In the first half of the 19th century, in the USA, the agrarian slaveholding South and the industrial North existed as separate economic regions. The differences in economics, social structure, traditions and political values between the North and the South of that period are known as American sectionalism.
In the North, enterprises of machine building, metalworking, and light industry were concentrated. Here, the main workforce was numerous immigrants from various countries who worked in factories, and other enterprises. There were enough workers in the North, the demographic situation here was stable and the standard of living was relatively high. The situation was different in the South. As a result of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and the American-Mexican War of 1846-1848, the United States obtained vast territories in the west, where there was a large amount of free land and where slavery was legalized earlier. These lands were settled by planters, who received huge land plots. The land in the south is very fertile, the climate is favorable for agriculture, therefore the South has become an agrarian region. Crops such as tobacco, sugarcane, cotton, and rice were grown here. However, the South did not have enough hands. For the most part, immigrants went to the North, so black slaves from Africa were brought in from the beginning of the 17th century to work on the plantations. By the beginning of the secession, a quarter of the white population of the South owned slaves.
The North was in need of raw materials from the South, especially cotton, and the South needed the machines of the North. These two different economic regions existed peacefully for such a long time, until ontradictions grew between them. Some of the most acute conflict issues are the following:
Taxes on imported goods (the North wanted to make them as high as possible to protect their industry, the South wanted to trade freely with the world).
The question of extending slavery to new states: the United States annexed new territories, and discussions arose regarding the constitution of each of the future states, in the first place – there will be a new state free or slave-owning. The coming to power of Lincoln, who announced that henceforth all new states would be free from slavery, meant for the southern states the prospect of remaining in the minority and in the future losing to Congress on all conflict issues to the North.
Southerner slaveholders sought to expand their holdings at the expense of land in the west and the occupation of their free citizens hindered these plans. Thus, southerner senators have repeatedly blocked the adoption of the “act of homeste”, which provides free transfer of land plots to property for migrants from the east.
The Confederation
Political and public organizations that opposed slavery, formed in 1854 as the Republican Party. The victory in the 1860 presidential election of the candidate of this party, Abraham Lincoln, became a sign of danger for the slave owners and led to secession from the Union. Each state elected representatives to the state constitutional council who voted for or against secession. According to the voting results, the “Decree on Secession” was published. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina was the first to issue such a decree, and on December 24, a “Declaration on the immediate causes that led to the separation of South Carolina from the Federal Union” was published. South Carolina was followed by:
Mississippi (January 9, 1861),
Florida (January 10, 1861)
Alabama (January 11, 1861)
Georgia (January 19, 1861)
Louisiana (January 26, 1861)
The legal justification for such actions was the absence in the US Constitution of a direct ban on the exit of individual states from the US (although there was also no permission for this). On February 4, 1861, the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America opened, in which 6 states announced the formation of a new state – the Confederation of States of America. On March 11, the Constitution of the Confederate States of America was adopted at a session of the Congress, replacing the earlier Provisional Constitution.
These 6 states adopted the constitution and elected the former Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis, who assumed office on February 18, 1861, as their president.
On March 1, independence was declared by Texas, which joined the Confederation the next day, and in April-May, after the battle for Fort Sumter and the announcement of mobilization in the north, the example of Texas was followed by:
Virginia (independence – April 17, 1861, joined – May 7, 1861),
Arkansas (independence – May 6, 1861, joined – May 18, 1861),
Tennessee (independence – May 7, 1861, joined – July 2, 1861),
North Carolina (independence – May 20, 1861, joined – May 21, 1861).
The Alabama city of Montgomery became the capital of the Confederation, and after the accession of Virginia – Richmond. These states occupied 40% of the entire United States, with a population of 9.1 million people, including more than 3.6 million blacks. On October 7, the Indian Territory entered the Confederation, whose population was not loyal to the Confederation (most Indians were expelled from territories where slave-owning states were formed) or to the US government, which in fact authorized the deportation of Indians from Georgia and other southern states. However, the Indians did not want to give up slavery and became part of the Confederation. The Indian territory consisted of 5 republics by the number of major Indian tribes: Cherokee (who had the largest number of slaves ), Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminol. The CSA Senate was formed by two representatives from each state, as well as one representative from each Indian Republic (without the right to vote).
The Union was left with 23 states, including slaveholding Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland, which, not without a struggle, chose to maintain loyalty to the federal Union. Residents of a number of western districts of Virginia refused to comply with the decision to withdraw from the Union, formed their own authorities and in June 1863 were accepted into the United States as a new state. The population of the Union exceeded 23 million people, on its territory was located almost the entire industry of the country, 70% of railways, 81% of bank deposits , etc.
Taking advantage of the fact that the Southerners left their seats in the parliament and the House of Representatives, the Republicans were able to push through the bills that had previously been blocked by deputies of the South. Among them were the Morilla Act, the Homestead Act, the National Banks Act and the 1861 Income Act.
Sources:
Burin S. N. On the battlefields of the civil war in the United States .
Ivanov R. F. Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War
Foote S. The Civil War: A Narrative
Boatner MM The Civil War Dictionary
Nevins A. The War for the Union