There was much to cherish in the society of the Old South--an agrarian humanism, a leisurely pace of life for the privileged, gracious manners, and the stability that came from a sense of kin and place. Yet this fading Eden existed on the backs of the slaves who worked the cotton plantations.

Slavery was not only a cause for moral indictment but an anachronism. Britain had abolished it decades earlier; even Russia's serfs were nearing emancipation; and South America offered the example of assimilation as a solution to the problem of social control that so troubled the Southerners. The South, however, wore its burden as a badge of tradition that it stood ready to defend. The value of the improved lands of the seceding states was estimated at less than $2 billion; the value of those in the Union states was nearly $5 billion. The South had 150 textile factories, with a product valued at $8 million; the North had 900 such factories, with a product valued at $115 million. During President James Buchanan's administration, the country suffered a short but severe economic depression. The South escaped the worst effects of the so-called "Panic of 1857," and this convinced many Southerners of the superiority of their slave-supported economic system. Senator James Hammond of South Carolina claimed triumphantly, "Cotton is King." The panic heightened the conflict between the North and South. In the South, 2000 persons were employed in the manufacture of clothing; in the North, 100,000 were so engaged. During 1860 the imports of the South were valued at $331 million; those of the North at $31 million. It was thus obvious that the South was dependent on Europe and on the North for material goods. The lack of resources forced the Confederacy to levy war taxes and borrow heavily on future cotton crops. An inflationary period in 1863 and later government actions almost destroyed the Confederate credit. Because war threatened world access to the South's cotton, Britain and France had particular interest in the war's outcome, but other nations were also affected by it.

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Drawing: Ware Shoals- cotton mill town in South Carolina owned by Benjamin D. Riegel.
Bibliography: Andreano, Ralph, ed., The Economic Impact of the American Civil War (1962); Craven, Avery O., The Coming of the Civil War (1942; 2d ed. 1947; repr. 1966), and The Growth of Southern Nationalism, 1848-1861 (1953); Freehling, William W., The Road to Disunion (1990); Knoles, George H., ed., Crisis of Union (1965); Potter, David M., The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861 (1976); Rawley, James A., Secession (1989); Sewall, R. H., A House Divided (1988); Stampp, Kenneth M., ed., Causes of the War (1959; rev. ed. 1974; repr. 1986).