The North and South were different in a variety of ways.

The North, especially New England,

had a greater percentage of middle-class people. It had more small manufacturing industries,
capitalists and banking. By 1840 there were 1,200 cotton-goods factories in the United States,
two-thirds of them in New England, which was importing cotton from the South and using water
power from its rivers. By 1850 the North had more than 1,500 woolen mills, most of them
individually owned, producing blankets, flannel and worsteds. Firearms and furniture were being
produced in the North. There were boot makers and shoemaking – a winter occupation for New
England farmers and fishermen. And people were investing in labor saving machinery –
advancing technology in order to reduce manual labor or labor costs. New England was also the
heart of sea born commerce in the United States. By the late 1840s, ships powered by steam
engines were replacing sailing ships in hauling freight and passengers across the Atlantic Ocean,
the new technology and competition reducing shipping rates. Foreign commerce grew
dramatically in the 1840s and 1850s. The North was manufacturing power looms and exporting
them to Europe. Ships owned by Northerners were shipping the South's cotton to Europe, mainly
to Britain – cotton being two-thirds of US exports.1

In the 1850s a boom in railroad development across the North was changing business
organization and management and reducing freight costs. Railroads were influencing a rise in
real estate values, increasing regional concentrations of industry, the size of business units and
stimulating growth in investment banking and agriculture. Wheat production was moving
westward with the rail lines. The federal government was granting federal lands to states for
building railroads, and railroad companies were selling their land grants they had received from
the federal government to individuals as farm sites. New England was more devoted to education
than was the South. Of the nation's 321 public high schools only 30 were in the South. In the
South the sons of the poor were likely to receive no education. Illiteracy was more common in
the South. Education there was more for the gentry, and teaching tended to be private.2

1 The Cultural Divide

http://www.fsmitha.com/h3/h42cw-culture.htm
2
Ibid
The interconnection between the economies of the North and South mollified the differences in
opinion for some Northerners. Commerce was peace-minded, and among manufacturers in the
New England was a tendency to avoid the slavery issue. They wanted no irreparable split from
their source of cotton. And Northerners had an interest in keeping the South as a good customer
of its food and manufactured products. The South grew more cotton than food and was importing
its food from the North. The South bought its shoes from the North, much of their weaponry, and
it rode on carriage wheels produced in the North. The federal government had high tariffs on
products from Europe which protected the North's markets in the South, in addition to supplying
the government with 85 to 90 percent of its revenues. (There was as yet no federal income tax.)
In the North were people who feared that with secession and no more tariff barriers, the South
would start buying from Britain. And it was feared that secession might also be accompanied by
a repudiation of debts owned by Southerners.3

The Northern states not only had superior transportation and shipping means but also held the
manufacturing plants which produced the vast majority of the countries’ tools and machinery.
The south, on the other hand, were the producers of much of the countries’ food goods, and in
comparison to the white-collar labor found in the North, the South turned out the vast majority of
military officers, with only one of the eight military schools residing outside of the South. In
spite of the occupational differences in the regions, the division of labor worked to some degree,
for example: cotton cultivated and harvested on Southern plantations was transported to New
England mills in large quantities for further processing (spinning, spooling, and weaving) into
various textile products. 4

During the revivalist movement, different religious denominations took hold in different regions.
In the South and the West, where income-potential there were fewer opportunities for
advancement, evangelical sects were more popular. They complained that Northerners had
"departed from the teachings of the Bible, our only rule of faith and practice, which neither
makes the ownership of slave property a test of fellowship, religious character, or church

3
Ibid.
4
Remini, Robert V. A Short History of the United States (Perennial, 2009) p. 35-36
membership." In the North, those who were better off economically were more attracted to the
Episcopalian, Presbyterian, and Unitarian denominations.5

In 1860, the South was still predominantly agricultural, highly dependent upon the sale of staples
to a world market. By 1815, cotton was the most valuable export in the United States; by 1840, it
was worth more than all other exports combined. But while the southern states produced two-
thirds of the world's supply of cotton, the South had little manufacturing capability, about 29
percent of the railroad tracks, and only 13 percent of the nation's banks. The South did
experiment with using slave labor in manufacturing, but for the most part it was well satisfied
with its agricultural economy.6

The North, by contrast, was well on its way toward a commercial and manufacturing economy,
which would have a direct impact on its war making ability. By 1860, 90 percent of the nation's
manufacturing output came from northern states. The North produced 17 times more cotton and
woolen textiles than the South, 30 times more leather goods, 20 times more pig iron, and 32
times more firearms. The North produced 3,200 firearms to every 100 produced in the South.
Only about 40 percent of the Northern population was still engaged in agriculture by 1860, as
compared to 84 percent of the South.7

5
Remini, Robert V. A Short History of the United States (Perennial, 2009) p. 40
6
Remini, Robert V. A Short History of the United States (Perennial, 2009) p. 42
7
http://www.historynet.com/causes-of-the-civil-war