Civil War Causes - Slavery

Slavery

The burning issue that led to the disruption of the union (North & South) was the debate over the future of slavery. That dispute led to secession which is to leave or withdraw, in this case, the union of states, and secession brought about a war in which the Northern and Western states and territories fought to preserve the Union, and the South fought to establish Southern independence as a new confederation of states under its own constitution.

The increase in slavery was brought about by an invention that made cotton farming profitable. The Cotton Gin, refined and invented by Eli Whitney in 1794 made taking the seeds out of cotton mechanized. One cotton gin could do the separating work of a dozen slaves. Production soared and turned cotton from one product of many in the South into the cash crop; anywhere it could be grown, it was. Demand for slaves skyrocketed along with it, because the cotton still had to be picked by hand, but could now be processed much quicker, increased the need to grow more cotton. Before Eli Whitney’s invention, cotton production was limited by how fast the cotton fibers could separated from its seeds by hand, which was extremely labor-intensive and time consuming. Until the “gin,” slavery was on the decline in the American Deep South; it simply wasn’t profitable. As a result, more cotton grown, meant more slaves to pick the cotton furthermore slavery and the need for more slaves in the South increased exponentially.

Since the agrarian (farming) South utilized slaves to tend its large plantations and perform other duties by the eve of the Civil War, some 4 million Africans and their descendants toiled as slave laborers in the South. Slavery was interwoven into the Southern economy even though only a relatively small portion of the population (less than 10%) actually owned slaves. Slaves could be rented or traded or sold to pay debts. Ownership of more than a handful of slaves bestowed respect and contributed to social position, and slaves, as the property of individuals and businesses, represented the largest portion of the region’s personal and corporate wealth, as cotton and land prices declined and the price of slaves soared.

The states of the North, meanwhile, one by one had gradually abolished slavery. A steady flow of immigrants, especially from Ireland and Germany during the potato famine of the 1840s and 1850s, insured the North a ready pool of laborers, many of whom could be hired at low wages, diminishing the need to cling to the institution of slavery.

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