Cotton and Slavery

1

• Cotton and Slavery
• 1815-1848

2
The Cotton Gin

• The invention of cotton gin in 1793 made
  short-staple cotton profitable.
• Thereafter, cotton and slavery began to expand -
  from the Atlantic Coast to Texas.

3
Cotton Production in the South, 18201860

• Cotton production expanded westward between 1820
  and 1860 into Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana,
  Texas, Arkansas, and western Tennessee.

4
Cotton Production

• In 1800, the U.S. produced 73,000 bales of
  cotton.
• By 1820, cotton accounted for 39 of all American
  exports.
• By 1840, cotton accounted for 52 of U.S.
  exports.
• By 1860, cotton accounted for 58 of all American
  exports and 75 of the worlds entire supply of
  cotton.

5
Cotton Exports as a Percentage of All U.S.
Exports, 18001860

• After 1800, cotton rapidly emerged as the
  countrys most important export crop and quickly
  became the key to American prosperity.

6
Between 1820-1860, cotton fueled the entire
American market economy!

• Southern planters sold the cotton and used the
  income to purchase supplies from the West and
  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!
7
Because slave labor produced the cotton,
increasing exports strengthened the slave system
itself.
8
Slave Population, 18201860

• Slavery spread southwestward from the upper South
  and the eastern seaboard following the spread of
  cotton cultivation.

9

• In 1820, cotton production and slavery was
  concentrated in the upper south.
• By 1860, cotton production and slavery had spread
  to the lower south.
• From the 1840s forward, cotton production made
  the southern economy stronger and wealthier than
  the northern economy.

10
As slavery grew in the South, so did what many
Northerners called The Slave Power.

• The planter aristocracy - a very small percent of
  southern society - controlled the social,
  political, and economic power of the south.
• From the first presidential election to the
  election of Lincoln, Southerners controlled the
  national government most of the time.
• The South held disproportionate political power
  under the Constitution.
• From 1800-1860 when the Democrats were the
  predominate political party - the party of states
  rights - they used their power to pass federal
  laws designed to strength slavery as a national
  institution.

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The planter aristocracy - a small percent of
southern society - controlled the social,
political, and economic power of the south

• In 1860, 25 of all Southerners owned slaves.
• Of that 25
• 52 owned 1-5 slaves
• 35 owned 6-9 slaves
• 11 owned 20-99 slaves
• 1 owned 100 or more slaves
• Those who owned 20 or more slaves - about 3 of
  the entire white population - controlled the
  social, political, and economic power of the
  South.

12
From the first presidential election to the
election of Lincoln, Southerners controlled the
national government most of the time

• 49 of 72 years were controlled by Southern
  slave-owning Democrats.
• The only presidents who were reelected were
  slave-owning Democrats.
• 2/3 of the Speakers of the House and Presidents
  Pro Tem of the Senate were Southerners.
• For the entire 72 years, the majority of Supreme
  Court justices were Southerners and most were
  slave owners.

13
The South held disproportionate political power
under the Constitution

• In the Senate - while the North had 60 of the
  total population and 70 of the entire nations
  voters - they only sent 50 of the Senators to
  Congress as there was an equal number of slave
  and free states.
• In the House - the 3/5 compromise gave slave
  states an average of 20 more congressmen after
  each census than they would have had on the basis
  of a free populace.
• Slaves states had about 30 more electoral votes
  than their share of the voting population would
  have otherwise allowed.

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
From 1800-1860, the Democrats used their
political power to pass federal laws designed to
strength slavery as a national institution

• In 1835, after Congress failed to pass a law
  prohibiting the Post Office from sending
  incendiary publications through the mails,
  Jackson and those who followed tacitly allowed
  such suppression.
• In 1836, Congress banned debating slavery issues
  in the house. (Was not lifted until 1845.)
• In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was passed.

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• In addition, the white southern slave owners had
  a huge hold over the white, non-slave owning
  population.
• How, then, were they able to convince the vast
  majority of white southerners to fight for a
  system - slavery and the power of slaveholding
  aristocrats - in which they had no stake?
• White Supremacy!

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In summary, the expansion of cotton - encouraged
by the new technology of the cotton gin -
stimulated the growth of slavery. This economic
reality, in turn, was made possible by the Slave
Power.

• This woodcut of a black father being sold away
  from his family appeared in The Childs
  Anti-Slavery Book in 1860.

18
The Slave Power and white supremacy were further
reinforced by the pro-slavery rationale of John
C. Calhoun

• Slavery was a good - a positive good that was
  both profitable as well as politically and
  socially sound.
• There never has yet existed in a wealthy and
  civilized society in which one portion of the
  community did notlive on the labor of the
  otherI fearlessly assert that the existing
  relations between the two races in the South
  forms the most solid and durable foundation upon
  which to rear free and stable political
  institutions.

19

• Calhouns argument continued that in a free labor
  system, labor is a commodity whose price is
  determined by the laws of the market.
• In such a system, slavery was necessary because
  it produced a master class that greatly differed
  from the ruling class of capitalist industrial
  society.

This woodcut of a black father being sold away
from his family appeared in The Childs
Anti-Slavery Book in 1860.
20

• On the one hand, Calhoun argued, slave owners
  treated their slaves with paternalistic care by
  assuming life-long responsibility.
• On the other hand, capitalists hired classes of
  manual laborers who were treated as wage slaves.
• Slavery was a blessing to an inferior race. It
  was the cornerstone of democracy as it avoided
  bitter class divisions of the north while
  ensuring the freedom of all white men.

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In summary, the invention of the cotton gin made
cotton production and exportation a vital force
for the entire American economy. Further, the
expansion of cotton stimulated the growth of
slavery and made slavery a national institution.
These social and economic realities, in turn,
were made possible by the Slave Power.