The Cause Of The Civil War: Eli Whitneys Cotton Gin Essay -- essays re

During the period between 1790 and 1850, the United States was rapidly channooseg. It was now a separate country with its own economy, laws, and government. The country was learning to live on its own, apart from England. There began to appear a rift between northern and siemens. The magnetic north believing in the Puritan Merchant role model, and the South in the role model of the English Country Squire. The North traded with everyone, tour the South traded primarily with England. The major crop in the South was tobacco, and because of the lineage in the price of tobacco the knuckle down trade was end, just as those in the North hoped it would. Then came a man, and an guile, which changed the course of history. In 1792, Eli Whitney visited the woodlet of Catherine Greene, the wife of Revolutionary War general, Nathaniel Greene, near Savannah Georgia. He watched like fiber being cleaned a very long and time consuming play to do by hand. Watching the cotton being cleaned a n idea came to Whitney. He decided he would build a machine that would clean cotton faster than it could be done by hand. Thus, he created the cotton gin.This invention changed the way the South functioned, and the babble out effect it created changed the course of history forever. The ripple effect caused by Eli Whitneys cotton gin can be seen as the driving force behind many of the conflicts between North and South, and eventually culminating in the Civil War. Before Eli Whitneys invention, slaveholding was dying in the South. The price of tobacco had plummeted, and planters were freeing slaves because of the high cost of feeding, living accommodations and clothing them. When Eli Whitney introduced his invention the cotton market exploded. Cotton began to be cock-a-hoop in enormous quantities because it was good for making clothes, and with the invention of the cotton gin easier to produce. This explosion in the growth of the cotton market rejuvenated the slave trade. This time , though, the slave trade was not between the U.S. and Africa, but instead between the onetime(a) South, and the New South. The Old South began to breed slaves to sell to the cotton farmers in the New South. These farmers unavoidable large numbers of slaves because once the cotton was ripe, it needed to be picked quickly. The price of slaves skyrocketed, and this new crop ensured the practice of slavery would continue. This continuati... ...in slavery breathing new life into the South, and in the country economy as a whole. With this rejuvenation came problems between North and South over clean differences. These differences created a rift that considerablened until sectionalism overtook nationalism. This rift was temporarily closed some(prenominal) times but ultimately the differences between North and South were so ingrained in their respective culture that it took a war to change. The wide and far-reaching effects of this event can be viewed as a pond, the country, when a p ebble is thrown into it the ripples become larger and larger until they come in tie with something that can stop them. As the proverb says, A butterfly that flapping its wings in China can cause a hurricane in Kansas.BibliographyEli Whitney Museum. Organization Page. 3 December 2000Green, Constance. Eli Whitney and the Birth of American Technology. Harper-Collins College Division, 1995.Hays, Wilma Pitchford. Eli Whitney and the Machine Age. Franklin Watts, 1959.Wilson, Mitchell. American Science and Invention A Pictoral History. Simon and Shuster, New York, 1954.