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Peculiar Institution The South And Essay

This tract would be solidified, however, with the early 19th century invention of the cotton gin. As the text by Maier et al. assert, Eli Whitney's simple invention would have dramatic and transformative effects on American society. As the urban centers of the North turned increasingly to factory operations in the face of immigrant labor and the industrial revolution, the south coalesced around its agricultural identity. More particularly, the cotton gin had an exponential impact on the growth of the American South in world agricultural. In addition to tobacco, wheat and corn, it was now the world's leading provider of cotton. With the growth of demand by substantial marks in a decidedly short span of time, the Southern cotton boom directly paralleled a boom in the global slave trade.

The slave population in the South would grow dramatically in order to keep up with the demand...

Quite in fact, this population would grow so rapidly as to ultimately make the whole of the Southern economy dependent upon a system that simply could not be sustained. Maier indicates that economic rationality may in part account for the divergence of the Northern states, with the industrial revolution imposing certain market principles upon a new system. Labor orientation principles would be among them.
Perhaps most centrally though, the divergence between North and South boils down to the distinction between the development of the urban center and the persistence of the agricultural life, for it would be this point of difference that determined the course of slavery in U.S. history.

Works Cited:

Maier, P.; Winkle, K.J.; Wall, W. & Smith, M.R. (2006). Inventing America: A History of the United States. Norton.

Sources used in this document:
Works Cited:

Maier, P.; Winkle, K.J.; Wall, W. & Smith, M.R. (2006). Inventing America: A History of the United States. Norton.
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