One important difference between
the economic systems of the north and the south in the period 1790-1840 was Industrialization
and Immigration.
Basically, the slave economy of
the south supported agriculture, while the free society in the North facilitated
industrialization. By the mid-1800s, less than 10 percent of the United States'
industrial capacity was located in the South, whereas the North was responsible
for the production of 97 percent of the country's firearms and 93 percent of
its pig iron… 80 percent of the South population worked on the farms, whereas only
40 percent of the North were employed in agriculture.
The job opportunities created by
industrialization in the North served as a major attraction to European
immigrants, which led to building major cities in the North. By the mid-1800s,
the population of the North was about 23 million while the South's population
was around nine million.
