Cotton Trade Quotes
This is an excellent example of the delusion that many Southerners functioned under regarding the importance of cotton to the economy of the nation. There were New York merchants and some New England ship owners who profited from the export of cotton, but cotton contributed very little to the economy of the North and the Midwest while it was essential to the South representing a huge percentage of their output. Industrialization was growing all over the country except in the South where slavery and cotton both held it back. When the South finally decided on war, they did not realize that the North would be able to embargo their cotton exports nor did they realize how little the rest of the country needed the cotton industry It was another great example of political hubris.
The “lords of the lash” were the Southern slave owners. The “lords of the loom” were the Northern mill owners. The Southern cotton, grown by cheap slave labor was sold to the Northern mill owners at very low prices. They in turn wove the cotton into cloth and sold it throughout the nation and to foreign countries. So, although there was strong Northern anti-slavery sentiment, the wealthy and politically powerful mill owners had a vested interest in maintaining slavery in the South.
