Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Mr. Gillard
AP US History
11 November 2006
Essay 11: Slavery and the South
From the period of 1840 to 1860 the South was ruled by the fact that every state
was a “slave” state. Slavery became a part of everything that the South wanted. Validity
can be found in political and intellectual aspects.
Politically speaking, many slaveholders in the South wanted the newly gained ter
ritory of Texas to be brought into the Union as a slave state, giving the slave states a “leg
up” on the free states in the north. The free states were worried that the slave states would
ultimately take over and eventually control Congress. The southern states, however
wanted every single new territory to become a slave state, to keep the free states from tak
ing control of congress and outlawing slavery. The south also wanted to bring the new
states in as slave states because they also wanted to expand; slaves took up most of the
population in the south. In the House, each state ruled depending on how large the popu
lation of the state was. The more power in the House that the South had, the power they
had to pass laws for slavery and it also helped to prevent outlawing of slavery by the
North.
Economically the south depended on slavery greatly. The South also believed that
they needed to have slaves and that they wouldn’t survive without them. The South manu
factured many crops that were exported across to Europe and the South believed that
without slaves, they wouldn’t be able to harvest and tend to the crops and the exportation
would cease to exist. Even though, the slave trade was stopped, slaves were still bought
and sold inside the Union. Besides using the crops for money, southern landowners also
used slaves to gain extra money or extra work hands. Also, because of the invention of the
Cotton Gin, southern landowners needed slaves to man and work the machines.
The South depended on slavery because they had built everything around it. In
ventions also called for many hands, so landowners “needed” the slaves to work for them.
So, it truly did become the dominating reality in southern society.