FRQ APUSH North vs. South
FRQ #1: To what extent is it fair to say that by 1860, America had developed into two distinct societies? Focus on social, political, and economic.
In the time span of 40 years after the end of the Era of Good Feelings in 1824, the United States of America experienced economic crises regarding banks, the upcoming of popular sovereignty, and the insurrection of conflict for women’s suffrage (to no prevail). When President Lincoln was elected into office in 1860, the nation had fragmented into two: the Northern Union and the Southern Confederacy, no longer being a “united nation”. The apportioning standards between the Union and the Confederacy dealt with the issues of slavery and black citizenship, political division between Democrats and Republicans, and the unstable economy within the South due to the Reconstruction with North booming from industry and those useful interchangeable parts causing America to develop into a nation divided in two.
Economically, the South had one relied resource and one only: cotton. It was the root of their profits, their lives, their surroundings. Despite the white majority of the 1860’s not being a part of the planter aristocracy, it was still their personal American Dream: to own slaves on a plantation with a pretty wife and white kids. The Southern economy depended primarily on the production and working of slaves, as the cheap labor force. On the industrial hand, the North was all about hard work and…equal rights, but mostly hard work. Their primary focus for economic gain was industry. Railroads, telegraphs, machines…oh my! The North also had the advantage of economic stability from the California Gold Rush which aided them to flourish dramatically, though plummeted during the Panic of 1857, which negatively affected the North due to the inflation caused by the gold. Once California was accepted into the Union (as a free state), its abundance of gold deposits held the North on its high horse before the reoccurring panics.
In the time span of 40 years after the end of the Era of Good Feelings in 1824, the United States of America experienced economic crises regarding banks, the upcoming of popular sovereignty, and the insurrection of conflict for women’s suffrage (to no prevail). When President Lincoln was elected into office in 1860, the nation had fragmented into two: the Northern Union and the Southern Confederacy, no longer being a “united nation”. The apportioning standards between the Union and the Confederacy dealt with the issues of slavery and black citizenship, political division between Democrats and Republicans, and the unstable economy within the South due to the Reconstruction with North booming from industry and those useful interchangeable parts causing America to develop into a nation divided in two.
Economically, the South had one relied resource and one only: cotton. It was the root of their profits, their lives, their surroundings. Despite the white majority of the 1860’s not being a part of the planter aristocracy, it was still their personal American Dream: to own slaves on a plantation with a pretty wife and white kids. The Southern economy depended primarily on the production and working of slaves, as the cheap labor force. On the industrial hand, the North was all about hard work and…equal rights, but mostly hard work. Their primary focus for economic gain was industry. Railroads, telegraphs, machines…oh my! The North also had the advantage of economic stability from the California Gold Rush which aided them to flourish dramatically, though plummeted during the Panic of 1857, which negatively affected the North due to the inflation caused by the gold. Once California was accepted into the Union (as a free state), its abundance of gold deposits held the North on its high horse before the reoccurring panics.