, Research Paper

During the antebellum period, the North and the South were complete antonyms. This led to each side sing itself as superior and sing the other as & # 8220 ; backward. & # 8221 ; Each side believed itself to be superior, in all facets, to the other. The grounds for these sentiments can be found in the different economic, societal, and cultural systems found in these two parts.

The Southern economic system was chiefly agricultural. This economic system, like many other agricultural economic systems, did non let for a great trade of societal mobility. The South besides lacked mills, or much industry. However, this was non the chief difference between the North and the South. Most distressing to Northerners was that the South used slaves as its chief beginning of labour.

Obviously, Northerners would be appalled by the brutality associated with bondage, the whippings, the separation of households ; but they were non. Most dismaying to Northerners was that bondage did non promote societal mobility, instruction, or industrial enlargement in a society. This was in direct struggle with northern positions. The North had ever been an hardworking society. Ever since the Transportation Revolution of the early nineteenth century, the North progressed while the South stagnated. The North produced steel and Fe while the South? s chiefly produced cotton. This is non to state that the South was non an economically comfortable part, but it was merely non built & # 8220 ; in the North? s image of industrious. & # 8221 ;

The South did non look to hold a job with the system of bondage. After all, why should they? it had been successful for over 200 old ages. Alternatively, they saw the North as a cruel society full of the perfidies caused by capitalist economy. They saw mill work as & # 8220 ; pay bondage & # 8221 ; while they viewed Southern bondage as & # 8220 ; paternalistic & # 8221 ; and & # 8220 ; benevolent. & # 8221 ; Slavery, they contended, helped extinguish all category differentiations in Southern society. In the North, they saw, mill proprietors became rich while their employees lived in a province of poorness. Slavery was the great unifier of Southern society.

Poor Southerners besides supported the & # 8220 ; peculiar establishment & # 8221 ; , because it ensured that even the poorest white adult male was higher than a black adult male was. This was why Southerners said it preserved societal order. Slavery, basically, gave hapless Whites person to look down upon and mock. To an agricultural society the saving of a stiff category system is of primary concern, unluckily, this was the lone manner the South could continue it was through bondage.

Northerners believed bondage was contrary to America? s hardworking nature. They believed a free labour was a more

efficient system of production. Slavery did non supply inducements for work so the natural premise was that slaves would merely execute the minimal sum of work. Plantation life would do the slave owners believe they were close Gods, because they were used to governing over their slaves with an iron-fist. This haughtiness, they affirmed, led to disrespect for the jurisprudence. Therefore, this image is painted of a lawless South ruled by an nobility. Frederick Law Olmsted, Northern journalist and urban planned, stated in 1854 “The Southerner, nevertheless, is greatly desiring in cordial reception of head, shuting his doors to all sentiments and strategies to which he has been bred a alien, with a disdain and dogmatism which sometimes seems incompatible with his character as a gentleman. He has a big but cheap mind.” One can see how each part, or subdivision, believed its civilization was superior to the other.

It was this ethnocentrism, more than anything was, which led to the deep rift between North and South. The United States had basically developed into two separate states & # 8211 ; North and South. These states were economically codependent on one another, but other than that codependence they were two different political, societal, and cultural entities. Although these two states coexisted and cooperated economically this rift would prevail for many decennaries to come.

In the South, bondage non capitalist economy was the societal, political, and economic system. It was a manner of repressing an & # 8220 ; inferior race & # 8221 ; , every bit good as a manner of counterbalancing for the South? s labour deficit. This system had developed from a system where African Americans and Whites would openly fraternise, in the 1600s, to one of segregation and subjugation in the 1800s. This looking aside is correspondent to the South? s stagnancy in the nineteenth century, which led to the split between North and South.

It was the South? s economic stagnancy and deficiency of morals- at least in the North? s view- that helped take to a sectional division. These two rival economic, societal, and cultural systems-capitalism and slavery-could non be in the same state without rupturing it along the Mason-Dixon line. Northerners looked to Southern anarchy and the self-importance of the & # 8220 ; nobility & # 8221 ; while Southerners saw Northern & # 8220 ; pay bondage & # 8221 ; ( capitalist economy ) as cruel. The North frowned upon the South? s stiff societal construction ( it was more stiff than the North? s, but did let for societal mobility ) , economic system, and civilization. Furthermore, these & # 8220 ; uncontrollable differences & # 8221 ; threatened to rupture the state by its seams. However, at this point, no one knew how profoundly these differences would split the state.