The cause of civil rights, established with the signing of the Declaration of Independence and through the Industrial Revolution, moved at a slow pace. As the issue of slavery and whether the U.S. government would allow it in the border states heated up, the progression of civil rights for all its citizens began to take center stage in the American theater.
Civil War era
The issue of slavery created a deeper division between north and south in the mid-1800s. From that division, the next wave of civil rights for minorities sprang.
Slavery. The vast majority of Southerners could not afford a slave prior to the Civil War. Poor Southerners ran into direct competition with cheaper slave labor for jobs. Many small farmers moved west in an attempt to create better opportunities for themselves. Wealthy property owners knew that the large plantation system would wither and die without slavery and therefore were more inclined to support its continued existence. According to plantation owners, slavery was justified since the economy of the North and South were dependent on it, with 60 percent of the nation’s exports arising from cotton grown in the South. Another justification was that slaves were better off than Northern factory workers in terms of working and living conditions. Slavery was also vitally important to the maintenance of the genteel and gracious Southern lifestyle. Rare were the Southern voices expressing a negative view of the impact of slavery upon local workers.
President Johnson sees that social policy has a link to economic policy. He was able to make a Transformational social policy during the 1960s. He thinks that this can give a positive impact on poverty. It was part of his plan on ending poverty which was almost totally at hand. He was marked as the greatest President of the 20th century.
