During the time period between 1820 and 1861 the American South was shaped from many political, economic, social, and cultural developments. However, during this time period Southerners experienced these developments in different ways. For example, the slaves of this time lived much differently than the plantation owners. There were many sources of division, as well as unity, during this time. There were many political developments in the South during this time period. One of them was slavery. Slavery had been an issue for a very long time. Southern Representatives fought for slavery and this was an issue in Congress. It was hard to keep a balance of power in Congress between the North and the South due to the different populations. For …show more content…
Once the railroads came, farmers in these same counties grew 400,000 bushels and sold their crop at a dollar a bushel. Railroads also stimulated other areas of the economy, notably the mining and iron industries. There were social developments in the South during this time period as well. Since slavery was an extreme moral issue, there were many people arguing either for or against it. The southern whites came up with many different reasons to defend slavery. One way they defended it was by saying that the Bible did not condemn it. They argued that the Bible said it allowed the enslavement of Heathens, which the south believed African Americans to be. They also said that many other societies depended on slavery, like they did. They believed that some of the greatest empires, like classical Greece and Rome, depended on slavery and would not have existed without it. Slavery defenders reasoned that African Americans didn’t have the ability to care for themselves and that they were an inferior race, in which needed someone to care for them. They argued that slaves in the South lived better than the factory workers of the North. Masters cared for the slaves; while northern workers had no claim to their employer. They thought that the manner in which the slaves were treated was much more humane than how the workers in the factories were treated. There were
The Union had the majority vote at that time and the South felt their interest had not considered at all. The cultural existence at that time showed the government America had placed into effect was an experiment that failed. Designed to govern a country that had very similar cultures and lifestyles and this was not the reality
States rights was a huge issue. State laws were debated among the North and South. The more the two sides disagree, the closer the South came to seceding from the Union. For example, “The North is
The country at this time had different ideologies and ideas on how slavery should be dealt with, leading to the separation of the southern states. But right before that you had the
The Southern states thought that seceding from the North was the only solution to their problems. Lincoln said, “I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free,” and he was right about that. The north wanting to get rid of slaves and the south wanting to keep them caused many problems between the two. Their disagreement on slaves made their lives living together very
In the time just before the Civil War, the United States was one of the most successful nations in the world. The United States had become the world’s leading cotton producing country and had developed industry, which would in the future, surpass that of Great Britain. Also, the United States possessed an advanced railroad and transportation system. However, despite its successes, the United States was becoming increasingly divided. The North and the South had many distinct differences in terms of their social, cultural, and economic characteristics that brought about sectionalism and, eventually, the Civil War.
The problem with the politics of the South was the fact that its own people were against each other. Some refused to “join the army, pay taxes, and obey laws prohibiting trades with the enemy (Goldfield, pg.435). Many of the southerners were turning to religion as their weapon. Goldfield mentions that
Slavery was an important concept in the South because of the farms that the South used for their economy. The cotton produced in the south was a major income for the economy of the South. The population in the south could be up to 50% slaves (Doc 1). There was almost no slavery in the North compared to in the South. The only slavery in the North were in states that bordered the South. Slaves in the North numbered at four hundred thirty thousand while in the South there was up to three and half million slaves (Doc 2). The North feared that slavery would spread and eventually there would be more slave states than non-slave states. This created tension between both the North and South. The South was afraid that the North would suppress slavery while the North was afraid that the South would spread slavery. The pressure could also have been caused by a similar idea involving slavery which had a lot of tension revolving around it. This was when the South realized they were in a minority. The North did not want the South to expand slavery and the South wanted to expand slavery which caused a confrontation. There were more non slave states then there were slave states which can be shown through the Kansas Nebraska Act map (Doc 7). The South was outnumbered in The Senate, House of Represents, and all of Congress. This made the South fear that they would not get an opinion in the government. Tension and pressure
The North and the South were far from settling the slave issue. Another reason that caused the South to go to war was the difference in economic policies. The North was expanding more in the commercial and industrial side while the South was reliant on agriculture. Cities and factories had developed in the North and in the South, it was still staple producing and agrarian. The North’s industry was beginning to dominate its economy while the South was still mainly based on agriculture. The South only produced manufactured goods for consumption and the North were able to export manufactured goods. The taxes and tariff was unfair to the South. The Tariff Act of 1832 put high import fees on all European manufactured good, which was established to protect the Northern industries. The South’s reaction to the Act was a threat to secede from the Union. Railroads were also built to bond the northern tier of states. This made transportation easier in the Northeast than in the South. The Northeast traded with the West while the South can trade only by sea. " They wanted to promote the industry of the New England states, at the expense of the people of the South and their industry" In politics, the North had an advantage over the South. The North was more populated than the South and the South only counted slaves which was big part of their populations as * of a person. Since the House of Representative was based on population
After the construction of the railroad, more and more cargo was given the opportunity to be shipped between states. Raw materials from the newly found land in the West were able to be quickly shipped to the East. This change helped the states ship over 50 million dollars worth of cargo between each other in the first ten years after construction. The railroad allowed the Eastern states and Western States exchange goods easily and efficiently. Shipping between states was now easier and cheaper than ever before causing commerce to increase rapidly. Farms began to pop up along the railroad. The goods manufactured at these farms were easily distributed because of the transcontinental railroad. Markets were extended because of the railroad construction. More people wanted to start new businesses because they saw opportunities with the railroad and how much easier it was to sell and ship goods. Items that were once scarce and hard to buy were now greatly manufactured and simple to purchase and receive. The transcontinental railroad also expanded the area as to where items can be shipped to. Items were once only able to be sold locally, but since the railroad helped create an outlet for more products, commerce extended majorly. The now larger market made manufactured goods more convenient to buy which increased
The Southern states built their economy on slavery and plantations. Southern states believed in states rights, they didn’t want the government to be in charge because they would have to give up slavery if the government was in charge. The South decided to leave the union to keep slavery and became the confederate states of America. If the state was in charge then they could keep and extend slavery. They argued that each state has a right to leave the union (secede). The South would shatter without slavery, it was the most important part of their
The southern states were a slave society, and were known to being the way of life. It was the root to everything in the south, and southerners were very protective about it. In the south southerners “feared that without slavery’s expansion, the abolitionist faction would come to dominate national politics and an increasingly dense population of slaves would lead to bloody insurrection and race war” (The American Yawp, Chap.13), and southerners did not want to jeopardize their way of life. The south would press on the notion that racial mixing and racial wars would break out, and that blacks were a threat to white supremacy. Besides the racial fears the south would speak out on, they also stressed that slaves were property, which entitles them to their owner. People in the south also used the bible to justify slavery because it was present in the bible. The southern states believed in the ‘mudsill’ theory. James Henry Hammond speech on the ‘mudsill’ theory explained the theory. Hammond and other pro slavery southerners defined slavery as a good thing. Paternalism was another justification, to influence their belief that slavery was a caring establishment. That south argued that they took care of their slaves, and that the north did not treat their workers with such
The fight over whether or not slavery needed to exist was a very controversial topic at the time. The North was fighting to keep the Union while on the other hand the South was fighting to become independent. The South had attempted to separate from the United States before but had not been successful. South Carolina was not a large enough state to be on its own. The second time they had tried they were successful because they had the support of other states such as Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi and more.
One of the greatest issues within this time period was slavery. The subject had been suppressed for years, and made a halfway appearance within the Era of Good Feelings before it was buried, once again. Slavery was the greatest tension-causing topic between the North and South. Southerners were pro-slavery, as their farms and ways of live depended upon it. Northerners were generally abolitionists, as it was immoral and unconstitutional, in their eyes. Southerners saw the Northerners’ wishes to abolish slavery as means to obtain even more power. Were slavery to be abolished in the South, Southern agriculture and economy would immediately fail, affecting the rest of America, as well. There’d be no one to work on the plantations, except the white Southerners, themselves. Simply, without slaves, the Southern way of life would
Slavery was one of the main factors sending the north and south into a raging war. There was more to than just slavery being abolished. Slavery being abolished to the south was like the government was taking abilities and money from them. Thus making them feel as if they were being done wrong. Also a majority of southerners were plantation owners needing slaves to work the farms so they could earn
Slavery was something that became interwoven into the South’s economy considering it was a one crop economy that depended on cotton. Therefore it depended on slaves, even if only a fraction of the population actually owned slaves. Meanwhile, the northern economy was more focused on industry rather than agriculture. Their industries would purchase raw cotton and turn it into a finished good. The North and South therefore also had major differences in their economic attitudes. The dispute over slavery and the future of it led to secession, which brought a war where the Northern and Western states fought to preserve the Union and the Southern territories fought to establish their independence as a new confederation under a constitution of its own.