The
Affect that Slavery had on Northern and Sothern Society
The slave era in the United
States was a time of dehumanization and commodification. Slavery majorly shaped
the United States economically, socially, and politically. The American agricultural
South depended heavily on free slave labor. Socially, owning slaves had become
viewed as a symbol of wealth and power. Southern politics were focused mainly
around the idea of fighting for slave-owners rights and the overall rights of
slavery. These factors that underlined the American South soon created tension
between the southerners and the less slave-using northerners. Southern society
had become defined by slavery and because of this, northern society had become
defined by the fact that they were against slavery.
Beginning as early as the
beginning of the nineteenth century, slavery began to separate the North and
the South. With slavery being as engraved into southern society as it was, even
the leaders of the South who viewed slavery as a bad thing could do nothing to
prevent it. “The antebellum South was a slave society, not merely a society in
which some people were slaves, few areas of life there escaped the touch of the
peculiar institution” [1]. The antebellum South was a very economically agricultural
driven society, and without the use of technology that farmers have today, the southerners
resulted to slave labor. This profit driven system led to much more than just
economic success for the southern states. Slavery began to mold southern
society. It is human nature to want to be as powerful as one possibly can be
and this was no different in the antebellum South. To southerners, owning
slaves was a statement of wealth and power. The more slaves one owned normally
meant that person owned more land and therefore was wealthier. With the
increase in agricultural need from the South as the United States grew as a
country, the need for slaves increased as well. This increased necessity led to
the slave market being one of the greatest commodity markets in the southern
United States.
As the South continued to
grow in size and agricultural power, the North continued to grow in a much more
urban direction. Unlike the Antebellum South, the Antebellum North was based
off of an economic system of manufacturing and commerce. This differed from the
South, “the distinctive character of the slave economy is perhaps nowhere more
evident than in the lack of southern urbanization” [2]. The slave system had
utterly derailed the modernization and advancement of urbanization in the
Antebellum South. This was due to the difficulty in controlling slaves in an
urban setting. Urban areas offered slaves an open chance to see and interact
with not only other slaves, but free people other than their owners and
plantation workers. This allowed slaves to see first-hand what they were
missing. It also allowed slaves much more freedom than the plantation slaves
had. As Frederick Douglass noted, “A city slave is almost a freeman, compared
with a slave on the plantation” [3]. This dynamic created a huge difference
between the Antebellum North and South. The South viewed slavery as a necessity
in their own society. The North however, did not have the same need for slavery,
but viewed slavery as a far-off idea used by the less advanced southerners.
With the increase of
slave labor in the South, but the lack thereof in the North, friction began to
evolve between the two societies. Slavery was obviously morally wrong to the
people who saw the inhumane treatment of the slaves and the system they were
forced into, especially the non-slave owning northerners. As Kolchin explained,
“By the eve of the Civil War, slavery virtually defined the South to both southerners
and northerners; to be “anti-southern” in the political lexicon of the era
meant to be anti-slavery, to be “pro-southern” meant to be pro-slavery” [4].
The United States had become a country based on slavery. Northern politics had
become a contest of candidates that fought against slavery. southern politics
had become the exact opposite and candidates promised to fight for the
continuation of slavery. This new evolvement of politics pinned one half of the
country against the other. The United States was rapidly becoming a country
divided. A country that had been created on the idea that all men were created
equal, was now feeling the wrath of the hypocritical nature of the exact idea
that it was founded on.
Not all southerners felt
so fondly about the idea of slavery. Many people in the South did not own
slaves and therefore found themselves socially, politically, and economically
out of the loop. As Kolchin explains, “Like free blacks, these non-slaveholding
whites were in a sense an anomaly in a slave society whose most important
social relation was that between master and slave” [5]. This caused two major things
to happen. The first being the craving to acquire slaves by many of the
non-slave owning southerners. This was caused by the fact that nearly all of
the powerful southerners did indeed own slaves. The other factor that slavery
caused in reference to non-slave owning southerners was resistance of the
system that they themselves lived in. Slave owners saw this and, “had to be
concerned not only with the loyalty of their slaves but also with that of their
non-slaveholding white neighbors” [6]. Slavery had now not only pinned the
slaves against the white slave-owning men, but had pinned fellow white men
against them as well.
With this friction between
the North and South, the southern states of the United States attempted to secede
from the northern states, and thus the Civil War was born. However, the Civil
War did not begin as a war against slavery, “The civil War began as a war for –
and against – southern independence” [7]. With the advancement of the Civil
War, President Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation that declared
all northern slaves free. Southern slaves seeing this, faced a tough decision,
to try to escape or to stay and work for a society they hated. Over five
hundred thousand slaves escaped to the free North [8]. This new evolvement of
slaves escaping began to turn a war about the North and the South into a war
about slavery. Slaves were using the circumstances that the country was in
against their owners and were taking their lives into their own hands. Again,
slavery had become the main topic in one of the largest events in the United
States history.
By the nineteenth century
the United States had become a society based on the idea of slavery and its
implications politically, socially, and economically. Slavery had pinned the northern
and southern halves of the country against each other. The people of the United
States had become defined by the idea of owning slaves. In the South, the idea
of power and influence caused a necessity for slave ownership. The North
however, due to its lack of necessity for slaves, fought against the South and
were defined by their push against the institution of slavery. Regardless of
whether a person was for or against the idea, slavery had become the main issue
that defined almost every person and issue in the United States.
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