The Dilemma of Industrial Slavery: White Supremacy and Industrialization in the Antebellum South

Before the American Civil War, political and intellectual leaders of the southern slave states had developed a vision of a modern and industrialized slave society. While often ignored by historians, industrialization was already well under way in the antebellum period in the South. This industry relied on both enslaved black laborers and white wage laborers. The presence of a large class of poor white laborers in the South created a problem for both the reality of southern industrialization and how southern political and intellectual leaders envisioned the future of the southern economy. Furthermore, northern antislavery attacks often argued that slavery was the cause of the degradation of southern white labor and not a way to elevate it. The political culture of the South was built upon an ideal of white supremacy that was supposed to elevate all white men above the station of enslaved black people. The reality of existing biracial work regimes and the economic desire to adapt slave labor to manufacturing created a dilemma for white supremacy in this period. Two incongruent visions emerged from this dilemma. One emphasized the continued expansion of slave labor into all industries in the South. This vision sought to preserve white supremacy by keeping all labor under the purview of the slave labor system, generally ignoring poor white southerners or dismissing them as a group not worthy of consideration. The other vision sought to preserve white supremacy by segregating southern work regimes. Either by ending biracial work sites or making manufacturing jobs exclusively available to white laborers they attempted to square the problem of biracial interaction and the potential for political resistance to slavery from southern working class whites. White supremacy proved incompatible with an industrial slave society and, ultimately, the interests of slave owners would win out.