The Antebellum South was a period of Southern American history which lasted from the end of the War of 1812 in 1815 to the start of the American Civil War in 1861. The era was marked by the development of the large plantation system following the invention of the cotton gin, the South's dependency on slavery-based capital accumulation and export trade with Europe, and opposition to industrialization and abolitionism. The Antebellum South was also marked by vast wealth inequalities, where minorities of large-plantation landholders commanded disproportionate shares of gross income. Whereas the industrialized North had, under the supervision of the conservative and pro-modernization Whigs, adopted free-market capitalism, the South continued to practice a form of mercantilism, relying on the export of cash crops to European countries such as Britain and France.
Politics[]
1848 results by county
During the "Old South" period, the conservative Whig Party was strongest in towns, the business community, and upscale plantation areas, while the classical liberal Democratic Party was popular among common farmers and poor western districts. The Whigs brought together the Northern-based National Republican Party and Anti-Masonic Party with elements of the Southern-based Nullifier Party, which had split from the Democratic Party over Andrew Jackson's opposition to states' rights. Unlike their Federalist and National Republican predecessors, the Whigs were competitive in the South, building up strong state parties in Tennessee and Kentucky and competitive parties in Louisiana, Georgia, and Virginia, while Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas were Democratic strongholds. In 1848, for instance, Alabama voted 49.44% Whig and 50.56% Democratic; Arkansas 44.93% Whig and 55.07% Democrat; Delaware 51.8% Whig and 47.54% Democrat, Florida 57.2% Whig and 42.8% Democrat, Georgia 51.49% Whig and 48.51% Democrat, Kentucky 57.46% Whig and 42.54% Democrat, Louisiana 54.59% Whig and 45.41% Democrat, Maryland 52.10% Whig and 47.72% Democrat, Mississippi 49.40% Whig and 50.6% Democrat, Missouri 44.91% Democrat and 55.09% Democrat, North Carolina 55.17% Whig and 44.8% Democrat, Tennesee 52.52% Whig and 47.48% Democrat, Texas 29.71% Whig and 70.29% Democrat, and Virginia 49.2% Whig and 50.8% Democrat. In that election, Whig Zachary Taylor, a Louisiana slaveholder, was victorious due to his military glories and because of his party's campaigning on the fact that he was a Louisiana slaveholder. The Democrats campaigned against a national bank, high tariffs, and federal subsidies for local improvements.
In states such as North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee, political affiliations were often attached to geography. In Tennessee, the Whigs were strongest in the eastern part of the state and the Democrats in the Middle, while western Tennessee was a battleground between the two parties; in Kentucky, the eastern part of the state was Whig-dominated, while the western part was Democratic-dominated. In the Carolinas, divisions existed between the Lowcountry and Upcountry regions. In Western North Carolina, most people were upwardly mobile tradesmen and farmers, and these Appalachian mountaineers viewed the "poor white trash" of the Piedmont with spite, as the latter were mostly descended from English convicts and indentured servants who were shipped to the Americas to help with plantation labor. This western region of North Carolina would thus be a hotbed of Unionist sympathy during the American Civil War, as opposed to the central part of the state.
1856 results by county
The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 led to the collapse of the Whig Party, and, whereas the anti-slavery Republican Party became the Whig Party's main successor in the North, the nativist American Party (or "Know Nothings") inherited the Whig legacy in the South. The Know Nothings opposed both the Democratic Party's states' rights and slavery extremism and the anti-slavery of the Republican Party in the North, while also opposing Catholic immigration, and the party was strongest among former Unionist Whigs, while states-rightist Whigs joined the Democratic Party. In Alabama, the Know Nothings attracted former Whigs, dissident Democrats, and other political misfits who supported Whiggish internal improvements and other forms of economic interventionism; in Maryland, the state's 60% Protestant majority proved amenable to the Know Nothings due to the influx of Irish Catholic immigrants. In spite of the party's anti-Catholicism, the Know Nothings found strong support in Louisiana, including in Catholic New Orleans, as the state affiliate argued that loyalty to a church should not supersede loyalty to the Union. Though some Democrats joined the Know Nothings, in some Southern states almost all Know Nothings were former Whigs. In 1856, when Know Nothing Millard Fillmore sought a return to the presidency, the Know Nothings were the sole opposition to the Democratic Party in the South. Alabama voted 62.08% Democratic and 37.92% American; Arkansas 67.12% Democratic and 32.88% American; Delaware 54.83% Democratic and 42.99% American; Florida 56.81% Democratic and 43.19% American; Georgia 57.14% Democratic and 42.86% American; Kentucky 52.54% Democratic and 47.46% American; Louisiana 51.70% Democratic and 48.3% American; Maryland 45.04% Democratic and 54.63% American; Mississippi 59.44% Democratic and 40.56% American; Missouri 54.43% Democratic and 45.57% American; North Carolina 56.78% Democratic and 43.22% American; Tennessee 52.18% Democratic and 47.82% American; Texas 66.59% Democratic and 33.41% American; and Virginia 59.96% Democratic and 40.04% American.
The Dred Scott v. Sandford decision in 1857 led to the American Party's collapse, as anti-slavery Northern Know Nothings joined the Republican Party, and its pro-slavery Southern wing briefly remained strong on the state and local levels before most of them joined the Constitutional Union Party in 1860. Many Southern officeholders who refused to join either the disunionist Democratic Party or the anti-slavery Republican Party formed the short-lived "Opposition Party" from 1858 to 1860, before forming the conservative unionist Constitutional Union Party on the eve of the 1860 presidential election. The Constitutional Union Party won the support of pro-compromise unionists in the Upper South and conservative former Whigs in the North, and a Southern newspaper called the Constitutional Union Party the "ghost of the old Whig Party". Meanwhile, a split emerged between Stephen A. Douglas' Northern Democrats and John C. Breckinridge's Southern Democrats, as Douglas argued that each territory's settlers should be able to decide locally on the status of slavery, while the radical Southern Democrats aggressively supported the expansion of slavery and rejected the compromise of "popular sovereignty". In the border states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, unionists voted for the Republicans, Northern Democrats, and Constitutional Unionists, forming a majority of the vote in all four states; in the Upper South states of Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas, the Douglas Democrat and Constitutional Unionist votes approached a majority; and, in the Deep South, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, and Mississippi, the Southern Democrats won convincingly, while Bell and Douglas voters won divided majorities in Georgia and Louisiana and neared it in Alabama.
After the Republican Abraham Lincoln won the election due to the North and West's unified support for his party, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas seceded from 20 December 1860 to 1 February 1861 and formed the Confederate States of America. Missouri, Arkansas, Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina's secession conventions initially voted against secession, as "Conditional Unionists" held out hope that Northerners would stifle their anti-slavery rhetoric and accept pro-slavery rules for the territories. After the Battle of Fort Sumter in April 1861 and Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers to put down the secessionist rebellion, nearly all "Conditional Unionists" joined the secessionists, and Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina joined the Confederacy. The Confederate Congress was officially nonpartisan, and the Confederacy chose the Democrat Jefferson Davis for the presidency and the Whig Alexander H. Stephens for the vice-presidency to ensure unity between former Democrats and Whigs. In the Confederacy, former Whigs coalesced in opposition to Davis' administration; during the political realignment brought about by the Civil War and Reconstruction, moderate, nationalist, and economically innovative ex-Whigs identified as "Conservatives" and tried to regroup and reconnect with Whigs in the North, to no avail. Former Whigs and Constitutional Unionists also constituted a majority of the "Scalawags" who joined the Republican Party. The Conservatives all eventually joined the Democratic Party as part of the "Redeemer" coalitions, as did many Scalawags; some Scalawags remained Republicans and affiliated themselves with either the white supremacist "Lily-Whites" or the anti-racist "Black-and-Tans".
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