I. The rise of "King Cotton"
    A. Prior to 1793, the Southern economy was weak: depressed prices, unmarketable
        products, overcropped lands, and an unprofitable slave system.
        -- Some leaders, such as Jefferson (who freed 10% of his slaves), spoke of freeing their
            their slaves and of slavery gradually dying; "We have a wolf by the ears"
    B. Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin (1793)
        1. Impact: Cotton production now profitable; 50x more effective than picking cotton by hand.
            a. Tobacco, rice, and sugar eventually eclipsed in production
            b. Most significantly, slavery reinvigorated
            c. Prior, handpicking one lb. from 3 lb. of cotton took one slave an entire day.
        2. Cotton Kingdom developed into a huge agricultural factory
            a. Western expansion into lower gulf states resulted (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama)
            b. Slaves brought into new regions to cultivate cotton.
    C. Trade
        1. Cotton exported to England; $ from sale of cotton used to buy northern goods
            -- Britain heavily dependent on cotton to feed its textile factories (80% came from U.S.)
        2. For a time, prosperity of both North and South rested on slave labor
        3. Cotton accounted for 50% of all American exports after 1840.
            -- South produced 75% of world’s cotton.

II. The Three Souths
    A. Generalizations
        1. The further North, the cooler the climate, the fewer the slaves, and the lower
            the commitment to perpetuating bondage.
        2. The further South, the warmer the climate, the more the slaves, and the higher
            the commitment to perpetuating bondage.
        3. Mountain whites along Appalachian Mountains would mostly side w/ Union
            -- W. Virginia, E. Tennessee, NE Kentucky, W. South Carolina, N. Georgia &
                Alabama.
        4. Southward flow of slaves (from sales) continued from 1790 to 1860
        5. Not a unified South except on unity resulting from outside interference (federal gov’t)
    B. Border South: Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, & Missouri
        1. Plantations scarcer; cotton cultivation almost nonexistent; Tobacco main slave crop (as
            in Middle South); More grain production (as in Middle South)
        2. Unionists would overcome Disunionists during and after the Civil War.
        3. 1850, Slaves = 17% of population.; Avg. 5 slaves per slaveholder
        4. 1850, over 21% of Border South’s blacks free; 46% of South’s free blacks
        5. 22% of white families owned slaves
        6. Of all who owned more than 20 slaves in South: 6%; Ultra-wealthy = 1%
        7. Produced over 50% of South’s industrial products (e.g., Tredegar Iron Works in VA)
    C. Middle South: Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas.
        1. Each state had one section resembling more the Border South and another
            resembling the Lower South.
            -- Some industrial production: e.g., Tredegar Iron Works in VA used slave labor
        2. Unionists would prevail after Lincoln elected; Disunionists would prevail after war began
        3. Many plantations in eastern Virginia and western Tennessee
        4. 1850, slaves = 30% of population; Avg. 8 slaves per slaveholder
        5. 36% of white families owned slaves
        6. Of all who owned more than 20 slaves in South: 32%; Ultra-wealthy = 14%
    D. Lower South: South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas
        -- Most slaves concentrated in the "black belt" of the Deep South along river valleys
        1. Plantations prevalent; cotton was king; grew 95% of Dixie’s cotton & almost all
            of its sugar, rice, and indigo.
        2. Disunionists (secessionists) would prevail after Lincoln was elected
        3. 1850, slaves = 47% of population; Avg. 12 slaves per slaveholder
        4. Less than 2% of blacks free; only 15% of South’s free blacks
        5. 43% of white families owned slaves
        6. Of all who owned more than 20 slaves in South: 62%; Ultra-wealthy = 85%
        7. Produced less than 20% of South’s industrial products

III. The Planter "Aristocracy"
    A. South an oligarchy -- Ruled by wealthy plantation owners
        1. 1850, only 1,733 families owned more than 100 slaves; yet dominated southern politics
        2. Strong sense of obligation to serve the public through politics
            -- Higher proportion of front-rank statesmen produced by South (e.g., Calhoun)
        3. Stifled democracy, widened gap between rich & poor, and hampered public
            education (planters sent kids to private schools)
        4. Chivalry, honor, hospitality, soft-spoken, courteous; yet high-strung
        5. Carried on "cavalier" tradition of early Virginia; reflected in its military academies.
        6. Sought to perpetuate medievalism (feudalism) that had died out in Europe.

IV. Slaves and the slave system (the "Peculiar Institution")
    A. Economic structure of South was monopolistic, dominitate by wealthy plantation owners
    B. Plantation system
        1. Risky : Slaves might die of disease, injure themselves, or run away.
            -- System required heavy investment of capital
        2. One-crop economy
            a. Discouraged a diversification of agriculture and esp. manufacturing
            b. Southerners resentful the North made huge profits at their expense
                -- Complained of northern middlemen, bankers, agents, & shippers
            c. Resented being so dependent on northern manufactures & markets
        3. Repelled large-scale European immigration
            a. Only 4.4% of foreign-born part of South’s pop. in 1860; 18.7% in North.
            b. Slave labor far cheaper, fertile land very expensive, & Europeans unfamiliar
                with cotton production.
            c. South most Anglo-Saxon region of nation
    C. Plantation slavery
        1. Nearly 4 million slaves by 1860; quadrupled in number since 1800
            a. Legal imports of slaves ended in 1808
                -- Countless slaves smuggled in despite death penalty for slavers
            b. Increase due to natural reproduction
                i. Over-breeding of slaves not encouraged
                    -- Owners still often rewarded slave women for many children
                ii. White slaveowners often fathered sizable mulatto population.
                    -- Most remained slaves
        2. Slaves seen as valuable assets and primary source of wealth
            a. Slave auctions one of most revolting aspects of slavery
                i. Families often separated: division of property, bankruptcy
                ii Slavery’s greatest psychological horror
        3. Punishment often brutal to send a message to other slaves not to defy master’s authority
        4. Life in the newly emerging western areas particularly harsh (LA, TX, MS, AL)
        5. Afro-American slave culture developed
    D. Burdens of slavery
        1. Slaves deprived of dignity and sense of responsibility that free people have, suffered cruel
            physical and psychological treatment, and were ultimately convinced that they were inferior
            and deserved their lot in life.
        2. Denied an education since; seen as dangerous to give slaves ideas of freedom
        3. Slaves often insidiously sabotaged their master’s system
            -- Poisoned food, supplies often missing, equipment often broken, slow work.
        4. Many attempted to escape
            -- Some success in Border South; next to impossible in Lower South
    E. Slave Revolts
        1. Stono Rebellion, 1739
            -- South Carolina slaves fled toward Florida killing whites along way; did not make it.
        2. Gabriel Prosser, 1800
            a. Slave blacksmith in VA who planned a military slave revolt; recruited 150 men
            b. Rebellion did not materialize and Prosser and 26 others were hanged.
        3. Denmark Vesey, a mulatto in Charleston, devised the largest revolt ever in 1822.
            a. A slave informer advised his master of the plot
            b. Vesey and 30 others publicly hanged
        4. Nat Turner’s revolt -- 1831
            a. Sixty Virginians slaughtered, mostly children and women
                i. Wave of killing slowed down revolt’s aim of capturing armory
                ii. Largest slave revolt ever in the South
            b. Over 100 slaves were killed in response; Turner was hanged.
            c. Significance: Produced a wave of anxiety among southern plantation owners
              that resulted in harsh laws clamping down further on the slave institution.
    F. Southern white paranoia
        1. Feared more reprisals by slaves (like Nat Turner’s revolt)
        2. Infuriated by abolitionist propaganda in the North they saw as enflaming slaves.
        3. Settled into a theory of biological racial superiority as a justification for slavery.

V. The White Majority
    A. By 1860, only 1/4 of white southerners owned slaves or belonged to slave-owning families
        1. Over 2/3 of slave owners owned less than ten slaves each.
        2. Small slaveowners made up a majority of masters.
    B. 75% of white southerners owned no slaves at all.
        1. Located predominantly in the backcountry and the mountain valleys.
        2. Mostly subsistence farmers; didn’t participate in market economy.
        3. Raised corn, hogs
        4. Some of the poorest known as "white trash", "hillbillies", "crackers", "clay eaters"
            -- Suffered from malnutrition & parasites esp. hookworm.
        5. Fiercely defended the slave system as it proved white superiority
            a. Poor whites took comfort that they were "equal" to wealthy neighbors
            b. Social status was determined by how many slaves one owned: poor Southern whites
                someday hoped to own slaves and realize the "American dream."
            c. Slavery proved effective in controlling blacks; ending slavery might result in the mixing of
                the races and black competing with whites for work..
    C. Mountain whites
        1. Lived in the valleys of the Appalachian range from W. Virginia to northern. GA & AL
        2. Independent small farmers 100’s of miles from the cotton kingdom.
        3. Lived in rough frontier environment
        4. Hated wealthy planters and slaves.
        5. During Civil War were Unionist; significant in crippling Confederacy

VI. Free Blacks
    A. Numbered about 250,000 in the South by 1860
        1. In Border South, emancipation from revolutionary days increased
        2. In Lower South, many free blacks were mulattos (white father, black mother)
        3. Some had purchased their freedom with earnings from labor after hours.
        4. Some owned property; New Orleans had a sizable prosperous mulatto community.
            -- A few even owned slaves (although this was rare)
    B. Discrimination in the South
        1. Prohibited from certain occupations and from testifying against whites in court.
        2. Always in danger of being forced back into slavery by slave traders.
        3. Became a fearful symbol of what might be achieved by emancipation
    C. Discrimination in the North
        1. Blacks also numbered about 250,000
        2. Some states forbade their entrance or denied them public education
        3. Most states denied them suffrage
        4. Some states segregated blacks in public facilities.
        5. Especially hated by Irish immigrants with whom they competed with for jobs.
        6. Much of Northern sentiment against spread of slavery into new territories due
            to intense race prejudice, not humanitarianism.
            -- Antiblack feeling frequently stronger in the North than in the South

VII. Early Abolitionism
Definition: Abolitionism: Movement in the North that demanded the immediate end of slavery
    A. First abolitionist movements began around the time of the Revolution esp. Quakers
        -- Some of these movements focused on transporting blacks back to Africa.
    B. American colonization Society
        1. Founded in 1817 to create practical solution vis-à-vis free blacks if slavery was ended.
            -- Recolonization was the solution: supported by many prominent Northerners and
                Southerners who were afraid that manumission would create a surplus of
                free blacks in American society.
        2. Republic of Liberia established W. African Coast for former slaves in 1822.
            a. 15,000 freed blacks transported over next four decades
            b. Most blacks did not wish to be transplanted in an unfamiliar environment
                i. Believed they were part of America’s growth; had American culture
                ii. By 1860, virtually all southern slaves were native-born Americans
        3. Colonization appealed to most Northerners and some antislaveryites (including Lincoln)
            who believed that blacks and whites could not coexist in a free society.
            a. Some feared a mongrelization of the white race.
            b. Others thought blacks inferior, did not want them in large #’s in their states.
    C. Abolitionists in the 1830s
        1. Second Great Awakening convinced abolitionists of the sin of slavery.
        2. Abolitionists inspired that Britain emancipated their slaves in the West Indies in 1833
    D. Radical Abolitionism
        1. William Lloyd Garrison
            a. Published 1st issue of his Liberator, a militant antislavery newspaper in Boston in1831
            b. Demanded "virtuous" North secede from the "wicked" South.
                i. Yet, never explained how such an act would end southern slavery.
                ii. Criticized by even some of his followers for offering no solution.
            c. Inspired dedicated abolitionists to found the American Anti-Slavery Society
        2. American Anti-Slavery Society
            a. Theodore Dwight Weld
                i. Evangelized by Charles Grandison Finney in NY’s Burned-Over District in 1820s and
                    appealed to rural audiences of uneducated farmers
                ii. Traveled with his followers, preaching abolitionism in Old Northwest
                iii. American Slavery As It Is (1839): Among most effective abolitionist writings
                vi. Married Angelina Grimke, a southern abolitionist.
            b. Wendell Phillips -- ostracized Boston patrician; "abolition’s golden trumpet"
                i. Perhaps most important abolitionist; major impact on politics during
                    the Civil War for emancipation.
                ii. One of the finest orators of the 19th century.
                iii. Product of the Puritanical fervor of the 2nd Great Awakening.
                iv. Followed Garrison’s views until political reason took him in new direction
                    in 1860s.
            c. Angelina and Sarah Grimke
                i. Only white southern women to become leading abolitionists
                ii. Also involved in women’s rights.
                iii. Angelina married to Theodore Weld; Sarah remained part of their household
            d. Arthur and Lewis Tappan - wealthy New York silk merchants.
                -- Funded the society as well as the Liberator, the Lane Seminary in Cincinnati,
                    and Oberlin College.
            e. Organization would eventually split along gender lines; women’s rights issues
        3. David Walker -- Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1829)
                -- Advocated bloody end to white supremacy.
        4. Sojourner Truth: Freed black woman in NY; fought for emancipation & women’s rights
        5. Elijah Lovejoy: Militant editor of antislavery newspaper in Illinois.
            a. Printing press destroyed four times; 4th time press thrown into a river and
                Lovejoy was killed by a mob who promptly burned his warehouse.
            b. Became an abolitionist martyr
        6. Martin Delaney
            -- One of few blacks to seriously advocate black mass recolonization in Africa.
        7. Frederick Douglass
            a. Greatest of the black abolitionists
                -- Published The North Star, his own abolitionist newspaper.
            b. Former slave who escaped slavery at age 21.
            c. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
                -- Depicted his life as a slave, his struggle to read & write & his escape to North.
            d. Flexibly practical (in contrast to Garrison who was stubbornly principled)
            e. Looked to politics to end slavery.
                -- Backed the Liberty party in 1840 and the Republican party in the 1850s.
        8. Eventually, most abolitionists (including pacifist Garrison) would support the Civil
            War to end slavery.

VIII. Southern Reprisals
    A. In 1820s, southern antislavery societies outnumbered northern ones.
    B. After 1830s , white southern abolitionism was silenced
    C. Causes of southern concern
        1. Nat Turner’s revolt coincided with Garrisons Liberator.
            a. South sensed a northern conspiracy and called Garrison a terrorist.
            b. Georgia offered $5,000 for his arrest and conviction
        2. Nullification Crisis of 1832
            a. Gave southerners haunting fears of northern federally supported abolitionist
                radicals inciting wholesale murder in the South.
            b. Jailings, whippings, and lynchings of anti-slavery whites emerged
        3. Increasing abolitionist literature that flooded southern mails.
     D.    Abolitonist literature banned in the Southern mails
            -- Federal gov't ordered southern postmasters to destroy abolitionist materials
                and to arrest federal postmasters who did not comply.
    E. Pro-slavery whites responded by launching a massive defense of slavery as a positive good.
        1. Slavery supported by the Bible (Genesis) and Aristotle (slavery existed in ancient Greece).
        2. It was good for barbarous Africans who were civilized and Christianized
        3. Master-slave relationships resembled those of a "family."
        4. George Fitzhugh -- most famous of pro-slavery apologists
            a. Contrasted happiness of their slaves with the overworked northern wage slaves.
            b. Fresh air in the south as opposed to stuffy factories
            c. Full employment for blacks
            d. Slaves cared for in sickness and old age unlike northern workers.
    F. "gag resolution" -- 1836, southerners drove it through Congress
        1. All antislavery appeals in Congress to be ended without debate; antislavery petitions also
            prohibited
            -- Seen by northerners as a threat to the 1st Amendment
        2. Rep. John Quincy. Adams waged a successful 8-year fight against it; repealed in 1844
        3. (Banning of antislavery materials in the mails was a separate issue)

IX. Abolitionist impact in the North
    A. Abolitionists, esp. Garrison, were unpopular in many parts of the North.
        1. Northerners brought up to revere the Constitution; slavery was protected and part of
            a lasting bargain.
        2. Ideal of Union (advocated by Webster & others) had taken deep root; Garrison’s
            pleas to disunite was seen as dangerously radical.
        3. North dependent on the South for economic well-being
            a. Northern bankers owed by southern planters; about $300 million
            b. New England mills fed by southern cotton.
    B. Many mob outbursts in response to extreme abolitionists
        1. Lewis Tappan’s NY house ran-sacked in 1834 to a cheering crowd.
        2. 1835, Garrison dragged through the streets of Boston with a rope tied around him.
        3. Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy killed
    C. Ambitious politicians avoided abolitionists (e.g., Lincoln) – abolitionism was political suicide
    D. By 1850, abolitionism had had a deep effect on the Northern psyche.
        1. Many saw slavery as unjust, undemocratic, and barbaric.
        2. Many opposed extending slavery to the newly acquired territories.
            -- "Free-soilers" swelled their ranks during the 1850s.

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