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Civil War Economy Analysis

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Throughout history one thing has always played a role in starting conflicts, and in a sense is one of the base things that drives us: Needs. The thing with needs is that there is a limited amount of solutions to those needs. This is the base principle of economics, and similarly to this concept of needs, the Civil War had many economic implications.More specifically the economic differences between the North and the South caused the Civil War. The biggest factor that contributed to this was the Confederacies one-commodity system. Without economic diversity in the South, the North’s relatively diverse economy pressured the south heavily. The North’s agriculture was more focused on sustainable crops and overall was much more productive in comparison …show more content…

After the invention of the cotton gin, only then was cotton a profitable resource to work with. Before this indigo and sugar were some of the top exports. Most of these accounted for a large part of the South’s economic productiveness. If the world economy decided to not need cotton anymore, the South would crumble. Most large leaders in the North and South saw this distinction, and it was heavily credited as the leading factor of the Civil War. Raw cotton even after it became ‘profitable’ to sell was highly dependent on external forces, which meant that growing it was risky because it was a highly nutrient demanding crop. This meant that after using a field a few times for cotton production that you would have to move on, or grow something much less profitable. Only the top portion of the farmers in the South could afford to sustainably, and profitably produce cotton in large amounts. Most farmers in the South had much smaller farms, and more often than not would go into debt. This relative economic instability when compared to the North was the leading cause of the Civil …show more content…

As mentioned earlier Britain imported 75% of it’s raw cotton from the Confederacy. Many leaders at the time, in the North and the South, thought that Britain would come to their economic partners aid if someone attacked them. This meant that Southern leaders like Jefferson Davis were much more confident in starting a war. When the war started however Britain did not come to the aid of their economic partner, and instead let the prices of cotton and cotton textiles skyrocket. This mislead trust and reliance on a hunch seemed like an extremely important asset for the South before and during the war, but ultimately this lead to the start of an unbalanced Civil War with false hope supporting the

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The Cotton Diplomacy failed because of three things. The South not knowing the risks of what could happen. Bad decisions made by the South that made most of the Confederacy starve. Also not thinking that France and England could go to other countries to get cotton.

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