What Was The Difference Between North And South

During the Antebellum period (late 18th century to 1861) that preceded the Civil War, the North's free society enabled industrialization. The free states produced 97% of the country's firearms and 93% of its pig iron (Wandrei, 2018). The opportunities of industrialization attracted European immigrants and led to the building of major cities in the North. By 1860, the population stood at 23 million compared to the South's nine million. By contrast, 80 percent of Southerners were employed in agriculture, compared to just 40 percent in the North. The South's slave economy supported their agriculture. Towards the end of this period, only one-ninth of the United States' industrial capacity was situated in the South.
According to Towner (2011), both
The majority of Northerners were moderates. In the North, slavery was almost universally prohibited by the 1800s, while the institution was a cornerstone of Southern society. In the North, many blacks were free, and in states such as Massachusetts, New York and Ohio, 100 percent of the black population was free. In the states of the Confederacy, by contrast, few blacks were free. Virginia had the highest ratio of free blacks to slaves, but even there only 9 percent of the state's black population was free. In addition, before the war, though rare, abolitionism was much more common in the North. Whereas, the states favoring slavery where primarily Southern. They were often challenged by Abolitionists in the North during the Antebellum time period. Of the South, the pro-slavery population claimed that, in comparison to Europe’s destitute and America’s workers, slaves were better off. Southerners defended slavery arguing that it was better than the capitalist system in which workers were nothing more than an exploited unit of labor. They argued that slaves received food, shelter, health care and even old age security. The North remained staunch in its defense of free labor and capitalist ideology. Thus, the two sides developed distinctly different ideologies that were opposed to each other. Ideological extremists on both sides served to widen
Karl Marx defined the American Civil War as a struggle between two historical epochs –the feudal and the capitalist (Post, 2011). The Civil War was a war between the North and the South after several states in the south seceded following Lincoln's Presidency. The war first started off so as to defend states’ rights, however as it progressed the war was fought to end slavery.
The industrial strength of the North ended up being its greatest asset throughout the entire Civil War. When the South attempted to trade its largest export, cotton, to Britain for textiles and other manufactured goods, the North, having double the population and more influence over federal policy making, placed tariffs on the British goods being imported to the United States. The South considered this was a violation of their rights. This is because the Southern States had a much smaller, rural economy. The Confederacy was made up of an agricultural economy and needed to buy machinery from overseas. When recession hit in the 1850s, Congress hiked the import tax from 15 to 37 per cent (Tim, 2011). In retaliation, the South threatened secession and outraged the