The Industrial Capitalist And Planter-Slaveholding System During The Civil War

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Economic systems provide the framework for a society to properly allocate and distribute resources amongst itself. When multiple systems get interchanged and brought up at the same time in a country, something bad is bound to happen. For America in the 18th century, this was exactly the case. With the long standing planter-slaveholding system causing moral unrest in the country, an industrial capitalist economy quickly emerged. These two systems would divide the country, causing an eventual civil war. During the American Civil War, both the industrial capitalist and planter-slaveholding system were put under major strain, causing an infinite amount of pressure to see which would last. Throughout the Civil War, while every strength and weakness …show more content…

They had an established treasury and a source of revenue. The financial strategy that they would employ was to rely on funding the war through loans and war bonds. As European banks loaned money to the northerners, they developed a strong bond program that would stand through the war. They tried a new strategy to get bonds to become patriotic by selling them in mass. They lowered the price of the bonds and made over a billion dollars just from them alone. This financial strength over the planter-slaveholder system would give them an upper hand in the war. The north also was strong in the numbers of workers in factories they had. The industrial capitalist system was more appealing to workers, and it gave them a huge advantage of over a million workers. This would lead to almost ten times the amount of goods being produced under this system when compared to the planter-slaveholder. The main weakness of the industrial capitalist system was the publics fear of losing jobs as the wealthy would be fine under the Enrollment act. This would cause major unrest and riots to break out across the north. The precious jobs in the industrial capitalist system caused so much fright in the eyes of lower class workers. They believed that the free slaves would take all of the jobs once they were forced too enroll. The wealthy had such an upper hand that the rioters caused havoc in New York. They were based on the new fear of slaves and would result in many murders of them. It also would force the North to re-locate precious troops to take control of New York. It would come with heavy property damages from the riots as well. This showed how unequal the wealth was in the industrial capitalist