History Notes

The south started to create a defensive-aggressive temper in the 1850s because the South, which once was very prosperous, was falling short of the North. There was a much faster growth of population of the North, there was more increase in transportation in the North, and productivity of the South had failed.

One of the few good things that happened to the South was their staple agriculture. Cotton prices increased slightly again except the problem was the South would just have to sell it across shores or to the North, which would turn it into textile and create more profits.
Also, the southern planters lost a lot of money from certain “factors” which were normally stationed in the North or in British firms. Also, many times they would go to the North after trade with Europe because of the vast markets there, this meant more freight charges.
The Southerners also came to the realization that the North controls all of their stocks and essentially owns their plantations and them, and that the Southerners were more enslaved to the north then their slaves were to them.

De Bow had a magazine normally called De Bow’s Review, and he cried for the Southerners to be less dependent on the North. They set up the Memphis convention, whose primary goal was to create southern-owned shipping lines for direct trade with Europe. The first meeting was about railroads, and then another commercial meeting happened in New Orleans. This happened about once a year in various Southern cities.

The Conventions urged direct trade with Europe, harbor and river improvements, railroad construction, a southern route for a railroad to the pacific, building of factories, and better education.

Textiles seemed to be the South’s most logical route to industrialization, and the slave states more then quadrupled their railroad mileage. However, the more the Southerners worked to catch up with the North, the more they felt they didn’t achieve because the North was still moving faster then the South and its population was increasing by much greater percents.
The North still monopolized most of the Southern firms and factors. The Southern attempts to break away from this monopoly crumbled.

Historians believed there were several reasons for the failure of industrialization, first free labor was more productive then slave labor because free men had a motive, to improve his situation.
Southern industrialization did not focus on lack of labor but rather on lack of Capital, and the Southerners had a lot of Capital. Also, the Southerners invested most of their money in their land. The idea of whether this was economically smart was greatly debated some say no because you really have no money then others said yes because the return was greater then the initial investment.