Unit 4: Topic 13 - The Society of the South in the Early Republic

Question 1

What percentage of white southerners were slave owners in the first half of the 1800s?

Answer 1

According to this data from 1850, 25% of white southerners owned slaves with only 0.6% owning 50 or more.

This led to a large white population in the South that was quite poor. They either aspired to own slaves one day or resented the economic competition as unpaid slave labor brought down the wages of free people.

Question 2

How did wealthy plantation owners consolidate and maintain their power?

Answer 2

Plantation owners
- disproportionate power because the 3/5’s Compromise in the U.S. Constitution resulted in additional slave-owning Representatives in Congress
- hired poor whites for work
- used their resources to transport crops of small-time farmers to the market
- made white society dependent on themselves (political power, social power, white supremacist beliefs)

Question 3

How did southern leaders in the early 1800s justify slavery?

Answer 3

Southern leaders claimed it was part of the Southern way of life and a “positive good”. Leaders such as Vice President John C. Calhoun argued that slaves were happy and well-taken care of on Southern plantations, unlike factory workers in the North who were easily fired and often lived in poverty.

Obviously, this argument was ridiculous to most Northerners. While some workers in the North had poor living conditions, they did have their own freedom.

Question 4

Define “Cotton Kingdom”.

Answer 4

“Cotton Kingdom” refers to the South’s reliance on a single cash crop to be exported across the globe.

This economic reliance on cotton made it so that nearly the entire South was involved in slavery and cotton production in some way. The sprawling agricultural plantation system defined the entire southern region.

Question 5

How did slavery advance further west during the 1800’s?

Answer 5

As the cotton gin made slavery immensely profitable, the economy of the South shifted even further towards the single-minded focus on cotton. Eventually running out of arable land, plantation owners looked to expand West of the Appalachian Mountains to increase their profits and further spread the institution of slavery.

Southern cotton accounted for an estimated 80% of the global supply and was used in textile mills everywhere. The North as well as many other countries benefited directly from slavery.