The question of the crisis of westward expansion can be researched in the works of Jordan, Johnson, and Zinn. These works report about the antislavery resistance to improve the economy of the USA during the period of the Civil War. The expansion of new territories provoked a new wave of the turf war between slavery South and North opposition. The crisis is grounded on that this expansion caused the further intensification of the confrontation. The point under discussion is the choice between slave labor and wage labor of free people as more productive.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the government of the USA found a way of economic development. Searching for natural resources, Americans started westward explanation. Assimilation of new territories gave a stimulus to the rapid growth of the manufacturing and farming industry and economic stabilization. The expansion raised the question of the labor type. “Territorial expansion forced the United States to confront the question of whether new areas of settlement were to be slave or free” (Johnson, 275). The South upheld the principle that the slavery economy can be taken for granted as efficient. Their position was slightly confirmed with Lincoln’s opinion that the tendency of free labor was temporal, but slave labor was permanent. “A major finding of the research into the economic dynamics of the slave system was to demonstrate that the rise in the value of slaves was not based upon unfounded speculation. Slave labor was the foundation of a prosperous economic system in the South” (Jordan, 138). Moving westward, Southerners attempted to receive new territories to stable the slavery economy. In Mexico, their expansion met with resistance of the native population. With the help of antislavery supporters, they issued the law of slavery abolishment. Zinn makes, “In 1829, Mexico abolished slavery, threatening the power of slaveholders who wanted to expand the territory in which slaves could be legally held” (Zinn, 158). North conducted the policy of wage labor. They declared that free workers would enhance labor productivity. They started the industrial increase with the improvement of transport and communication systems. “The growth of an urbanized market society in the North produced more than just a legislative program of political economy that Southerners strongly resisted” (Jordan, 143). The market economy was spread and became important on the big areas westwards. A major contribution to the development of agriculture was made by Free Soil Party. The Party insisted that the soil should be given to farmers without payment. The rapid development of the farming industry proved that wage labor was much productive than slave labor, and it influenced the further course of the Civil War.
The examined works are important as documentary evidence of the economic development of the USA during the Civil War. They enable us to evaluate the difference between slave labor and wage labor and make the right choice. The advantages of free workers are obvious as people always work much efficiently when they know about the payment they will have. It concludes that slavery was a historical mistake of the nation, and the economy of a country should be based on wage labor.
Works Cited
Jordan, Winthrop D. The White Man’s Burden: Historical Origins of Racism in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974.
Johnson, Charles, Patricia Smith, and the WGBH Series Research Team. Africans in America: America’s Journey through Slavery. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1998.
Zinn, Howard and Anthony Arnove. Voices of a people’s history of the United States. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2009.