Southern Plantation Owners Used "King

Cotton" to Justify Slavery

By USHistory.org, adapted by Newsela staff on 05.16.17
Word Count 917
Level 1120L

"The cotton planter and his pickers" is written on this photograph taken by H. Tees in West Point, Mississippi. It is a postcard
showing a white man holding a shotgun and a dog, with African-American men, women and children in a cotton field in 1908,
more than 40 years after the Civil War had ended and slavery was abolished. From the Library of Congress

Two-thirds of cotton consists of seeds, and removing them is harder than it sounds. Cotton is
sticky when removed from the plant, and pulling out the seeds is difficult. Throughout the
1700s, cotton production was expensive because of the huge amount of labor necessary to
pick out the seeds. All that changed with the invention of the cotton gin. What once was a
painstakingly slow process became relatively fast. By the end of the 18th century, demand for
cotton was increasing as power looms were able to turn out great quantities of cloth. With the
cotton gin, southern cotton plantations could now supply the world's demand.

Eli Whitney's world-changing invention

Ironically, the man who would make cotton king was the son of a Massachusetts farmer. After
graduating from Yale University, Eli Whitney traveled south. In 1792, he stayed at a Savannah
plantation that belonged to the widow of of Nathanael Green, the Revolutionary War general.
While there, Whitney created the device that changed the world. Whitney built a machine that

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moved stiff, brush-like teeth though the raw cotton. To his delight, the teeth removed a very
high percentage of the nettlesome seeds. Up to this point, it took up to 10 hours to produce a
pound of cotton, with very little profit. The cotton gin ultimately was able to produce a thousand
pounds of cotton per day with relatively little expense.

In the year the cotton gin was invented, the United States exported about 138,000 pounds of
cotton to other countries. Two years later, the amount of cotton being exported was more than
10 times higher at 1,600,000 pounds. Before the gin, leaders of the country thought slavery
would gradually disappear. This all changed when slaves could be used to cultivate millions of
pounds of cotton for markets all over the world. Eli Whitney never made a cent on his invention
because it was widely reproduced before he could patent it. Determined to duplicate his
success when he returned North, he developed the milling machine to standardize the
manufacture of rifles. The machine also helped make all types of factories more efficient. This
one individual played a great part in creating the industrial North, as well as the plantation
south.

Cotton becomes king in the South

The sudden explosion of the cotton industry gave slavery a new lease on life. Prior to this,
some Southern slave owners, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, had seen
slavery as an evil that would eventually be swept away. But with the southern economy now

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depending on cotton, these beliefs were seen as old-fashioned, and slavery now was seen as
an institution to be protected. Cotton became king, a fact now well understood in the South. It
became the foundation of the Southern economy, Southern culture, and Southern pride.

Defenders of slavery used economics, history, religion, legality, social good, and even
humanitarianism, in support of their arguments.

Defenders of slavery argued that the sudden end to the slave economy would have killed the
South's economy. The cotton economy would collapse, the tobacco crop would dry in the
fields, and rice would no longer be profitable.

Devising arguments to defend slavery

Defenders of slavery argued that if all the slaves were freed, there would be widespread
unemployment and chaos. Abolishing slavery would lead to uprisings, bloodshed and anarchy.
They argued for continuing the status quo, which meant affluence and stability for slaveholders
and all free people who enjoyed the bounty of a society built on slavery.

Defenders of slavery argued that slavery had existed throughout history and was the natural
state of mankind. The Greeks had slaves, the Romans had slaves, and the English had
slavery until 1833.

Defenders of slavery noted that in the Bible, Abraham had slaves. They point to the Ten
Commandments, noting that "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, ... nor his
manservant, nor his maidservant." In the New Testament, Paul returned a runaway slave,
Philemon, to his master, and, although slavery was widespread throughout the Roman world,
Jesus never spoke out against it.

Courts declare that slaves are property

Defenders of slavery turned to the courts, who had ruled that all blacks — not just slaves —
had no legal standing as persons in our courts. The courts declared that they were property,
and the Constitution protected slave-holders' rights to their property.

Defenders of slavery argued that the institution brought Christianity to "heathens." Slavery
was, according to this argument, a good thing for the enslaved. John C. Calhoun, a politician
from South Carolina who served as vice president, said: "Never before has the black race of
Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized
and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually."

Moving the country toward the Civil War

Defenders of slavery argued that slaves were better cared for than the poor of Europe and
workers in Northern states. Southerners said that owners protected and helped their slaves
when they were sick and old. If a worker was fired, he or she was left to fend helplessly for
themselves.

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When a society forms around any institution, as the South did around slavery, it will comes up
with a set of arguments to support it. The Southerners held ever firmer to their arguments as
political tensions brought the country closer to the Civil War.

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