American_Presidency

In the early 1600s New Englanders lacked a marketable staple like the south had; sugar or tobacco, so they turned to fishing and timber exports. Family farms produced food for their own use and a small surplus to market. Although slavery was allowed in the region few slaves were used and indentured servants were not as central to the economy as in Chesapeake. During the move west settlers created towns and systems much like they had left behind; Upstate New York and the Upper Northwest resembled New England and the Lower South replicated the plantation-based society of the South Atlantic states. In 1860, about 80 percent of southerners still worked the land—same proportion as in 1800. Their banking and transportation systems remained adjuncts to the plantation economy. In the North, the Market Revolution and westward expansion set in motion dramatic changes. The region became an integrated economy of commercial farms and manufacturing cities. As the Northwest became a settled society, surrounded by a web of transportation with eastern centers of commerce and banking the small farmer found himself drawn into the market economy. They began to grow crops just for market and to raise livestock for sale. The farmer then began to buy the goods previously made at home. While the northeast transformed from producing mainly, dairy products, fruits, and vegetables for nearby urban markets to an industrial center; the south remained virtually unchanged. The North did buy cotton products from the south but the south remained the biggest purchaser of commodities because they were still producing mainly cotton and that with slave labor. Their economy was precarious and subject to the vagaries of the slave market. Slavery led the south down a very different path than that of cities in the north. Mostly, it inhibited people from moving there and inhibited technological progress. In 1860, the south produced less than 10 percent of the nation’s manufactured goods. The southerner saw commerce and manufacturing as ‘lowly’ trades and discouraged their sons from entering these professions. Many plantation owners saw themselves as a father figure for his slaves and counted it his responsibility to care for the dumb creatures. This paternalist outlook both masked and justified the brutal reality of slavery. It allowed them to assuage their guilt concerning the fact that they bought and sold human beings as if they were cattle. In the north artisans that once worked within their homes at their own pace began to be recruited by factory owner to produce even more product at a faster pace. To make this possible the process was broken down to many small steps requiring much less skill. Samuel Slater, an immigrant from England, established the first factory in America in 1790 at Pawtucket, Rhode Island. He built from memory a power-driven spinning jenny. These types of factories produced yarn that was then sent to local women who wove the yarn into cloth and returned it to the factory to be marketed. This ‘putting out’ system ended with the forming of the factory system in Lowell, Massachusetts. For the industrial worker his or her life was increasingly regulated by ‘clock time’. The workers free time was spent with family or, as in the instance of the ‘Lowell girls’ in educational pursuits, church, fellowship, and lectures. For the southern slave social life was sometimes carried out in secret. Plantation owners did not want their slaves to have too much free time together as this could be dangerous. They also forbade them to marry as this would cause problems when it came time to sell slaves that were a family unit. The family was often broken up with children being sold or a mother being sold. So the black slaves secretly attended church services and performed wedding ceremonies in the cover of the woods. They were a very close-knit community and feared separation the most. Their main goal in life was to attain freedom. The wage laborer up north had as his/her main goal to make more money. The idea of being closely supervised tending a machine for a period of time dictated by a clock was distasteful to many fiercely independent Americans so the manufacturers turned to those who lacked a way to earn a living; single, young women from surrounding family farms. The northern wage laborer saw the slave as the reason they were not paid more because the freed slave would take his place for less. There was no truth to this train of thought because in reality it was the factory owner and immigrants that were to blame. The southern elite saw themselves as benign, gentlemen farmers helping they black man have a productive life. Never would the black man be free because the constitution stated that free white men may be citizens of the New World and the southerner believed that blacks were somehow less than human. The northerner saw themselves as the champions of freedom for all men regardless of color or race. By 1800, indentured servitude had disappeared from the United States. This sharpened the distinction between freedom and slavery and between a northern economy relying on what would be called “free labor” (that is, working for wages or owning a farm or shop) and a southern economy ever more dependent on slave labor. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the steamboat, canal, railroad, and telegraph pulled America out of its economic past very quickly. These innovations opened up more land to be populated. They also linked farmers to national and world markets. The first advance was the construction of toll roads; but the enterprising settlers built ‘shun roads’ small detours that enabled the traveler to bypass the toll station. Those hoping to cash in on this new form of transportation never did make a profit. Improved water transportation lowered the cost of commerce and proved faster than overland routes. By 1811, thanks to Robert Fulton, the first steamboat had been introduced on the Mississippi River; twenty years later about 200 plied the waters. Although the market revolution and westward expansion occurred in the North and the South, their combined effects further heightened the nation’s sectional divide. From what I have read about this period in our history I agree that the civil war was a clash between two incompatibly different societies. It seems the so called cultured southerner has never gotten their hands dirty making all the money they did from the backbreaking work of their slaves. They sure did like to spend that easy money on gala balls, cotillions, and the lot. The seeming isolation slavery imposed on them and their way of life was not repulsive to them. They enjoyed their small world of the southern elite. They staunchly believed the rubbish they spouted about the inferiority of the black man and that they did not deserve freedom because they would not know how to govern themselves or fit into a society. They would always be ‘less than’ because of the color of their skin. Consequently, the southern man was always on guard for anything that would encroach upon or attempt to eliminate slavery. So much so, he even went to war to maintain the right to own human beings and treat them like animals. Mr. Douglas stated in the debate with Lincoln in 1858, that he is...”Opposed to negro citizenship in any and every form…I don’t believe the Almighty made the Negro capable of self government.” As seen in the preceding quote Mr. Douglas couldn’t be much clearer on where the south stands on the issue if slavery. In contrast Mr. Lincoln, although still not sure the black man will ever be equal with the white man he does believe….”there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It was all about race; the differing economies, the slow technological growth, the politics, the lifestyles, and ended in a war that nearly tore our country apart.