North and South America

During the antebellum period, the nation was basically divided into four sections. Among these four sections were political, economic, social, and cultural differences as well as some specific cause-and-effect events. While the western territorial boundaries were expanding, differences between the other sections of the country were intensifying, particularly between the North and the South. In the North, the society was formed by an increasing middle-class self made, independent man, while in the South, the economy was based on the system of plantations , where a few families owned all the land and needed slaves to make that land productive (Johnson, 90).

In 1832, the Anti-slavery league was created in New England. In 1840 the 'Underground Railway', a secret route which helped fugitive slaves escape to Canada. In 1950 the new party in power, the Republican Party, opposed slavery on moral grounds. Uncle Tom's Cabin was published during this decade, influencing not only the abolitionist cause but American politics in general; it has been said that it contributed to Lincoln's election. Lincoln had declared in 1858 that the country could not continue to be divided in pro and anti-slavery, although his main interest was to maintain the Union (Grady, 47). When the South realized that Lincoln 's election will benefit the North and that it would not serve their interests, they separated from the Union, first South Carolina, then Georgia and the five states in the Gulf of Mexico. Lincoln, decided to keep his federal authority, symbolically sent provisions to Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. This action, seen by the South as a provocation, was the beginning of the American Civil War.

It is clear that the institution of slavery damaged the overall economy of the South throughout most of the 1800s. In the 1800s, the U.S. economy was changing. The North, which had an economy based on manufacturing, benefitted from new mechanical inventions and the system of interchangeable parts (Crow, Escott & Flynn, 24). The North relied on free labor, workers who earned wages and spent those wages in the communities where they lived and worked. As workers earned more, they spent more on goods and products. This cycle of earning and buying strengthened the economy of the Northeast. The South remained an agricultural economy focusing on two main products—food and cotton. On the large cotton plantations (those having over fifty slaves) about 40 percent of the crop value came from food production. But southern cotton was still the nation's number one export. The cotton was sold to northern and European markets. As long as the demand for cotton remained high, the prices of cotton remained high and provided incentives for southern plantation owners to continue to plant cotton.

Cotton was labor intensive, requiring large groups of workers who worked in “gangs” or “teams.” This gave plantation owners an incentive to continue to use slave labor. By 1860, there were about 4 million slaves in the South, although as many as one-half of all farms in the ...