Civil War Vs South's Industrial Economy Analysis

3.Due to the substantial differences between the North’s industrial economy and the South’s agricultural economy they both had distinct advantages and disadvantages during the war. To begin with, the North’s economy was far superior to the South’s because the North had two-thirds of the nation’s population, two-thirds of the railroad mileage, and almost 90% of the nation’s industrial output. Also, many of the North’s arm factories were equipped with mass production which allowed them to compete with the gun manufacturing centers and armories of the South. The Northern economy helped them have much greater supply of resources compared to the South. On the other hand, the Confederacy had slaves which helped provide food for the army and provide the most important good of all, cotton. The South was able to use cotton as diplomatic weapon which they thought they could use to persuade France or Britain to assist or side with the Confederacy. We can also see this as a disadvantage to the Northern economy because they had no such tool or weapon to use to obtain foreign assistance or aid. Unfortunately this same advantage for the South also led to a severe disadvantage. Because the majority of the people living in the South did not own slaves, they were not the ones producing cotton. This meant that the majority of the
Even though the Proclamation did not change anyone’s status it still influenced slaves to attempt to desert their plantations which not only helped end slavery, but also gave the North an advantage over the South as the slaves did a lot of the South’s labor and so without them the South would be weakened, allowing the North to win the war, which would allow them to have the jurisdiction make all the remaining slaves freedmen or