{

Late Antebellum Virginia Reconsidered

By Daniel Crofts The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 107, No. 3 (Summer, 1999), pp. 253 - 286

Virginia, 1859

{If there were men and women in Virginia who clung to the notion that Virginia was a part of the Old South, they were working hard to willfully misunderstand their surroundings. For Virginia, despite its ancient ties to the landed aristocracy and planting classes, was developing into a robust, modern economy.

Virginia as “the Old South”

{ Corn Wheat Livestock Seafood Tobacco The Slave Trade

Although tobacco agriculture was waning compared to previous peaks, the state was a huge producer of corn, wheat, livestock, and seafood. And, it is also important to note that even with some tobacco fields falling back into forests, Virginia was still the number one producer of tobacco in America.

Virginia’s Economy, 1850s

Increasing Urbanization

About one in three counties contained a city which made up most of the population.

Irish and German immigration increased population rapidly.

Many slaves were hired out for industrial labor.

{In Virginia, iron, coal, and salt were all produced by industrial corporations. In Richmond alone, there were over seventy iron manufacturers. The people of Virginia were not committed to traditional economic systems. Just getting the crops grown in Virginia to northern markets became a huge industry. Manufacturing increased by 67% in the 1840s .

A Changing Economy

{ Canal Systems

Railroads

Banking Industry

All of the industries listed to the left were developing in Virginia by the 1840s. Each helped to facilitate trade in one way or the other, and each created jobs for Virginians in urban regions, as well. By the 1850s, Virginia was as connected by trade with Baltimore, Pennsylvania, and Ohio as it was with the Deep South. Virginia as an

Economic Crossroads, 1850s

Could Virginia’s Labor Exist, Half Slave and Half Free?

The chances are that the hiring out of slaves to work industrial jobs would have forced Virginians to act decisively – to choose between continuing the practice of slavery in new and heretofore unknown ways, or to convert to a wage system.

The purchase of slaves tied up huge sums of capital in labor. Labor was free going forward; however, most plantation owners required enormous credit in order to run day to day operations.

Slavery slowed innovation. The mechanized farming practices being developed during this period were not driven by slaveholders

The value of an educated workforce would inevitably have prevailed.

Factors Against Perpetuating Slavery

Slavery was a viable option for railroad construction, coalmining, factory work, and any number of other trades.

The huge number of enslaved men and women who were hired out to do work in iron manufacturing mills, on the railroads, or in skilled positions like carpentry demonstrated that in fact slavery could be adapted to almost any trade – if there was a will to expand the system.

Slavery was Adaptable.

{

Enslaved laborers in the ironworks foundries of Virginia were organized to the point that they could make decisions about whether or not it was suitable to work on hot days in the summer. Some Richmond tobacco factories paid enslaved laborers “overwork” wages to compensate them.

Slaves in Ironworks, Tobacco, and other industries

{

The East-West Divide in Antebellum Virginia

East of the Blue Ridge Mountains and near the Southern Piedmont , Virginians sympathized most with the Deep South.

West of the Blue Ridge – what we call Southwest Virginia today – was only about 15% of the population was enslaved. This is the lowest percentage of anywhere that seceded from the Union.

In Northwestern Virginia, approximately 95% of the population was white.

Recall that West Virginia’s secession from the state of Virginia occurred when Virginia seceded from the Union.

Regions of Virginia

{

Virginians traditionally claimed that enslaved men and women were better treated in the state than anywhere else. Of course, in Virginia, enslaved people had the ever present fear of being sold from their families during the late Antebellum Period. Although many Virginians condemned the practice of selling slaves away from their children or loved ones, the profit motive was enough to ensure that the practice continued. Selling Slavery in

Virginia

Northern Industrial Wage Workers VS. Enslaved Workers in the South

Neither economic system allowed for much social mobility, and in neither region of the United States was political equality expected from the lower classes.

Poor and middle class whites harbored feelings of animosity and jealousy for the wealthiest plantation owners in Virginia. Of course, they also aspired to change places with them.

In order to maintain social harmony among whites, elite Southern Democrats perpetuated the argument that an end to slavery would degrade poor whites by forcing them to do the most inhumane tasks which were presently completed by enslaved labor. This rhetoric of racial superiority unified many white Virginians in defense of slavery.

Nevertheless, given the high number of free blacks and the egalitarian views of many women in the state, Virginia was an outlier among Confederate, secessionists.

{

Virginia Politics During the 1850s

The Decline of the Whigs In Virginia in the 1850s

Intensely pro-Slavery, Southern sympathetic Democrats.

Opposed by moderate Whigs, who were in favor of higher tariffs, moderation concerning slavery, and government involvement in internal improvements.

Increasing democratization coincides with economic downturn for Van Buren’s Democrats.

Many new voters support Whigs plan of “economic development and moral uplift,” but the Whigs still can’t seem to win the state in Presidential Elections – even though many of the Whig candidates were Virginians!

The Political Divide

{ {Whigs

Industry, Banks, Railroads, Canals, Public Schools and Temperance.

Some Whigs argue that the free, wage labor must be adopted eventually.

Democrats Oppose big government

and taxes German & Irish

consistently supported the Democrats – disliking Whig “moralizing.”

They adopt a strong pro-slavery stance.

Favor states rights; VA and KY Resolutions.The Whigs VS.

Democrats

Both parties are divided on the slavery issue – especially along the East-West divide.

Both parties supported universal manhood suffrage.

Both parties supported the Compromise of 1850 when it was enacted.

Overall, the Democrats won on popular votes, but the Whig minority was formidable.

Even so, much unifies the parties.

{

Westward migration of Virginians to the Deep South kinship ties with slaveholders.

High prices for slaves produced high profits for slave sellers.

Southerners, even in modern cities like Richmond felt out of place in dealing with the social order of Northern capitalists.

Although slaveholders decreases, their influence increased.

Why Support Slavery?

{

Virginia Democrats split their vote between Stephen Douglas and John Breckenridge. This allowed the former Whig and current Constitutional Union Party Candidate, John Bell to win the state of Virginia. Yet, the overall result of the Election was an Electoral College victory for Abraham Lincoln.

The Election of 1860

{

The immediate cause of the first seven states leaving the Union – South Carolina first, followed by the remainder of the Lower South: GA, FL, MS, AL, LA, and TX – was the Election of President Abraham Lincoln. But even after Lincoln’s election, Virginians stayed in the Union.

The Election of Lincoln

Virginia was a state that was tied to the North economically. Wheat, corn, tobacco, livestock, and seafood products were all exported to the North, often via Baltimore.

The Upper South – Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas – were simply different from the Deep South – having a unique set of interests beyond slavery.

The divisiveness between Lincoln’s Administration and Davis’ new Confederate government would escalate the situation.

The Upper South

{The bombardment and eventual surrender of Ft. Sumter in South Carolina necessitated the calling up of 75,000 soldiers by Lincoln – and that tipped the balance of power for the Upper South.April 12, 1861 – Ft.

Sumter

{

Virginians had been 2 to 1 against secession after the Election of Lincoln. But when Lincoln was compelled to raise an army, secessionists took a more forceful stance against the government. Intimidation practices were put into effect, and secessionist forces attempted to take over both the Harper’s Ferry arsenal and the Gosport Naval Base – the shipyard.The Secession

Convention

Virginia had unique interests economically which tied it to the Northern States.

Virginia had always played a unique role as a broker of intrastate diplomacy.

Virginia was the home of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe – the Mother of Presidents – and the site of America’s decisive Revolutionary War Victories.

Virginia was the most industrially developed region in the South, and would be the site of so many Civil War battles.

Why is Virginia critical?