During the early nineteenth century, as the Market Revolution opens in a new window transformed the American economy of the North and West, the South was undergoing a different transformation
For nearly two centuries, southern plantations had focused on producing tobacco, rice, and sugar for national and international markets. Tobacco quickly exhausted the soil, as did cotton, which was so time consuming to process that it was hardly profitable as a cash crop. In the late 1700s, when enthusiasm for liberty was high and profits from slavery were low, some observers predicted that the institution would soon die out altogether in the United States
