Civil War Causes - Slavery

Slavery

The burning issue that led to the disruption of the union (North & South) was the debate over the future of slavery. That dispute led to secession which is to leave or withdraw, in this case, the union of states, and secession brought about a war in which the Northern and Western states and territories fought to preserve the Union, and the South fought to establish Southern independence as a new confederation of states under its own constitution.

About 600,000 slaves were transported to the United States, or 5% of the twelve million slaves taken from Africa. About 310,000 of these persons were imported into the Thirteen Colonies before 1776: 40% directly and the rest from the Caribbean.

Slaves transported to the British colonies and United States     1620–1700......21,000     1701–1760....189,000     1761–1770......63,000     1771–1790......56,000     1791–1800......79,000     1801–1810....124,000     1810–1865......51,000     Total .............597,000

They constituted less than 5% of the 12 million enslaved people brought from Africa to the Americas. The great majority of enslaved Africans were transported to sugar plantations in the Caribbean and to Portuguese Brazil. As life expectancy was short, their numbers had to be continually replenished. Life expectancy was much higher in the United States, and the enslaved population was successful in reproduction. The number of enslaved people in the United States grew rapidly, reaching 4 million by the 1860 census. From 1770 to 1860, the rate of natural growth of North American enslaved people was much greater than for the population of any nation in Europe, and it was nearly twice as rapid as that of England. Historian J. David Hacker conducted research which estimated that the cumulative number of slaves in America over the entire history (1619-1865) was ten million.

The number of enslaved and free blacks rose from 759,000 (60,000 free) in the 1790 U.S. census to 4,450,000 (480,000, or 11%, free) in the 1860 U.S. census, a 580% increase. The white population grew from 3.2 million to 27 million, an increase of 1,180% due to high birth rates and 4.5 million immigrants, overwhelmingly from Europe, and 70% of whom arrived in the years 1840–1860. The percentage of the black population dropped from 19% to 14%,[56] as follows: 1790: 757,208 .. 19% of population, of whom 697,681 (92%) were enslaved. 1860: 4,441,830 .. 14% of population, of whom 3,953,731 (89%) were enslaved. 

Since the agrarian (farming) South utilized slaves to tend its large plantations and perform other duties by the eve of the Civil War, some 4 million Africans and their descendants toiled as slave laborers in the South. Slavery was interwoven into the Southern economy even though only a relatively small portion of the population (less than 10%) actually owned slaves. Slaves could be rented or traded or sold to pay debts. Ownership of more than a handful of slaves bestowed respect and contributed to social position, and slaves, as the property of individuals and businesses, represented the largest portion of the region’s personal and corporate wealth, as cotton and land prices declined and the price of slaves soared.

The increase in slavery was brought about by an invention that made cotton farming profitable. The Cotton Gin, refined and invented by Eli Whitney in 1794 made taking the seeds out of cotton mechanized. One cotton gin could do the separating work of a dozen slaves. Production soared and turned cotton from one product of many in the South into the cash crop; anywhere it could be grown, it was. Demand for slaves skyrocketed along with it, because the cotton still had to be picked by hand, but could now be processed much quicker, increased the need to grow more cotton. Before Eli Whitney’s invention, cotton production was limited by how fast the cotton fibers could separated from its seeds by hand, which was extremely labor-intensive and time consuming. Until the “gin,” slavery was on the decline in the American Deep South; it simply wasn’t profitable. As a result, more cotton grown, meant more slaves to pick the cotton furthermore slavery and the need for more slaves in the South increased exponentially.

The states of the North, meanwhile, one by one had gradually abolished slavery. A steady flow of immigrants, especially from Ireland and Germany during the potato famine of the 1840s and 1850s, insured the North a ready pool of laborers, many of whom could be hired at low wages, diminishing the need to cling to the institution of slavery.

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