Chapter 11 Two Nations Section 1

The Case Against Slavery There were noticeable contrasts between the North and the South (slavery), which created two different sections within the US By 1850 many white Northerners had the belief that slavery violated principles of the US and Christianity They did not believe in slavery but also were prejudice, an unreasonable, usually unfavorable opinion of another group not based on fact The Case Against Slavery

Harriet Beecher Stowe Stowe wrote the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin The book became an instant best seller in the US and abroad In the book a slave escapes her plantation home in KY when her child is about to be sold. She heads north and eludes slave catchers and reaches the Underground Railroad. Another slave is “sold down the river” and is eventually killed by his master Simon Legree Uncles Tom’s first owner is a neat and orderly man with a happy family. He is sold to anti-Christian, heavy drinker, who only cares about his wealth. He brutalizes the women on the plantation and beats Uncle Tom to death. The book also showed a family in the north helping a runaway slave to Canada Harriet Beecher Stowe

Stowe depend the contrast between a slave and his master but also showed that slavery went against the North's beliefs of: women importance, the ideal of the family Uncle Tom’s Cabin had a powerful effect on the north It showed a vivid picture of slavery and the South. It also convinced them that slavery would be the ruin of the US Harriet Beecher Stowe

Southern Views on Slavery The south saw Uncle Tom’s Cabin as a book of insulting lies- some master treated their slaves bad but there were not a thousand Legrees They saw themselves as a big happy family and even said they provided the basic necessities of life unlike the northern industrialists Southern Views on Slavery

Differences Between North and South The North was becoming more urban, still more industrial than the South Its population was more than twice that of the South and becoming more diverse with Irish and German immigrants-1860 nine of the ten largest cities were in the North The North had a new technological advantage-railroads-which made transportation very efficient There was around 30,000 miles of railroad laid between 1840-1850 The creation of the railroad turned Chicago from a small center of trade to the central location of the east and west for transported goods. 70% of the railroad was in the north-although there wasn’t much, cities such as Atlanta, GA were created in the south Along with the railroad the creation of the telegraph helped the north due to the lines following the railroad The North also had around 110,000 factories compared to 20,000 in the south Differences Between North and South