Similarities And Differences Between North And South

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When comparing the North and South, there aren’t many similarities. Both believed the exact opposite on many different topics. These include topics of economics, social, military, and political ideas. At the end of the Civil War, the rural South and urban North were able to come together as a single and strong nation. Firstly, there was a major difference between Northern and Southern politics. The South mostly consisted of Democrats. Southerners favored a system of government with strong states and weak federal government, with the right to secede if they disagreed with the federal government. Southerners wanted a government that invested its money agriculture. The South also was also home to most pro-slave states. They also wanted to expand …show more content…
The North spanned from Maine to Iowa and was more of an urban, industrial setting. There were many large cities like New York, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Detroit that contained several types of factories. Nearly one quarter of all Northerners lived in a urban area by 1860. In the North, slavery no longer existed, allowing former slaves to work just like every Northerner. Many European immigrants migrated to the North, which boosted population to twenty-two million people. The immigrants would work in the many factories of the North. Transportation in the North was extremely easy compared to South. Over two-thirds of all railroad tracks existed in the North. This made the movement of goods smooth and quick, which helped the manufacturing economy the North was built on. Northerners were more likely to have careers in business, medicine, and education, and compared to the South, children were more more likely to attend school. The South had a very different culture than the North. The biggest difference between the two was the legalization of slavery. The South was very dependent on slave labor because the large profitable plantations had to be maintained. The South was very rural compared to the North. Almost eighty percent of all Southerners work on farms in 1860. There were no large cities, except New Orleans, and most towns were located on rivers and coast near trading ports. It was important to live near a trading post because manufacturing was difficult in the South. Only a small portion of railroads ran through the South, so most manufacturing was done by water. In 1860, only one tenth of Southerners lived in an urban area with access to these ports, adding to the manufacturing obstacles. As it could be assumed, Southerners tended to have careers in agriculture and military. Children also spent less time in school because they had to help work on the farm and help the family make

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