When the Constitution of the United States was signed in Philadelphia in 1787, Roger Sherman brokered a compromise about slavery. He assumed that the evil of slavery was "dying out ... and would by degrees disappear." Little did he know that, by the middle of the next century, “King Cotton” would cause slavery to become the backbone of the global economy.
The Industrial Revolution in Great Britain greatly increased the demand for cotton. Textile mills were much more productive than individuals producing goods by hand. Their demands caused cotton production in America to soar from 156,000 bales in 1800 to more than 4 million in 1860. (A bale is a compressed bundle of cotton weighing between 400 and 500 pounds.)
But the inventive genius of the Industrial Revolution was not applied toward developing agricultural machines to plant and harvest the crop more efficiently. Cotton was a labor-intensive crop. Southern planters felt it wasn't economically feasible to pay agricultural workers to perform that labor, so the increased demand caused the number of slaves to increase from 700,000 in 1790 to 4 million in 1860. In the eyes of the planters, cotton production depended on slavery and slavery depended on cotton.
By the beginning of the Civil War, cotton provided the economic underpinnings of the Southern economy, giving it a huge role in the global economy.
In 1858, Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina wrote:
"Without the firing of a gun, without drawing a sword, should they [Northerners] make war upon us, we could bring the whole world to our feet. What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years? England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her. No, you dare not make war on cotton! No power on earth dares make war upon it. Cotton is king."
The cotton economy of the South was a major contributor to the expansion of the entire American economy in the 19th century. It accounted for over half of all American exports during the first half of the century. It made it possible for America to borrow money from abroad. And it fostered trade in agricultural products from the West and manufactured goods from the East.
From the time it became a state in 1817 to 1860, Mississippi became the largest cotton-producing state in America. During that time, the white population grew from 5,179 to 353,901, while the slave population grew from 3,489 to 436,631. By 1860, the South exported two-thirds of the world supply of cotton.
But it wasn’t just Southern planters who benefited from the Cotton Economy. While Mississippi, Alabama, western Georgia, Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas provided cheap land suitable for cotton production, they also attracted thousands of white men from the North and from the older slave states on the Atlantic Seaboard who came to make a quick fortune.
In 1850, 25 percent of the population of New Orleans was from the North and 10 percent of the population of Mobile, Alabama, was from New York.
New York received some 40 percent of cotton revenues from supplying insurance, shipping and financing services as well as selling goods to Southern planters.
Some people, from British factory owners to Southern planters to Northern businessmen, were doing so well under the reign of King Cotton that nobody stepped back to consider the toll being exacted on many other people, from British mill workers to slaves toiling in Southern fields. Just because an economy is making money for some people doesn’t mean it’s doing well—and certainly not doing good—for all its people.
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