Overview
The pre–Civil War years (1820–1860,
or the “antebellum years”) were among the most chaotic
in American history—a time of significant changes that took place
as the United States came of age. During these years, the nation
was transformed from an underdeveloped nation of farmers and frontiersmen into
an urbanized economic powerhouse. As the industrialized North and
the agricultural South grew further apart, five major trends dominated
American economic, social, and political life during this period.
First, the Market Revolution—the shift from an agricultural economy
to one based on wages and the exchange of goods and services—completely
changed the northern and western economy between 1820 and 1860.
After Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin and perfected manufacturing
with interchangeable parts, the North experienced a manufacturing
boom that continued well into the next century. Cyrus McCormick's
mechanical mower-reaper also revolutionized grain production in
the West. Internal improvements such as the Erie Canal and the Cumberland
Road, combined with new modes of transportation such as the steamboat
and railroad, allowed goods and crops to flow easily and cheaply
between the agricultural West and manufacturing North. The growth
of manufacturing also spawned the wage labor system.
Second, American society urbanized drastically during
this era. The United States had been a land comprised almost entirely
of farmers, but around 1820,
millions of people began to move to the cities. They, along with
several million Irish and German immigrants, flooded northern cities
to find jobs in the new industrial economy. The advent of the wage
labor system played a large role in transforming the social fabric
because it gave birth to America's first middle class. Comprised
mostly of white-collar workers and skilled laborers, this growing
middle class became the driving force behind a variety of reform
movements. Among these were movements to reduce consumption of alcohol,
eliminate prostitution, improve prisons and insane asylums, improve
education, and ban slavery. Religious revivalism, resulting from
the Second Great Awakening, also had a large impact on American
life in all parts of the country.
Third, the major political struggles during the antebellum
period focused on states' rights. Southern states were dominated
by “states' righters”—those who believed that the individual states should
have the final say in matters of interpreting the Constitution. Inspired
by the old Democratic-Republicans, John C. Calhoun argued in his
“South Carolina Exposition and Protest” essay that the states had
the right to nullify laws that they deemed unconstitutional because
the states themselves had created the Constitution. Others, such
as President Andrew Jackson and Chief Justice John Marshall, believed
that the federal government had authority over the states. The debate
came to a head in the Nullification Crisis of 1832–1833,
which nearly touched off a civil war.
Fourth, and closely tied to the states' rights issue,
was the debate over slavery—the most divisive issue the nation had
yet faced. Between 1820 and 1860,
more and more northerners came to realize the horrors and injustices
of slavery, while southerners grew increasingly reliant upon it
to support their cotton-based economy. Northerners did not necessarily
want social and political equality for blacks; they sought merely
their emancipation. The debate in politics centered primarily on
the westward expansion of slavery, which southern elites saw as
vital to the survival of their aristocratic social and economic
order. Others vehemently opposed the expansion of slavery outside
the South. The debate was critical in the Missouri crisis, the annexation
of Texas, and after the Mexican War.
Finally, the issue of westward expansion itself had a
profound effect on American politics and society during the antebellum
years. In the wake of the War of 1812,
many nationalistic Americans believed that God intended for them
to spread democracy and Protestantism across the entire continent.
This idea of “manifest destiny” spurred over a million Americans
to sell their homes in the East and set out on the treacherous Oregon,
Mormon, Santa Fe, and California Trails. Policymakers capitalized
on public sentiment to acquire Florida and Oregon and declared war
on Mexico in 1846 to seize
Texas, California, and everything in between.
Ultimately, these trends irreconcilably split the North
from the South. The Market Revolution, wage labor, improved transportation,
social reforms, and growing middle class of the North all clashed
with the deep-seated, almost feudal social hierarchies of the South.
Each successive debate on slavery and westward expansion drove the
regions further apart until finally, in the 1850s,
the North and the South were two wildly different places, culturally,
socially, and economically.
