Sectionalism – The North, South, and West (1820-1850)



Sectionalism – The North, South, and West (1820-1850)

I. The North

a. Two Areas called the North

i. Northeast

1. New England – Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut

2. Mid-Atlantic – Maryland, Delaware, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania

ii. Old Northwest

1. from Ohio to Minnesota – consisted of six states created out of a portion of the land ceded to facilitate the ratification of the Articles of Confederation

iii. Economy based on:

1. Commercial Farming – Cash crops, livestock, lumber

2. Manufacturing (industrial innovations) – the industrial revolution in America started in the North (reliant on the tariff for protection from foreign competition) - The Market Revolution bought massive social and family structure changes (see DBQ exercise for examples)

iv. Population - most populous section of the country due to high birth rate and increase immigration

b. The Industrial Northeast

i. Labor

1. Urban working conditions

a. Low pay

b. Long hours

c. Unsafe work conditions

2. Reasons Unions Fail or Are Limited in success

a. Periods of economic depression – 1819 (last 6 years) and 1837 (lasted 7 years)

b. Hostility towards Unions – employers and courts attempted to undermine unions (seen as a threat to industrialization)

c. Surplus workers – abundant supply of cheap immigrant labor

ii. Urban Growth – increased from 5% to 15% from 1800 -1850

1. Causes

a. population shifts – displaced farmers (mechanical inventions meant less people needed to farm the same amount of land)

b. immigration – Europeans still coming for cheap land but many become stuck in the cities unable to earn enough to venture West

2. Results

a. Housing shortages

b. Poor sanitation

c. Infectious diseases

d. High crime rate

iii. African-Americans (about 1% of population of the North) –by 1860, 250,000 blacks – they made-up 50% of all free blacks in the U.S.

1. Limitation – caused by racial prejudice – left the majority of blacks economically helpless

a. No vote

b. No or limited land ownership

c. Restricted access to skilled or professional employment

d. Restricted access to unions

2. Rapid decline of slavery – not profitable – despite their prejudice a growing number of northerners were becoming increasingly vocal about their dislike of slavery – it was never profitable in the North because of the reliance on small farms instead of plantations

3. Occupational displacement - due to increased immigration

c. The Agricultural Northwest

i. The Old Northwest (Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota)

1. Internal Unity

a. Successive Indian removal campaigns

2. Regional Unity – tied to the northeast

a. Internal improvements – canals and roads

b. Economic interdependence – they provided markets for each other – the transition from mixed crops to cash crops made those in the Northwest reliant on distant markets (Northeastern cities) for goods once made in the home – home become a center for leisure instead of a place of production.

ii. Agriculture

1. Principle Cash Crops – wheat and corn

2. Labor – the family unit (no need for slaves)

3. crop usage

a. sold East (from 1820 to 1840 agricultural exports from this region increased 25%)

b. feed for family and animals

c. make Whiskey and beer – supplemental income

iii. New Cities (Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, etc.)

1. Function – commercial centers and transit point for goods moving between the Northwest and Northeast

iv. Immigration (1830-1850 – over 4 million immigrants from N. Europe)

1. Reasons people came

a. Transportation – faster and cheaper

b. Conditions at home – famine and revolution

c. Opportunity and freedom – political and financial

v. Irish (half the immigrants – 2 million) – no money to move West

1. Crop failure and famines – potato famines (1840s)

2. Unskilled – took any available job (railroad/canal construction)

3. Catholic – seen as anti-democratic

vi. Germans (over 1 million – 1840s & 1850s) – had skills and money (many move West)

1. Economic and Political Turmoil – poor harvests and failed revolutions

2. Skilled – craftsmen

vii. Nativists – opposed to the number of immigrants coming to America

1. Fears – loss of jobs and a weakening of Anglo-American culture

2. Protestant v. Catholic – seen as under the control of the Pope

*For the future – Nativists became the American Party or

Know-Nothing Party

II. The South – slowly became a closed society as the North was becoming more diverse through immigration

a. The Agricultural Region

i. King Cotton

1. Causes of transition

a. Demands from English textile mills and the cotton gin

b. Increased global demand for cotton cloth

b. The “Peculiar Institution”

i. Land/Slave = wealth

1. slave as property (buy and sell)

2. defense of slavery

a. historical – other societies had it

b. religious – the Bible says it is okay

c. mutual benefit – slaves are better off than wage laborers

ii. Increasing slave population (1 million in 1800 to 4 million by 1860)

1. Increased slave population caused by:

a. Natural reproduction

b. Smuggling – legal importation of slaves ended in 1808

2. Increasingly harsh slave codes – fearful of revolts

c. Slave Economics

i. Slave Labor – majority were field workers

ii. Value – by 1860, cost of field slave between $1,400 -$2,000

iii. Invested in slaves not industrialization – only 10% of U.S. manufacturing in the South

d. Slave Life – all deprived basic freedoms

i. Wide variety of treatment – time, place, age, sex, occupation

ii. Separation of families – used as form of control

e. Slave Resistance

i. Forms

1. subtle – slowing, act ignorant, minor poisoning

2. overt – escape or revolts (Prosser, Vesey, Turner)

f. Free African Americans

i. Freedom – emancipated or self-purchase

ii. Majority lived in urban areas

1. stayed in the South – close to kin network

2. Later black codes required them to leave – challenged the social structures

iii. Restriction

1. no vote

2. limit occupational opportunity

3. legal status – no recognition by the courts

g. White Society

i. Rigid social structure

1. Aristocracy (Planters) – at least 100 slaves and large land holdings

2. Farmers – less than 20 slaves and farmed several hundred acres

a. Only 25% of southern population owned slaves

3. Poor Whites (3/4 of pop.) – owned no slave but supported the institution of slavery

a. subsistence farmers

4. Mountain People – lived in and along the Appalachian and Ozark Mountains (isolated)

a. Disliked the planters and slavery

b. Many stayed loyal to the Union during the Civil War

h. Southern Culture

i. Code of Chivalry – feudalistic in nature

1. Code of Conduct

a. Personal honor

b. Defense of women

c. paternalistic

ii. Education

1. Upper Class – college education desirable

2. Lower Classes – limited to elementary education

3. Slaves – legally prohibited

iii. Religion

1. Methodists/Baptists – supported slavery (split with northern brethren)

2. Unitarians – challenged slavery

3. Catholics and Episcopalians – neutral on slavery

III. The West (the FAR WEST)

a. Native Americans

i. Gradually transplanted by whites

1. by 1850 – majority lived West of the Mississippi River

b. The Frontier West

i. From the Mississippi Rive to the Pacific Coast

1. represented opportunity (a fresh start, escape from the law, debts, or slavery) and also the chance of financial gain

c. The Mountain Men (that’s the Rocky Mountains)

i. Earliest whites (trappers) often intermarried with Indians

ii. Later acted as guides for those on there way to the West coast

d. White Settlers on the Western Frontier

i. life - HARD

1. lived in – log cabins

2. worked – long days

3. slavery – opposed it

ii. death – at an early age

1. disease

2. malnutrition

3. Indians

e. Pioneer Women

i. Occupations – with population growth came opportunity

1. doctors

2. teachers

3. seamstresses

4. cooks

5. farming (w/husband)

ii. Rough life

1. limited – life span

2. constant – childbirth

3. endless – work

f. Environmental Damage – settlers had only a limited understanding of their impact

i. Deforestation – housing and fuel for the cites back east

ii. Soil depletion – crops and cattle grazing slowly wore away the soil

iii. Decimated animal populations (beaver and buffalo) – for furs not food

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