The Expansion of Slavery during “ the Rise of the Common Man ”

1. The Expansion of Slavery during “the Rise of the Common Man”

2. Cotton Exports as a Percentage of All U.S. Exports, 1800–1860 After 1800, cotton rapidly emerged as the country’s most important export crop and quickly became the key to American prosperity.

3. Between 1820-1860, cotton fueled the entire American market economy! Southern planters sold the cotton and used the income to purchase goods and services from the North. Northern factories made money by turning raw cotton into cloth and northern merchants profited from shipping the cotton and reshipping the finished textiles. Slavery provided the labor for this American market economy; thus, slavery was a NATIONAL institution that spread its influence throughout the entire nation!

4. Cotton and the American Slave System • An estimated 1 million slaves were sold “down the river” (from Upper South to Lower South) between 1820 and 1860. • In 1850, 55% of all slaves were engaged in cotton growing. • Although more than half of all slave owners owned five slaves or fewer, 75% of all slaves now lived in groups of ten or more.

5. Cotton Production in the South, 1820–1860 Cotton production expanded westward between 1820 and 1860 into Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and western Tennessee.

6. Because slave labor produced the cotton, increasing exports strengthened the slave system itself.

7. Slave Population, 1820–1860 Slavery spread southwestward from the upper South and the eastern seaboard following the spread of cotton cultivation.

8. Field Work and the Gang System of Labor • 75% of slaves worked in the field. • Cotton demanded year-round attention, and slaves (men and women) worked from “can see to can’t see.” • A “prime field hand” could help produce over 100 pounds of cotton a day, and was worth (in terms of property) over $1,000 to the master.

9. Field Work and the Gang System of Labor • “It was rarely that a day passed by without one or more whippings. The delinquent [who had not picked enough cotton] was taken out, stripped, made to lie upon the ground, face downwards, when he received a punishment proportioned to his offence. It is the literal, unvarnished truth, that the crack of the lash, and the shrieking of the slaves, can be heard from dark till bed time…”-former slave Solomon Northup

10. The White Majority • “The pervasive influence of the slave system in the South is reflected in the startling contrast of two facts: two-thirds of all Southerners did not own slaves, yet slave owners dominated the social and political life of the region.” (OM, p. 328) • “From 30 to 50 percent of all southern white people were landless, a proportion similar to that in the North.” (OM, p. 329)

11. Slaveholding and class structure in the South, 1830

12. Free African Americans • By 1860, there were nearly 250,000 free black people living in the (Upper) South. Freedom (manumission) for most dated to before 1800 (b.c. - before cotton). • “Black codes” were passed in the South by state legislatures in the 1830s to ban firearms, ban the purchase of slaves (unless family), allow punishment like a slave (whippings and summary judgments without trial), forbid testimony against whites, hold office, vote, or serve in the militia.

13. Developing Proslavery Arguments • Bible (and other texts) • Histories of Greece and Rome (and other civilizations) • The Constitution! • 3/5 Compromise (Art. I, Sec. 2, Para. 3); • Runaway slave clause (Art. IV, Sec. 2, Para. 3); • International slave trade (Art. I, Sec. 9, Para. 1).

14. And the Constitution (Art. IV, Sec. 4) requires the federal government to come to the aid of any state in the event of “domestic violence.”

15. After Nat Turner • In 1836, southerners introduced the “gag rule” in Congress. • In 1854, George Fitzhugh asserted that “the negro slaves of the South are the happiest, and in some sense, the freest people in the world,” as compared to the northern “wage slaves.” In the North, “selfishness is almost the only motive of human conduct in free society”…whereas in the South, masters and slaves were bound together by a “community of interests.”

16. Developing Proslavery Arguments • …”your whole hireling class of manual laborers and ‘operatives,’ as you call them, are essentially slaves. The difference between us is, that our slaves are hired for life and well compensated; there is no starvation, no begging, no want of employment among our people, and not too much employment either. Yours are hired by the day, not cared for, and scantily compensated…” -Senator James Hammond

17. The Significance of Cotton • Senator James Hammond (SC) in 1858: “Without firing a gun, without drawing a sword, should they make war on us, we could bring the whole world to our feet…What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years?…England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her save the South. No, you dare not to make war on cotton. No power on earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is King.” (OM, p. 314)

18. Resources • http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital_dev/dgkeysearchdetail.cfm?trg=1&strucID=580812&imageID=1231766&total=3&num=0&parent_id=580811&word=&s=&notword=&d=&c=&f=&k=0&sScope=&sLevel=&sLabel=&lword=&lfield=&imgs=20&pos=1&snum=&e=w • http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6726/ • http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h67.html • http://www.loc.gov/shop/index.php?action=cCatalog.showItem&cid=19&scid=101&iid=2931 • http://www.teachushistory.org/second-great-awakening-age-reform/resources/am-i-not-man-brother • http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2958.html • http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1535.html • http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2944.html • http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/Slavery/details.php?categorynum=14&categoryName=&theRecord=28&recordCount=38 • http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h502b.html • http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6808/ • http://www.mhhe.com/socscience/history/usa/david4/graphics/davidson4non/ch13/intex/chap13intex.htm • http://wps.ablongman.com/wps/media/objects/1873/1918111/lwc/dbq/dbq_09.html