Similarities Between the Antebellum North & South

Pessen contends that the differences were far outweighed by the similarities, and he supports his argument with considerable evidence. While the agricultural specialization of each region differed as the result of differing climatic conditions, for instance, farming in both areas followed similar patterns. Farmers in both regions were self-sufficient but were part of a complex economic system. Pessen believes that historians have focused on superficial differences instead of essential similarities of economic, social, and political systems.

Class distinctions followed similar patterns in both regions, and wealth was distributed in the same unequal way in both North and South. Urban development in the South followed the same structure as that of the North, and "Southern whites, rural and urban, lived as did Northerners - in a stratified society marked by great inequalities in status, material condition, and opportunity" (Pessen 57).

Pessen suggests that traditional historical interpretation has sought to emphasize regional differences in order to explain the Civil War.

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t, even death" (16). Early in the war, Union soldiers were under orders to return runaways to their masters, though the soldiers did not always take the time to play slave catcher. Eventually, the First Confiscation Act allowed soldiers to "put black men (and some black women) to work on the Union side of the line of battle. As they did, federal forces became increasingly dependent on black military laborers, . . . [deepening] its complicity in the slaves' struggle for freedom" (Berlin 31). The Act protected runaways who were able to provide direct military service; otherwise, however, it did nothing to help slaves who looked to the confusion and upheaval of war to help them escape captivity. Some fugitives supplied information about Confederate troop movements and local geography as well as physical labor. As they continued to help the federal cause, these escaping slaves were also helping to further their own cause and to make that cause the reason that the battle was really being fought. The Second Confiscation Act, approved July 17, 1862, dramatically extended the protections extended to slaves seeking their freedom. The Act "declared slaves owned by disloyal masters 'forever free of their servitude' and ordered that t
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Approximate Word count = 5554
Approximate Pages = 22 (250 words per page)