Lecture Notes: Differences Between the North and South Leading to the Civil War

Historical Context

• From the start of English settlement in North America, there was a stark contrast between the southern and northern colonies.
• Rebellion in 1776 led to an independent nation, but tensions over slavery persisted.
• Compromises in 1820 and 1850 barely maintained a balance between northern and southern states.
• The southern states seceded in 1860, triggering the Civil War.

Economic Differences

Northern Economy

• Cold climate prevented large-scale plantation agriculture.
• Economy centered on trade and manufacturing.
• Industrial revolutions led to factory-based economy.
  • Factories employed men, women, and children in often dangerous conditions.
• The 1840s saw an influx of Irish and German immigrants seeking factory jobs.
• Opportunities for social mobility existed, leading to a growing middle class.

Southern Economy

• Economy focused on cash crops, primarily cotton.
• Cotton plantations provided 70% of the world’s supply by 1860.
• Plantation labor was predominantly done by enslaved people.
• Lack of industrialization due to successful agriculture.

Social Structure

Northern Class Structure

• Large working class of laborers, many immigrants.
• Middle class of managers and small business owners.
• Small upper class of factory owners, bankers, and successful merchants.

Southern Class Structure

• Large underclass of enslaved laborers.
• Non-slaveholding whites.
• Few planters with small numbers of enslaved people.
• Very small fraction of large planters owning over 100 enslaved people.

Ideological Differences

Northern Ideals

• Concerns over the expansion of slavery into western territories.
• Free Soil movement aimed at preserving western lands for white farmers.
• Growing belief that the South had excessive power in federal government.
• Events like the Fugitive Slave Act and Dred Scott decision fueled this perception.
• Rise of abolition movement, with influential figures like Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, and John Brown.

Southern Ideals

• Viewed slavery as constitutionally protected.
• Saw northern limitations on slavery as attacks on their liberty.
• Crafted a defense of slavery as a positive good.
  • Compared slavery favorably to northern factory conditions.
  • George Fitzhugh's arguments for slavery as protection against capitalism.

Conclusion

• By the 1850s, a cultural clash was evident over the future of the U.S. as either an agricultural or industrial nation.
• These unresolved questions led to the Civil War in 1860.