Exam 16: Essay

Answer would ideally include: The Missouri Compromise: The first conflict regarding slavery and westward expansion occurred when Missouri applied for statehood in 1819. Missouri had a population of 10,000 slaves, but, geographically, it was in free territory. Admitting Missouri as a slave state would have upset the balance between slave and free states. A compromise emerged in the Senate in 1820. Missouri would enter the union as a slave state, and Maine would enter as a free state. The southern boundary of Missouri would extend west and become the permanent dividing line between slave and free states. The Mexican War and Popular Sovereignty: The acquisition of western lands following the Mexican War again brought into question slavery in the territories. David Wilmot of Pennsylvania proposed that the government bar all slavery in the new territories. The Wilmot Proviso passed the northern-dominated House but not the southern-dominated Senate. Lewis Cass of Missouri proposed a compromise based on "popular sovereignty": let white settlers themselves decide whether or not to accept slavery. Congress failed to pass any legislation, leaving the future of slavery in the West an open question. The Compromise of 1850: President Zachary Taylor encouraged California and New Mexico, both of which had predominantly antislavery populations, to skip the territorial stage and apply for statehood. Henry Clay produced a compromise to settle the interests of free and slave states. Clay's bill was defeated, but Senator Stephen Douglas skillfully shepherded it through Congress in individual pieces. The Compromise of 1850 allowed California to enter as a free state. New Mexico and Utah would be decided by popular sovereignty. Texas accepted a new boundary with New Mexico, and the slave trade was abolished in Washington, D.C. The act also included a stricter fugitive slave law, which angered northerners who believed it made them complicit in a morally bankrupt system. The Kansas-Nebraska Act: Senator Stephen Douglas wanted his home state of Illinois to capitalize on the transcontinental railroad. He introduced a bill to organize the Nebraska territory on the basis of popular sovereignty, which would nullify the Missouri Compromise. The Kansas-Nebraska Act split the territory into Nebraska, west of the free state Iowa, and Kansas, west of the slave state Missouri. The idea of popular sovereignty in Kansas led to bloody warfare between proslavery and antislavery forces, further polarizing the nation.

Answer would ideally include: Indentured Servitude: Eighty percent of early immigrants to the Chesapeake came as indentured servants. About three out of four of these servants were unskilled young men, producing a gender imbalance in Virginia. Servants tended to work together regardless of race or gender, and they felt a unity based on their status as unfree people. Planters could not hire free men because land was available and free people preferred to work for themselves. Until the middle of the seventeenth century, the principal division in Chesapeake society was between free and unfree laborers. After 1650, however, the increasing number of indentured servants who survived their tenure of servitude only to find a lack of available land led to increasing tensions between landowners and the landless. Slave Labor: The black population in the Chesapeake grew fivefold between 1670 and 1700 as hundreds of tobacco planters made the transition from servant to slave labor. Slaves cost more, but they never became free. They usually lived longer than a servant's indenture. Slaves also provided a perpetual labor force, since the children of slave mothers became slaves as well. Unlike indentured servants, slaves could be controlled politically. Planters used slavery to keep workers in perpetual servitude, and the color of their skin marked their permanent bondage. The slave labor system polarized Chesapeake society along the lines of race and status. Nearly all blacks were enslaved, nearly all free people were white, and all whites were free or bound only temporarily as indentured servants. By emphasizing the freedom shared by all whites, the slave system reduced the tensions between different classes of whites. Labor Changes and Southern Social Hierarchy: In the years leading up to the revolution, the number of southerners of African ancestry continued to multiply, both by natural increase and importation. Planters purchased a relatively small number of newly arrived Africans and relied on already enslaved Africans to help "season" new slaves so they would become accustomed to their new surroundings. The demand for slaves caused slave owners to encourage slave women to bear children; owing to greater natural increase, the majority of southern slaves were country-born by the 1740s. Slaves' labor brought wealth to masters, British merchants, and the crown. The southern colonies supplied 90 percent of all North American exports to Britain; in 1770, southern tobacco represented almost one-third of all colonial exports. These exports made the southern colonies the richest in North America by far. Differences in wealth among rich and poor southerners engendered envy and tension but remarkably little open hostility. White yeomen sensed the gentry's condescension, but they appreciated the gentry for granting favors, upholding white supremacy, and keeping slaves in their place. Race was a more powerful unifier than wealth was a divider. The slaveholding gentry dominated the politics and economy of the South and also set the cultural standards, entertaining lavishly and gambling regularly.

Answer would ideally include: The Industrial North and the Agricultural South: During the nineteenth century, the economies of the North and South grew increasingly different. The North developed a mixed economy of agriculture, commerce, and manufacturing. Mechanization produced a huge growth in manufacturing. Manufacturers could produce more with less labor by using the principles of the "American system." New England led the nation in manufacturing, while Pennsylvania and Ohio produced coal for industrial fuel. The North and Midwest also benefited from the railroad, as nearly two-thirds of the nation's 9,000 miles of track ran through these regions. The South, on the other hand, remained agricultural, with its primary cash crops being tobacco, sugar, rice, and cotton. Its climate and geography were ideally suited for cotton. Southerners produced nearly five million bales of cotton in 1860, nearly three-fourths of the world's supply. This cotton fueled the growth of the textile industry in the North and served as a valuable export commodity. The South failed to diversify in part because planters saw no reason to do so. The Urban North and the Rural South: Northern industry led to great urbanization. Nearly 37 percent of New Englanders lived in cities. Northern cities also attracted European immigrants, mostly Germans who settled in the middle stratum of society and poor Irish laborers looking for industrial jobs. With its emphasis on agriculture, the South developed few cities and, with fewer urban industrial jobs, attracted fewer immigrants. In 1860, only 12 percent of southerners lived in cities. Free Labor and Slavery: Northern society was organized around the principle of free labor, which celebrated hard work, self-reliance, and independence. Proponents of free labor argued that success was open to anyone, not just those Americans born into wealth. The South was dominated by slave labor. By 1860, the South contained over four million slaves, workers who produced 75 percent of the cotton on southern plantations. Although white planters dominated southern politics, most slave owners owned fewer than five slaves, and most southerners held no slaves at all. Plantation-belt yeomen worked small farms in the upcountry, and most poor whites were hardworking, landholding small farmers. Overall Class Structure: Free labor did not create equality in the North. In fact, its proponents argued that economic inequalities were a natural outgrowth of freedom: Some people worked harder than others, or luck fell their way. In reality, very few workers in the North ascended into the class of self-employed producers. Many more lived as landless wage laborers. African Americans and Irish immigrants tended to find themselves at the bottom of this social ladder. In the South, divisions were typically forged around race rather than class. The gentry cultivated friendly relationships with yeomen, and yeomen depended on the gentry for political favors and for economic assistance. Poor whites rarely staged class protest because they understood that their membership in the white race ensured that they would always rank higher than any African American, free or slave.