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I know that slavery was integral to the economy of the southern states, but when people say "slavery built America", it seems like they're implying that it was integral to the northern states, too. My biases, which I am actively seeking to counteract, tell me that anyone who says slavery built America is ignoring history.. but y'know, I don't actually know that much about history. I just remember learning in high school that the southern economy was agricultural and sustained by unpaid labor, while the north wasn't agricultural and didn't have any financial need for slavery.
How important was slavery to the north, financially speaking? If the textile factories weren't able to get cotton from the south, would they have ceased to be, or would they have just gotten cotton elsewhere? (Like from overseas?)
Not very. The idea that the south wouldn’t have been able to produce cotton without black slavery is risible, and the idea that northern states relied on southern cotton for their GDP advantage at any point during the period of slavery is equally risible.
Free states had land use regulations written to maximize large, owner occupied farms- probably the most productive arrangement possible in the early 19th century. In other words, kulaks. This is notable from puritan New England on and generated a large surplus that could be invested in things like shipyards and later mills(which could have been supplied with cotton raised via sharecropping, and indeed were historically after the end of slavery. The malaria belt in the south mostly grew rice, not cotton, and there are distinct African American populations descended from slaves who lived in those areas.)
The same process was ongoing in Quebec prior to British rule but quashed by living under mercantilism much longer than New England. Kulak settler colonialism is a really good deal and the south choosing not to do this set them back.
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