3.2: 1850-1861: The Road to Succession and the Civil War

1850-1861: The Road to Succession and the Civil War

compromise → secession → civil war

north: new england + mid-atlantic states

  • economy: industrial growth (10-20% of population)

  • majority - 80% still "subsistence" farmers

  • growing cities - urbanization

  • market revolution → buying and selling goods; capitalism

  • emergence of the middle class

  • if you make something people want, you'll make a profit

  • interchangeable parts (eli whitney) - mass production

  • samuel slater - factory system; textiles

  • transportation - national road, railroads, erie canal

  • sources of power - water, steam power

  • women - "lowel system"

  • population of young women who are seeking money; boarding houses built near factories to house girls from farm families

  • women could have a job and make money before they were married

  • independent but protected

  • major inventors - samuel morse, eliase howe, john deere, cyrus mccormick

  • population growth: growing - diverse - dynamic

  • immigration (irish + german) v nativists ("WASPS")

  • political: strong federal government - union

  • whig party - daniel webster

  • old federalists (federalists don't exist post-1812)

south: plantation states + deep south

  • economy: agriculture - cash crops - plantations (1%)

  • "king cotton" - slave economy

  • 1/2 of US wealthy + 2/3 of nation's exports

  • 1/2 of world's cotton + 2/3 of British

  • eli whitney - cotton gin

  • plantation system → "conspicuous consumption"

  • christian patriarchs (fathers - liken to God's care of His children in relation to owners to slaves)

  • ties to northern economy → shipping trade, textile industrialization

  • majority of population → 80% small farmers - no slaves

  • transportation → rivers - steamboats (robert fulton - "fulton's folly")

  • population growth: static, stagnant

  • (as opposed to vibrant, dynamic north - few opportunities for work)

  • little immigration - rigid class system - few industrial jobs

  • difficult for a rags to riches development in South, unlike North

  • "deep south" - slaves outnumbered whites

  • gang labor, house slaves, "drivers", "breakers"

  • drivers → one slave selected to oversee a group out in the field

  • breakers → white men hired by planter to break spirits, punishing for standing up

  • political: states' rights - the right of "nullification"

  • democrats - eg. John C Calhoun

west: central and northwestern states + new territories

  • economy: agriculture

  • cash crops - grains (breadbasket)

  • subsistence, frontier like

  • germans - "model farms" - dairy

  • population growth: westward expansion, growth

  • "safety valve" - new life, opportunities

  • pioneers + immigrants → new land, cheap land

  • new immigrants, germans, model farms

  • manifest destiny - us duty to spread across nation to Pacific Ocean ("God-given duty")

  • Indigenous wars - mexican-american war - treaty of guadalupe-hidalgo

  • california gold rush - 49ers

  • political: use of federal government to support their interests

  • sided with north: strong national government > individual will

  • sided with south: states' rights - western land

  • democrats: henry clay, stephen douglas