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Slavery In The United States: A Narrative Analysis

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The moral issue of slavery in The United States was a problem for the nation was established. After expansionism and the idea of Manifest Destiny it became a major issue whether to carry slavery to the newly obtained territories. Slavery and the extension of it became a sectional problem creating tensions between the North and South that differed in opinion, that could never be relieved. Many documents were passed during this time period in order to relieve the tensions. The Missouri Compromise, The Compromise of 1850, The Kansas Nebraska Act, and other decisions were passed in the hopes of relieving tension. Despite the many efforts, none of the decisions that passed were able to prevent the consequence of Sectionalism which was of the Civil …show more content…

Thought The Unites States was a unified nation, there was a clear, visible contrast between its two parts. The development and foundation of the economy in the South and North were much different. The farming of cotton and other crops like tobacco was the bedrock of the southern economy. New inventions like the cotton engine developed by Eli Whitney helped the economy strengthened and contributed to its growth. The cotton gin made “Cotton King” ,which was the most valuable produce of the South. Frederick Olmsted, a Northern journalist, made a journey to the South in order to reveal the culture and how society is run. Olmsted wrote about the expansion of cotton as a growing crop and the expansion of slavery: “The proportion of the whole crop [cotton] which is produced in this region [Mississippi valley] is constantly and very rapidly increasing. This increase is chiefly gained by the forming of new plantations and the transfer of slave-labour westward”. The increase of plantations led to spreading slavery westward, which later became a major problem that the South had to dispute over with the North in the 1800’s. The North was a more industrialized and advanced region, which was undergoing many industrial and transportation revolutions at that time. The newly invented steam boat, canals, railroads, mills and big factories that hired thousands of people were the core of the Northern economy and were a huge technological advantage for the North. The North had a much bigger advantage not only in the economic region but also in population and its increase. Major cities like Boston, Philadelphia gre at least 25 percent each decade between 1800 and 1860. New York alone, grew from 60,000 in 1800 to 202,600 in 1830. Cities grew not only because natural birth but mainly because of immigration movements coming from Europe. Immigrants that settled the East

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Next, when the North had more upper class people due to wealth, it caused the North and South to disagree with how money should be obtained. The South argued that slavery was the answer and the North argued that factories were what had to be done. In one of the documents, it said, “There were 22 million people in the North compared with only 9 million in the South” (Document 7). This means there was more money being made in the North due to more people working in factories versus money being made selling cotton produced by slaves on plantations. The disputes on money were a huge factor in causing the Civil War.

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I find it very interesting that the southern colonies distinguished themselves from the New England colonies so early on. I never realized that the slave trade and the plantation class developed so early in American history and it’s fascinating that these differences eventually became large factors in the outbreak of the Civil War. The South’s cash crops required vast amounts of human labor and slavery was essential for the economic health of the southern colonies. Furthermore, this gives insight to the reason pre-Civil War era southern elites were so adamant that the South remain a slave society.

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The export of southern cotton was greatly responsible for the economic development of the North. In addition, the northern states profitable more from the south. Half of the southern cotton was exported to England. Cotton was used to made a lot of things in Europe, especially Great Britain.

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While the South's economy relied on cotton and the Cotton Gin, the North had other plans to gain control once again. The North, an extremely anti-slavery section of America was

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The booming production of cotton in the south during the 19th century was a vast money maker and supplied for the Southern economy, however, it also caused many set backs. Cotton fueled the economy of the Southern states and arguably the economy of the Northern states as well, and also played a major role in the global economy of that time. Cotton indeed brought great wealth to the Southern states, but only the plantation owners benefitted from this wealth. The rest of the population was left poor, uneducated, and illiterate. Despite the wealth and power that cotton brought to the south, it also brought slavery and thus the Civil War which ultimately left the South weak and powerless.

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The developing difference between the North and the South, primarily with the issue of slavery caused sectionalism between the nation. Sectionalism occurs when a region of the country is more important to the people than the interests of the whole country. Specific events pertaining to westward expansion, particularly the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850, the Dred Scott court case, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the John Brown court case were fundamental causes of the Civil War. In 1819, Missouri requested admission to the Union under a slave state.

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In the short essay “Slavery as a Mythologized Institution” Frederick Douglass works hard to debunk the mythology behind the idea of slavery. In order to do this Douglass discusses how the South in a way romanticized slavery and treated it as though it was okay because the Bible said that it was. When in reality that was not a justifiable reason to enslave African Americans, but all this did was dehumanize them. When trying to justify the act of slavery in the South, the Southerners turned to the Bible in order to do just that.

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The South had very little industry. It was based off of an agrarian economy (Document B). Slaves picked cotton off the plantation and the farmers sold the cotton to make money (Document A). The Southern weren't able to keep their money without slaves working for free. Slavery was vital in the South for the economy.

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The southern cotton kingdom was equal to the nations railroads, banks and factories in economic profit (313). This created a southern “slaveocracy” which allowed the rich southern planters to dominate the common class (317). The economy of the south depended on slavery since the cotton industry hindered industrial development and technological growth (315). It was true that slaves had better diets and lower mortality rates in American slavery compared to other countries with slavery, but the practice was dwindling worldwide, therefore there were only a few small countries to compare America to (322). Some smaller scale slave owners worked the fields alongside slaves and some had house slaves, but the majority worked in the Deep South on cotton plantations where they knew a slave drivers punishment better than their master’s companionship

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In an 1829 map, depicting the stretch between Charlestown and Hamburg it becomes apparent how spread out major cities were and how few towns were in between (Howard). Another impact the trains had on the relationship between the North and the South was the relationship between the states in those two territories. The North was well connected with each other and had many similar ideals. They had a higher population of people who expanded from their little farms to the big cities and factories.

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In the article “Cotton and Slavery”, the main idea was about the South and North America’s Civil war due to the slavery of producing cotton. The North and South’s theory about slavery was different: The North thought it was inhumane of not giving payments to the slaves who deserves, but the South disagreed. Before the Civil war begun, the industry of cotton was the biggest boom. The people earned money by making cotton into clothes or other products.

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The South’s economy was built on agriculture, the soil that they used played a key part because they were able to grow lots of food and cotton. I know this because in Discovering Our Past: The American Journey, the text explains, “Why was there little industry in the South? One reason was because of the boom in cotton sales. Because agriculture was so profitable, Southerners remained committed to farming rather than starting new businesses.” This is a key difference between the North and the South.

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There was a difference with the north and south climate, they were very different places when it came to the use of land. The Southern states climate was the idea place to grow products such as cotton which became a strong business for the south during that time. Also Eli Whitney invention of the Cotton Gin helped the south become more increasingly dependent with the cotton. The planters who were growing cotton became some the wealthiest planters in the society, which gave them the opportunity in controlling politics and the society as well. The North were not losing focus their society flourished in industrialization and it were making many new wealthy entrepreneurs and gave them the opportunity to employ cheap immigrant for labor.

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The most significant example was the the biggest export before Civil War,cotton business in the Deep South. Cotton was one of luxury commodities and it fed the textile revolution in the United States. Initially, cotton was planted in South and farmers had no way to distribute the cotton to other areas. When the railroads were bulit, it united rural farmers with distant ports and markets. All cottons that being grown in the Southern states can be moved either across the Atlantic Ocean to New England by steamboats or up into the American Northeast, where all the texile factoreis located.

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In addition, because of cotton production, an expansion of slave-plantation culture increased in the South. Essentially, the author explains that the introduction of cotton increased

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