For many years the North and the South tried to live in harmony even though they had opposing views.
The North was slowly growing a strong hate for slavery while the South strongly depended on it. So for years they try to avoided confrontation, but the question of slavery still threatened to divide them. You see this in the Missouri Compromise – Maine would enter as a free state and Missouri would enter as a slave state, but in the rest of the Louisiana Territory north of 36’30° slavery was prohibited. After a while both states interpretations were way too different to live under the same roof.Each side felt like they had a strong argument, the North feeling like slavery was unjust and the South feeling it does well for the institution. In the late 1700s slavery was seen as something that was soon going to die out.
This soon took a turn in in 1793 when Eli Whitney created the cotton gin. The cotton gin separated short- cotton from its seeds efficiently. The South became very dependent on this, giving them more of a reason to have slaves. William Harper felt the abolishment of slavery would put an end to the cultivation of the great Southern staple (Doc B).The South is made up of large plantations giving a great need for cheap labor.
Letting go of slavery would be very hard considering they had many inventions of laborsaving devices such as, the water frame and the cotton gin, which made the plantation system more profitable and increased the demand for slaves. Slaveholders’ traditional claim was that blacks were happy and content in bondage. They claimed that slaves were treated better in the South than were white workers in Northern factories. Slaveholders also felt that the comforts of slaves are greatly superior to those of the English operatives (Doc A).
It’s seen a lot that for the South, white racial superiority was used to justified slavery because slavery was a “positive social good”. As most of the South saw it, all social systems need a class (the blacks) to do the menial, hard, dull jobs that requires little intelligence and skills so that the other class (the whites; the superior race) leads progress, civilization, and refinement . For the South the blacks were well equipped for such conditions to do the menial jobs, so therefore used them to their advantage and just happen to call them slaves.White superiority was made clear, like in the picture in Document C; a black slave nurse is holding their slave master, a white baby. Other Sothern’s used a more secular approach to justify slavery.
Such as Virginia reverend Thornton Stringfellow who cited biblical passages In Genesis xvii, furthermore, according to Stringfellow, “Jesus Christ has not abolished slavery by a prohibitory command. ” Abolishment of slavery would be a great devastation for the South. The North in the early 1800s have been steering more toward Industrialization.The states invested in roads, canals and railroads whereas the South stayed rural. The national road and the Erie Canal were two great developments for the North. New technology reduced travel time and shipping greatly, stimulating the economy.
The North soon had very little use for slaves and slavery slowly converted into indentured servants. Slavery was out-lawed in every state north of the Ohio River. Many Northerners started to grow a strong animosity toward slavery. Many abolitionists began denouncing slavery as a national sin and just morally wrong.
In the mid-1850s Northerners were less willing to compromise. As seen in Abraham Lincoln’s speech in 1854 he felt the South was, “undermining the principles of progress and fatally violating the noblest political system the world ever saw,” (Doc D). Many Northerners felt slavery was no good for the current economy and for the progression of America. Many agreed that we must start to feed on a more substantial diet than that of proslavery politics and start infusing the spirit of liberty into all of our systems of commerce, agriculture, manufactures, government, literature and religion (Doc E).
Many slaves soon revolted and started to speak out against the horrors of slavery. Some gave speeches, others wrote books and plenty listened. Like when the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published 135,000 sets, 270,000 volumes were sold according to Document F. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is an anti-slavery novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe and this book attributed to laying the ground works for the Civil War. Through this many Northerners started to see the true colors of slavery and realized how greatly slaves uffered from violence, abuse, separation, depression, labor, rape, nightmares, the threat of death and death itself.
This only proved and increased the disgust toward slavery. Even politicians were greatly involved such as the Free Soil Party and organized bodies started to form like, the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, the American Colonization Society and the New York Manumission Society. The North declared that all men were born free and equal. The North and South became increasingly alienated and soon neither was willing to compromise over the issue of slavery.In result when Abraham Lincoln, who was anti-slavery, was elected president in 1860, Civil War soon broke out in 1861.
America’s long debated over slavery and was now finally settled by violence and bloodshed. It was the Confederates (the South) versus the Union (the North) and in 1865 the Union had finally won. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in 1865. Slavery had become a thing of the past.
Even though for years the North and South tried to compromise, the distinction became too apparent.The opinions on slavery were completely different. The North saw slavery as useless, horrible and as something that needed to be stopped. The South saw it as necessary, completely justified and as something that need to be continued. In the end the North was victorious.
The North’s views were forced upon the South through the Thirteenth Amendment which completely ended slavery. It goes to show that unity is hard to keep with two entirely different views and ways of life.
