The Antebellum Economy, revised second draft

Patrick Burke

Professor Kerr

EN 101-23

12 September 2011

The Antebellum Economy

            The Antebellum period was a time of extensive growth that was the pre-cursor to one of the most brutal wars in the history of American. Extensive economic growth was in full swing during this period which was to lead to a surplus of materials that could be sold at cheaper prices (“Ordeal by Fire”). From 1800 to 1850 the gross national product for America would double in size every fifteen years (“Ordeal by Fire”). This meant that America was growing into an economic power that would rival even that of the powerful British Empire. During this period of prosperity, the Northern states were becoming a largely industrialized area. This would dominate and dwarf that of the Southern states and leave their industrial output diminished by comparison. While the Northern industry may have out produced the South, it was the Southerners agricultural abundance of cotton, hemp, and tobacco that supplied the North with the key raw materials that they required to become so prosperous. The Antebellum period was a time of progress for America as a budding nation and was comprised of three major aspects, cotton, slaves, and industrial production.

            In the agricultural South due to farming tradition and fertile land, the Black or Cotton Belt, allowed the Southern economy to be heavily driven by cotton crops. This was noted when James Henry Hammond remarked that, “Cotton is king.” (“Agricultural History”). Cotton plants produce a white fluffy substance called a boll that would be hand-picked in the fields using slave labor. After picking the bolls, the seeds would either have to be removed by hand or through the use of the cotton gin (“Slavery in the U.S.”). As an export, cotton bolls were to become a highly lucrative resource (“Agricultural History”). This was never more evident than from 1800 to 1860 when the cotton output was doubled every decade. From the period of 1815 to 1860, cotton equaled more than half of all American exports (“Ordeal by Fire”). Due to such financial success in an international market, Southerners found that they needed to do four things. They required banks to hold their assets, ships to export their cotton overseas, factories to transform their cotton into textiles, and lastly men to manage the transportation and storage of their cotton. This job was taken on by Northern “factors” who provided these services and infrastructure at the expense of their Southern employers (“Ordeal by Fire”). Northerners dominated the movement of cotton and gained a staggering profit off of the success of the Southern economy. During the late Antebellum period, an estimated 100 to 150 million dollars in profits were drained from Southern planters to support the employment of Northern factors (“Ordeal by Fire”). Cotton may have been king for the South, but it only prospered due to the grueling work of the slaves who served their Southern masters doggedly (“Slavery in the U.S.”).

            The South produced seventy-five percent of its cotton and a multitude of its goods through, as Southerners so eloquently put it, the “necessary evil” of slavery (“Ordeal by Fire”). During this period  a third of all Southerners may have owned slaves and yet out of those nearly half of them owned less than five slaves per household (“Ordeal by Fire”). In total nearly half of all slaves were owned by less than twelve percent of slave owners (“Ordeal by Fire”). For these owners who had twenty 20 or more slaves as personal property, it  gave them the distinction of being considered a plantation versus that of an ordinary farm (”Ordeal by Fire”). Seventy-five percent of slaves worked agriculturally in the South and out of those fifty-five percent (“Ordeal by Fire”). It was slave labor that raised more than half of the tobacco crop, three-quarters of the cotton and nearly all of the sugar, hemp, rice, and food crops for the South (“Ordeal by Fire”). Not only was slavery preserved because of its economic benefits during this era but it was also sustained for its morale boost for the white population (“Slavery in the U.S.”). Northerners and Southerners alike agreed that slavery was wrong but neither wanted it abolished because it allowed the whites to believe that even if they were poor or unsuccessful they were still better off and superior to the slaves. America at this time, was said to be a Herrenvolk democracy based on white supremacy (“Ordeal by Fire”). The South also brought up the argument of wage slaves versus slaves because they believed that Northern industry was more detrimental to its workers than Southern planting was to slaves (“Ordeal by Fire”).

            Northern industrial supremacy was chiefly achieved due to the education of workers, advancements in technology, and inventive nature of its workers. Northern workers may have done incredibly repetitive work, but were given subsistent pay unlike Southern slaves (“Ordeal by Fire”). Northern workers achieved this level of pay by attending new public schools. This new form of schooling was created by Horace Mann and allowed education up to the eighth grade (“Ordeal by Fire”). This fostered a new generation of workers who went above and beyond their job requirements and became creative innovators. For example former workers such as Cyrus McCormick and Obed Hussey would go on to create the horse-drawn reaper (“Ordeal by Fire”). John and Hiram Pitts left their paying jobs and pursued the invention of the horse-drawn thresher (“Ordeal by Fire”). These inventors worked in conjunction with a new age of transportation which helped to turn the North into an industrial power. From 1810 to 1860 the steam boat, canal, and railroad eras were at their peak. This in turn led to the lowering of the price index by forty percent and cost of living by fifteen percent (“Ordeal by Fire”). This was to bring about an age of prosperity and technological advancement that greatly influenced the period.

            The Antebellum period was a prosperous, uneasy, and unequal time in American history. Due to the North’s strong controls over the South through industrial dominance and factoring. Over time the South would grow to despise the North for their control and this would contribute to the slow splintering of the country. Ultimately this lead to civil strife and the end of what was known as the Antebellum period.  

Works Cited

McPherson, James and Hogue, James “Ordeal by Fire” Ordeal by Fire Civil War and Reconstruction Fourth Edition

Oyangen, Knut “Agricultural History” Iowa State University Center for Agricultural History and Rural Studies

http://www.history.iastate.edu/agprimer/Page28.html

Wahl, Jenny “Slavery in the U.S.” Slavery in the United States. 2010, 02 Jan.

 http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/wahl.slavery.us