The History and Effects of Slavery on the South Essay -- History, War

You would think that a society which takes up an initiation as immoral and barbaric as bondage would benefit from it on the whole, but that is not the case with the American South. The only people who benefited from slaveholding were the top 3% of Southern society. For the rest of the people the institution of slavery would pr scourt them from gaining an education, proper literacy, wealth, and movement up the social ladder. If viewed as an self-sufficing nation the South was a socially stagnant aristocracy, extremely dependant on foreign trade , had fairly weak industry, and finally had a small population comp bed to the conglutination. Perhaps the greatest tragedy was that all those quisling soldiers died for a cause that kept them vile. This is not all though, slavery itself was horrible, and even after slaves were given their legal freedom they were still slaves in most every aspect save for the title.Literacy in the South was very poor compared to the North. The only N orthern States that were surpassed by the South in terms of development and writing were the states of Illinois and Indiana, and this was mainly due to an influx of illiterate foreigners, and immigrants from the slave states. The beat out literacy rate in the South was in North Carolina, the ratio was 1 illiterate for every 7 white persons which is roughly a 14% illiteracy rate. In contrast the worst state in the North for literacy was Illinois at a 117 ratio or 6% illiteracy rate. These figures also take into ac count on children so if you only count adults illiteracy increases particularly in the South..Finally if you look at the whole graph the slave states have the worst literacy rates in general.( Helper, 407) There are vast differences in education between the North... ..., and Lizabeth Cohen. The American Pageant. 11th ed. capital of Massachusetts Houghton Mifflin, 1998. Print.Black Codes (United States). Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 30 Jan. 2012. .Helper, Hinto n Rowan. The Impending Crisis of the South How to Meet It. 1857. The understand Gutenberg. Web. 29 Jan. 2012. h.htm.Hofstadter, Richard. The American Political Tradition And The Men Who Made It. sunrise(prenominal) York Knopf, 1973. Print.Zinn, Howard. A Peoples History of the United States 1492-present. New York HarperCollins, 2005. Print.Fuller, John. How the Civil Rights Movement Worked 06 whitethorn 2008. HowStuffWorks.com. 30 January 2012.