King Cotton
King Cotton is a phrase used in the Southern United States. The phrase was used mainly by Southern politicians and authors who wanted to illustrate the importance of the cotton crop to southern economy.[1][2][3] However, the attempt to use this trade as a diplomatic weapon to force Europe's hand in...
King Cotton
King Cotton is a phrase used in the Southern United States. The phrase was used mainly by Southern politicians and authors who wanted to illustrate the importance of the cotton crop to southern economy.[1][2][3] However, the attempt to use this trade as a diplomatic weapon to force Europe's hand in the American Civil War proved a serious strategic blunder.
[edit] History
Southern plantations generated three-fourths of the world's cotton supply.[4] In particular, after the invention of the cotton gin the production of cotton surpassed that of tobacco in the South and became the dominant cash crop.
The rapid growth of cotton production was an international phenomenon, prompted by events occurring far from the American South. The insatiable demand for cotton was a result of the technological and social changes that we know today as the Industrial Revolution. Beginning early in the eighteenth century, a series of inventions resulted in the mechanized spinning and weaving of cloth in the world’s first factories in the north of England. The ability of these factories to produce unprecedented amounts of cotton cloth revolutionized the world economy.
The invention of the cotton gin came just at the right time. British textile manufacturers were eager to buy all the cotton that the South could produce. The figures for cotton production support this conclusion: from 720,000 bales in 1830, to 2.85 million bales in 1850, to nearly 5 million in 1860. By the time of the Civil War, cotton accounted for almost 60% of American exports, representing a total value of nearly $300 million a year. Cotton’s central place in the national economy and its international importance led Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina to make a famous boast in 1858:
“ Without firing a gun, without drawing a sword, should they make war on us, we could bring the whole world to our feet... What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years?... England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her save the South. No, you dare not to make war on cotton. No power on the earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is King. ”
Southerners thought their survival depended on the sympathy of Europe to offset the power of the Union. They believed that cotton was so essential to Europe that they would intervene in any civil war.
When war broke out the Confederate Congress decided to refuse to allow the export of cotton to Europe. The idea was that this cotton diplomacy would force Europe to intervene. European states did not, however, intervene and, following Abraham Lincoln's decision to impose a blockade, the South was unable to move its millions of bales of cotton. The production of cotton increased in other parts of the world, such as India and Egypt, to meet the demand.
