The South

The south was built on an agricultural economy that thrived on cash crops such as cotton and tobacco. To harvest cotton to make the most profit, farmers would import slaves from Africa to help with the intensive labor. The slaves had no rights and were treated worse then animals in the south. As the Atlantic slave trade ended, the need for slaves to continue the profitable agricultural economy grew. Also the south profitted with the invention of the cotton gin which would save time to process the cotton. As the United States expanded West, they wanted to keep slavery by having equal representation in the senate as the north. The farther west that the United States expanded, the dimmer the hopes were for the south. After the Missouri Compromise was declared unconstitional, the expansion west of the Mississippi River would either end slavery or cause a war. To keep the south's agricultural way of life with slaves, the south needed to win the Civil War.

The North: a different industry

As the United States developed when European came into America, people started to live of the land. In the South, land was very fertile and many crops could be grown throughout the year. In the north, land was hilly and the soil was not as fertile as the soil in the south. To make up for the lack of farming production in the north, factories were developed. The first factory was in Lowell, Massachusuetts and it was located near a river which gave the factory power to run its machinery. As the factories began to increase in profit, people started to move off the farms and into the cities which were started by factories. Women and younger people were the most abundant people to enter the factories, but farmers who wanted to earn extra cash also went to factories. Since the factories increased the value of the land in the south, many incoming immigrants that wanted to farm would go south or west. The south liked the factories because they could send cotton up north for clothes and huge profits. The drawing point came when the south was sending their cotton to England for bigger profits which hurt the factories in the south. The north became furious with the south and wanted one economy for the United States which was an industrial economy.

The development of the line between the North and the South that led to the Civil War.

The line that divided that United States into a north and south during the Civil War did not appear instantly. Rather, the imaginary line was developed through actions and events that split a nation in half. The line first start with two different economies that existed in the United States. The north was primarily an industrial economy that had more people and more advancement through technology such as the engine powered motors that ran the factories in the north. The south developed an agricultural economy that was supported by slavery and the massive production of these crops needed the aid of cheap labor(slaves) for the economy in the south to function successfully. Throughout this blog, I will inch my readers through the stroked that drew the line that divided the United States in half and caused the more notoroius war in history.

A Light at the end of the tunnel

I am getting ready for my final year of college and excited for an unknown future. I will be taking education classes throughout my final year and will gradually learn how to plant seeds of information in the young minds of tommorow. As the year goes one, I will fight to plant the seeds in the best and worst soils in the region. Student teaching will be an adventure and I will grab it by the horns.