The Differences Slavery Made: A Close Analysis of Two American Communities
Stanley L. Engerman, "Antebellum North and South in Comparative Perspective: A Discussion," American Historical Review 85 (1980): 1154-1160.

SYNOPSIS:

Engerman disagrees with Edward Pessen's conclusion that the South and North were more similar than different and that their similarities had as much to do with the coming of the Civil War as their differences. Engerman argues that Pessen discounts the role slavery played in establishing baseline differences between the sections that became the crucial determinants in the coming of the war.

EXCERPT:

"However similar the motivations of planter capitalists and industrial capitalists, however efficiently each section followed its comparative advantage, and however rapidly both sections were growing economically, one section included a slave-based agriculture and the other had, in addition to a commercial agriculture based on family farms, a developing industrial sector based upon wage labor. One section was more influenced by planter-slaveowners, the other more by merchant and industrial capitalists. These features affected the structure of society and led, for example (as Pessen notes), to certain restrictions on what was politically acceptable. Thus, beneath the structural similarities and some important similarities in motivation, behavior, and belief, there remained key differences, in desired policies and in the sources of wealth. These differences, even with some basic similarities in belief and behavior, in conjunction with the importance of attitudes toward race and slavery, had obvious implications for national political and social life." (1159)

"Pessen points to, but does not emphasize, certain differences, possibly crucial in the antebellum period, possible of potential subsequent importance. Underlying these differences is, of course, the role of slavery in Southern society--the differences between one section with a population over one-third black, mostly enslaved, and most productively used in plantation agriculture, and the other with less than 2 percent of the population black and relatively few enslaved." (1159)

RELATIONSHIP:

Engerman notes that the trend in scholarship (agreeing with Pessen) has been toward less emphasis on differences between the sections and more on their similarity, especially in the area of economics. Engerman, though, points out that much of the scholarship to that point was not comparative but instead based on separate analysis of only one of the sections. Engerman argues that only comparative analysis will enable more definitive answers to the question of difference and similarity between North and South on the eve of the Civil War.

Points of Analysis to this Historiography:

"The visible differences that slavery made in the arrangement of the landscape were apparent to many observers, but Northerners and Southerners interpreted them differently. Northerners focused on land value per acre and Southerners on the dollar value of their crops."

"The richest farm households in Augusta, however, had a high correlation with relatively high wheat production and low corn production, and slavery enabled even greater success on these farms."


Citation: Key = H009
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