History of the Old South essays

History of the Old South essays The area of the nation now referred to as the Old South had several distinguishing features which separated it from the rest of America. These distinctions were present from the earliest points of its history, because the colonies that were to be the foundation for the South were founded not for religious reasons like their northern cousins. They were founded, rather, to further the economic interests of their supporters. The true distinctive nature of the South begins, however, in the year 1787. This is the year the American Constitution was drafted with a number of clauses which were carefully worded due to a number of compromises between northern and southern representatives. Although the distinctive nature of the South was cemented when it collectively bargained to make sure slavery remained protected in the Constitution, the cohesiveness was not cemented until the invention of Eli Whitneys cotton gin and the rise of King Cotton. It was at this point that the South became al most solely focused on the raising of cotton as its cash crop, this is also the point where it was clear that the plantation system was so firmly ingrained into Southern economics that any threat to slavery would have to be addressed with the power of all slave holding states. Prior to the American Revolution, the southern colonies functioned in a different manner than those in the north, but not in a manner which was significant enough for anyone to consider the various British colonies in North America as two separate regions At this time all the colonies were under British rule and any Northerners seeking to end slavery had no real voice in British politics and Southerners never had to worry about the issue as long as their plantations continued to produce valuable crops for the British merchants. This all changed after the war; because of differences in the two regions regarding slavery, each of them began to form groups which sought certain c...