ECONOMIC ENTRENCHMENT AND REGIONAL INCOMES

Although the slave system proved efficient on the plantation, its economic advantages were not widely applicable elsewhere. As a result, the South experienced little structural change during the antebellum years. For instance, the South was slow to industrialize, partly because of the slave system. Some slaves did become skilled craftsmen, and slaves were employed in cotton factories, coal mines, ironworks, lumber mills, and railroads. There was little point in incurring the costs of training slaves for industrial occupations on a large scale, however, when they could readily and profitably be put to work in agriculture.

In addition, the South experienced little immigration from Europe or elsewhere. It was not the South’s “peculiar institution” that kept European migrants away; immigration did not increase after emancipation. Europeans tended to settle in latitudes where the climate was like that of their former home. The main deterrent to locating in the South, however, was that outsiders perceived a lack of opportunity there; immigrants feared that they would become “poor whites.” By 1860, only 3.4 percent of the southern population was foreign born, compared with 17 percent in the central states and 15 percent in New England.

When viewed as a business, plantation slavery was profitable. Extremely high net returns in parts of the cotton belt and rewards at least equal to those of alternative employments of capital in most areas of the Deep South were the rule. Nor were there economic forces at work making the slave economy self-destructive. There is simply no evidence to support the contention that slave labor was overcapitalized, and slaves clearly reproduced sufficiently to maintain a growing workforce. In addition, internal migration from the older southern states to the new cotton belt illustrated the flexibility of the southern economy.

This flexibility, exhibited in the western migrations, was especially important to the South. Table 13.8 shows income figures for various regions in 1840 and 1860. Note that the nearly 44 percent growth in income for the entire free South, from $105 to $150, was higher than the internal growth of any subregion in the South (about one-third for the old South, about 15 percent for the new South). The southern migrations, in contrast to those in the north, were from poorer to richer areas on average, and this leveraged up

TABLE 13.8 PER CAPITA INCOME BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR (IN 1860 PRICES)

Source: Stanley Fogel, REINTERPRETATION, 1st, © 1930. Printed and Electronically reproduced by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

TABLE 13.9 TOTAL VALUE OF SLAVES IN THE UNITED STATES, 1810-1860 (IN MILLIONS OF DOLLARS)

Source: Ransom and Sutch 1988.

The income growth for the South as a whole. As we shall see, the South was vitally concerned, for apparently sound economic reasons, with the right to extend slavery into western lands. Also noteworthy is the relative position of the West South Central region, where King Cotton and sugar reigned supreme. This was by far the highest income region in the country. And these high relative standings remain whether or not slaves are included in the population figures. When the incomes per capita of only the free population are compared, even the older, less wealthy southern areas show levels that were quite high.67 There can be little doubt that on the eve of the Civil War, the South was a very rich area indeed.

From the moral, social, and political viewpoints, however, southern slavery imposed a growing source of self-destruction on the American people. The system epitomized a great barrier to human decency and social progress that was contrary to deeply felt ideals in many quarters. With almost religious fervor, abolitionist elements grew in strength, and national disunity grew proportionately.

As the moral arguments against slavery gained a greater hearing, the economic costs of emancipation grew as well. Table 13.9 shows the wealth held by slaves in the South by decade. After 1830, the rise in value was dramatic, reaching almost $3.1 billion in 1860. According to Ransom and Sutch (1988, 138-139), slaves represented 44 percent of the total wealth in the major cotton-growing states in 1859, and real estate accounted for another 25 percent. Could $3.1 billion in taxes be raised to compensate owners for slaves emancipated? Would owners give up such wealth voluntarily? As an additional consideration, southerners had witnessed, in the late 1830s, the outcome of rapid emancipation in the British West Indies. There, land values plummeted when the gang system disappeared and labor was withdrawn from the fields. The prospect of land value losses adding to the wealth losses of uncompensated emancipations stiffened the resolve of the South’s slaveholding oligarchy.

Laws were passed in the southern states increasing the punishment for insurrection and for assisting runaways: Eleven states imposed the death penalty on slaves participating in insurrection, and 13 made it a capital crime for free men to incite slave insurrection. Several states began requiring legislative consent for manumission on a case-by-case basis. Seven required newly freed slaves to leave their territory. Freedoms to bear arms, assemble in public meetings, and sell liquor were frequently denied free blacks. In these and other ways, slavery became more entrenched, both economically and legally.