Between 1840 and 1860, what were the differences in the economies of the North and South? How did slavery relate to the southern economy? What were...

In 1800, the
economy of the entire United States was agricultural. In 1860, the South's economy was still
agricultural, but the North's economy was diversified. The South's economy relied heavily on
slave labor, and the issue of slavery caused the Civil War (1861€“1865).

In
the decades before the Civil War, the North's economy developed rapidly. By 1860, the North had
about 90 percent of the manufacturing industries in the country. When war came, the North was
able to produce weapons far more easily than the South could. Only about 40 percent of
Northerners worked on farms, and these farms were more mechanized than those in the South. The
urbanized North had a much larger population than the rural South.

In 1860,
the South possessed great wealth. But that wealth was derived almost solely from its slave
economy and its product: cotton. The South had less than 30 percent of the nation's railroad
tracks and only about 10 percent of the nation's banks.

As the war dragged
on, the North's...