late 1850s that a continuous line ran 1 .5 million white families . Fifty per-through the mountains connecting cent of these slave owners owned no
the lower Mississippi River area with more than five slaves . Twelve percent
the southern Atlantic seaboard .
owned 20 or more slaves, the num-
ber defined as turning a farmer into
SLAVERY AND SECTIONALISM
a planter . Three-quarters of South-
O
ern white families, including the
ne overriding issue exacerbat- “poor whites,” those on the lowest
ed the regional and economic dif- rung of Southern society, owned no
ferences between North and South: slaves .
slavery . Resenting the large profits
It is easy to understand the in-
amassed by Northern businessmen terest of the planters in slave hold-
from marketing the cotton crop, ing . But the yeomen and poor whites
many Southerners attributed the supported the institution of slavery
backwardness of their own section as well . They feared that, if freed,
to Northern aggrandizement . Many blacks would compete with them
Northerners, on the other hand, de- economically and challenge their
clared that slavery — the “peculiar higher social status . Southern whites
institution” that the South regarded defended slavery not simply on the
as essential to its economy — was basis of economic necessity but out
largely responsible for the region’s of a visceral dedication to white
relative financial and industrial supremacy .
backwardness .
As they fought the weight of
As far back as the Missouri Northern opinion, political lead-
Compromise in 1819, sectional lines ers of the South, the professional
had been steadily hardening on the classes, and most of the clergy now
slavery question . In the North, sen- no longer apologized for slavery but
timent for outright abolition grew championed it . Southern publicists
increasingly powerful . Southern- insisted, for example, that the rela-
ers in general felt little guilt about tionship between capital and labor
slavery and defended it vehemently . was more humane under the slavery
In some seaboard areas, slavery by system than under the wage system
1850 was well over 200 years old; of the North .
it was an integral part of the basic
Before 1830 the old patriarchal
economy of the region .
system of plantation government,
Although the 1860 census showed with its personal supervision of the
that there were nearly four million slaves by their owners or masters,
slaves out of a total population of was still characteristic . Gradually,
12 .3 million in the 15 slave states, however, with the introduction of
only a minority of Southern whites large-scale cotton production in
owned slaves . There were some the lower South, the master gradu-
385,000 slave owners out of about ally ceased to exercise close personal
132
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY
supervision over his slaves, and 1808 when Congress abolished the
employed professional overseers slave trade with Africa . Thereafter,
charged with exacting from slaves opposition came largely from the
a maximum amount of work . In Quakers, who kept up a mild but
such circumstances, slavery could ineffectual protest . Meanwhile, the
become a system of brutality and cotton gin and westward expansion
coercion in which beatings and the into the Mississippi delta region cre-
breakup of families through the sale ated an increasing demand for slaves .
of individuals were commonplace .
The abolitionist movement that
In other settings, however, it could emerged in the early 1830s was
be much milder .
combative, uncompromising, and
In the end, however, the most insistent upon an immediate end to
trenchant criticism of slavery was slavery . This approach found a leader
not the behavior of individual mas- in William Lloyd Garrison, a young
ters and overseers . Systematically man from Massachusetts, who com-
treating African-American laborers bined the heroism of a martyr with
as if they were domestic animals, the crusading zeal of a demagogue .
slavery, the abolitionists pointed out, On January 1, 1831, Garrison pro-
violated every human being’s in- duced the first issue of his newspa-
alienable right to be free .
per, The Liberator, which bore the
announcement: “I shall strenuously
THE ABOLITIONISTS
contend for the immediate enfran-
I
chisement of our slave population .
n national politics, Southerners . . On this subject, I do not wish to
chiefly sought protection and en- think, or speak, or write, with mod-
largement of the interests represent- eration . . . I am in earnest — I will ed by the cotton/slavery system . They not equivocate — I will not excuse
sought territorial expansion because — I will not retreat a single inch —
the wastefulness of cultivating a sin- AND I WILL BE HEARD .”
gle crop, cotton, rapidly exhausted
Garrison’s sensational methods
the soil, increasing the need for new awakened Northerners to the evil
fertile lands . Moreover, new territory in an institution many had long
would establish a basis for additional come to regard as unchangeable .
slave states to offset the admission of He sought to hold up to public gaze
new free states . Antislavery North- the most repulsive aspects of slav-
erners saw in the Southern view a ery and to castigate slave holders as
conspiracy for proslavery aggran- torturers and traffickers in human
dizement . In the 1830s their opposi- life . He recognized no rights of the
tion became fierce .
masters, acknowledged no compro-
An earlier antislavery movement, mise, tolerated no delay . Other aboli-
an offshoot of the American Revo- tionists, unwilling to subscribe to his
lution, had won its last victory in law-defying tactics, held that reform
133