The Cotton Gin - 1708 Words

The institution of slavery in the southern states of the United States of America was primarily based on economics rather than some type of natural admiration of the practice itself. When the Mason-Dixon line was created in the 1760s, Eli Whitney’s revolutionary cotton gin, which would eventually set slavery in the South, had not been created yet. However, there were still lines being drawn between the more industrial-based economy of the North and the more agricultural economy of the South. Slavery shaped the economic backbone of the South, and as it became more widespread after Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin, it became as strong as the political and social foundation of Southern character as well. Although there were times†¦show more content†¦This production led to an economic strength that made these states even more determined to defend the right to practice slavery. Despite the freedoms demanded in the Declaration of Independence and the freedo ms reserved in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, such as Amendment X (Document 1), slavery was both tolerated and classified in the Constitution. The South was also able to withstand the growing number of revolts, rebellions, and northern political opposition that was rising. Proclamations such as the Fugitive Slaves Law were established to provide for the return of slaves who escaped from one state into another state or territory, and the Underground Railroad became a serious threat to Southern plantation owners who needed more slaves to maintain their economic power. The Nat Turner revolt and the writings and speeches of the former slave Frederick Douglass were contributors to the growing conflict, but the South defended their claim to economic security through the practice of slavery until it became legally impossible to do so after the Civil War. Frederick Douglass vividly described his past years as a slave in the first of three autobiographies, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, which was published in 1845. He later wrote the two autobiographies, My Bondage and My Freedom, and The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, which mark his greatest contributions to southern culture. In The Life and Times of Fredrick Douglass, he