The American Civil War and Industrialization - Essay Example

The American Civil War and Industrialization The American Civil War between the years 1861-1865 A.D. at the outset was concerned with slaveryof the Southern American Confederate states under Jefferson Davis and the abolition of slavery and the Union of the United States of America. In truth, the American Civil War was an economic war that created economic decisions that would allow America to usher itself into the industrializing world. Although in most cases slavery saves money for capitalists however, the maintenance of slavery was another matter.

During the 1850s, the Northern States of America had a better economic situation rather than the Southern states. The Southern states were largely cottage industries that depended on slave labour. This was contrary to the Northern American states that bore the free market, free trade policies (Elkins 1976). New York that approved the emancipation that was passed to abolish slavery quickly became one of the wealthiest states in Northern America the use of slave labour was more expensive than that of free labour.

Slavery wasn't really a profitable venture, firstly, the cost of slaves is more than the cost of employing an unskilled worker in the industrial states. Including the cost of the slave was the cost of slave maintenance. Slave owners had to be careful in their handling of slaves, overworking them and making them ill and die would cost money, in addition they also wanted to perpetuate their slaves therefore they had to allow their slaves to mate in order to produce offspring. This is not to say that brutality and violence did not occur towards slaves but the high cost of capturing, transporting and maintaining slaves caused the Southern American states to be less industrialized than in the North.

For example, the Southern states were often agricultural industries, but due to the expensive cost to buy slaves their industry remained limited to the number of slaves they only own. Another reason was that since the Southern states were cottage borne industries that often used their produce for their own family subsistence they were slowing down the process of consuming en masse produce. Donald (1996) hints that the Confederates lost the war not because of the common reasons of their lack of money and resources but because they could see the benefits of free labour than their own slave labour cotton industry.

Industrialization in America was moving rapidly in the Northern areas due to the free labour emancipation, Abraham Lincoln was aware that by abolishing slavery in the Southern states America as a whole could be a world power competing with the likes of Britain and Germany. The second reason was that the Southern states did not want to be under a united America, by pooling resources for industrialization the America as a whole could profit from the Southern cotton trade with cheap free labour.

In conclusion, the Northern Union of the United States of America saw many advantages of abolishing the slave trade. Wage labour coinciding with en masse migration into America meant that there would be continuous cheap labour that could be exploited, this was contrary to the slave labour that was being used in the Southern cotton cottage industries. The new frontier of American labour was the use of factories and later on in the 19th century, the use of machineries. Definitely the American Civil War increased the pace of Industrialization in America and brought contemporary America as a superpower.

References: Donald, D.H. (Ed.). (1996). Why the north won the Civil War. New York: Simon and Schuster. Elkins, S.M. (1976). Slavery: A problem in American institutional and intellectual life (3rd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. McPherson, J. M. (2001). Ordeal by fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. Rowland, T.J. (1998). George B. McClellan and Civil War history: In the shadow of Grant and Sherman. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press.