Patrick Burke
Professor Kerr
EN 101-23
5 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 American history. Extensive economic growth was in full swing during this period which led to a surplus of materials which could be sold at cheaper prices (“Ordeal by Fire”). From 1800 to 1850 the gross national product of the United States doubled every fifteen years (“Ordeal by Fire”). This means that the United States was growing into an economic power that would rival even that of Britain. During this period of economic rise, the North was becoming a largely industrial area that dwarfed that of Southern industrial output. While the North industrially dominated the South, Southerners agricultural output of cotton, rice, hemp, and tobacco supplied the North with key raw resources. The Antebellum period was a time of progress for the United States as a budding nation and consisted of three major aspects: cotton, slaves, and industry.
Due to tradition and fertile land, the Black or Cotton Belt, the Southern economy was heavily driven by cotton because as said by James Henry Hammond, “Cotton is king.” (“Agricultural History”) Cotton is a white fluffy substance that is grown from cotton plants. Bolls are picked from the cotton and seeds are then sorted from the bolls by slaves or a cotton gin (“Slavery in the U.S.”). As an export, cotton bolls became highly lucrative resources (“Agricultural History”). This was made manifest from 1800 to 1860 when cottons output was doubled every decade and from 1815 to 1860 when cotton equaled more than half of all American exports (“Ordeal by Fire”). Due to such success in an international market, Southerners needed banks to hold their assets, ships to export their cotton overseas, factories to transform their cotton into textiles, and men to manage the transport and store their cotton. This job was taken on by Northern “factors” who provided these services 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, 100 to 150 million dollars was drained from Southern planters to support the employment of Northern factors (“Ordeal by Fire”). Cotton was king for the South, but it only prospered due to the grueling work of the slaves who served them 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”). A third of all Southerners owned slaves and nearly half of those owned less than 5 slaves (“Ordeal by Fire”). More than half of all slaves were owned by 12 percent of owners (“Ordeal by Fire”). These owners had 20 or more slaves, which distinguishes a plantation from a farm (”Ordeal by Fire”). 75 percent of slaves worked agriculturally in the South and 55 percent of those raised cotton (“Ordeal by Fire’). Slaves raised more than half of the tobacco, three-quarters of the cotton and nearly all of the sugar, hemp, rice, and food crops of the South (“Ordeal by Fire”). Not only was slavery preserved because of its economic benefits it was also sustained for its morale boost for whites (“Slavery in the U.S.”). Northerners and Southerners alike agreed that slavery was wrong but neither wanted it abolished because it allowed all whites to believe that even if they were poor or unsuccessful they were still better than the slaves. America at the 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 bred a new generation of workers who went above and beyond their job requirements and became inventors. Former workers such as Cyrus McCormick and Obed Hussey created the horse-drawn reaper (“Ordeal by Fire”). John and Hiram Pitts left their jobs and invented the horse-drawn thresher (“Ordeal by Fire”). These inventors worked in conjunction with a new age of transportation which turned the North into an industrial power. From 1810 to 1860 the steam boat, canal and railroad eras had peaked this lowered the price index by 40 percent and cost of living by 15 percent (“Ordeal by Fire”). This brought about an age of prosperity and technological advancement.
The Antebellum period was a prosperous yet uneasy time in American history. The North dominated the South through industrial dominance and factoring. The South despised the North for their control and this created a time of a slowly splitting union called 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
Wahl, Jenny “Slavery in the U.S.” Slavery in the United States. 2010, 02 Jan.
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