmers of the south; more money became invested in slavery rather than in industrial improvements. Based upon the 1860 U.S. Census, there were almost a whopping total of four million slaves in the South alone. In fact, the more slaves an owner had, the more prestige. “Most slave owners owned fewer than five slaves, and only 12 percent of Southerners had twenty or more slaves. Many whites who had no slaves looked with envy upon the wealthy, and to a degree admired them.” This hierarchy had a clearly defined social structure which created distinctions between rich and poor whites as well as racial segregation. This agricultural society and its strict hierarchy only increased the social and racial disparities found in the southern region of the United States.

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

Topic: How did the institution of chattel slavery shape the development of the American Republic from 1783 to 1860?

Between the time period of 1840 and 1860, slavery played an influential and pivotal role in the development of a new southern lifestyle. In the struggle for dominance in America, slavery was the South’s stronghold and the underlying cause in much of their motives for many of the economic instigations along with the affirmative political actions. By dominating the everyday southerner’s life, slavery also dominated the economic and political aspects of life during the height of the slavery period. By the 1840’s the Southern economy had become almost entirely slave and and agriculturally dependent. Without the dependence of slaves in the south, a person was to remain landless, poverty stricken or struggling to sustain life through the means

In the mid 19th century, the United States of America was experiencing an era of growth. The only problem was the North and South had an economical difference. The North established manufacturing and industry. While the South’s economy was based on large-scaled farming, which relied on the labor of African American slaves to grow and harvest certain crops. Tobacco and cotton were the main crops that was grown. After the abolishment of the slaves in the North, the South felt like they were going to have to remove the slaves also. They feared this because the people of the South knew that the economy was going to fall tremendously. The abolishment of the slaves had spread westward and this is when the South became concerned even more.

In a slave economy, rich people get richer, poor people get poorer. The problem was only around a third of Southern families owned slaves, which meant only a third of families grew richer through slavery. Because of the great fight the Union soldiers put up, the Union side won and slavery did not expand to the west. This meant that there was more economic opportunity for poor individuals to perhaps become richer. Enter the homestead act of 1862, an act signed into law three years before the war ended that opened up settlement in the western United States. This act allowed anyone for ten dollars, no matter their race, to apply for 160 acres of free land with promise that they would develop it. This was important because, as John Green, producer of crash course history, notes, “to most slaves, land ownership was key to freedom.” Some say a quarter of homesteaders were former slaves and women. And not only was the homestead act the perfect opportunity for former slaves to improve their lives, away from the South’s threshold, but the agricultural prosperity of our country grew and the west boomed in growth. In the 30 years between 1860 and 1890, more land was turned into farmland in the United States than in all the years from 1607 to 1860. In 1879, the. McCormick factory produced. 18,760 reapers, and two years later it made nearly 49,000 machines. Additionally, from 1862 to 1934, the federal government granted over a million and a half homesteads to private citizens, or 27,000,000 acres (this represented approximately ten percent of the entire landmass of the United States), “created new markets for goods and services, and spurred railroad construction, the Transcontinental Railroad, to connect frontier communities with major cities” (Shi and Tindall 772). It’s possible that if if the war hadn't continued

Historians debate over the overall outcome of the Civil War on the topic of if the war enhanced or impaired the social, economic, and political aspects of African American lives in the South. Explain in specific detail, if the war enhanced or impaired the aforementioned aspects

It is not clear to say whether Slavery was a source of social stability or tension in the South between 1820 and 1860’s, in order to establish the correct answer, we must first discuss them, the arguments that exist between the two, the statistics and figures which exist between the two, as well as the overall general opinion at that time. Both points have their own arguments in themselves, people may argue that without the slave trade, America wouldn’t be what it is today, others would argue that the slave trade, has created instability as well as tension due to the cycle of poverty, that has borne fruit in America amongst African American’s with no way out, for ancestors of old southern slaves. It also should be

The decline of slavery in the upper South in the early 19th century can be identified as a profound change which would contribute to the eventual division of the nation. After 1830, the pattern of regional slavery in the South experienced great variations, such that the upper South gradually declined ties with slavery while the lower South distinctively became identified with it. This profound change was brought on by a shift in utilizing free labor rather than slavery to drive economic production in the upper South (Goldfield et. al, p. 285). The climate and geography in states of the upper South overtime proved less