Antebellum South Carolina is typically defined by historians as the period of time between the War of 1812 and the American Civil War. Due to the invention of the cotton gin in 1786, the economies of the Upcountry and the Lowcountry became fairly equal in wealth. The expansion of cotton cultivation in the Upcountry led to a great increase in labor demand, with a concomitant rise in the slave trade. In 1822, free black craftsman and preacher Denmark Vesey was convicted for having masterminded a plan to overthrow Charlestonian whites. In reaction, whites established curfews for blacks, and forbade assembly of large numbers of blacks and the education of slaves.
In 1828, John C. Calhoun decided that constitutionally, each state government within that state had more power than the federal government. Consequently, if a state deemed it necessary, it had the right to "nullify" any federal law within its boundaries. Calhoun resigned as vice president, as he planned to become a senator in South Carolina to stop its run toward secession. He also wanted to resolve problems inflaming his fellow Carolinians. Before federal forces arrived at Charleston in response to challenges on tariffs, Calhoun and Henry Clay agreed upon a compromise tariff to lower rates over 10 years.
Read more about Antebellum South Carolina: The Cotton Gin's Effect On South Carolina, The Nullification Crisis, The Vesey Plot and The Indian Removal Act, The Mexican-American War
Famous quotes containing the words antebellum, south and/or carolina:
“He was high and mighty. But the kindest creature to his slaves—and the unfortunate results of his bad ways were not sold, had not to jump over ice blocks. They were kept in full view and provided for handsomely in his will. His wife and daughters in the might of their purity and innocence are supposed never to dream of what is as plain before their eyes as the sunlight, and they play their parts of unsuspecting angels to the letter.”
—Anonymous Antebellum Confederate Women. Previously quoted by Mary Boykin Chesnut in Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, edited by C. Vann Woodward (1981)
“We have heard all of our lives how, after the Civil War was over, the South went back to straighten itself out and make a living again. It was for many years a voiceless part of the government. The balance of power moved away from it—to the north and the east. The problems of the north and the east became the big problem of the country and nobody paid much attention to the economic unbalance the South had left as its only choice.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“I hear ... foreigners, who would boycott an employer if he hired a colored workman, complain of wrong and oppression, of low wages and long hours, clamoring for eight-hour systems ... ah, come with me, I feel like saying, I can show you workingmen’s wrong and workingmen’s toil which, could it speak, would send up a wail that might be heard from the Potomac to the Rio Grande; and should it unite and act, would shake this country from Carolina to California.”
—Anna Julia Cooper (1859–1964)