Uneasy Rest the Masters

The maturation of the slave economy by the 1850s restricted opportunities for whites and provoked populist stirrings of discontent challenging planter rule. The cotton prosperity of the decade resulted in the pricing of good land and slaves beyond the reach of the bulk of the population, and the numbers of poor whites with neither land nor slaves rose to one-third of the free population. The color line blurred as poor whites were forced into competition with slave labor and miscegenation increased. Frustrated by shrinking opportunities, the sons of planters yearned to win glory and status as the South’s future leaders. To defend their jobs and white manhood, urban workers organized politically to protest the use of slave mechanics in the job market. Moral and economic opposition blocked efforts to widen slave ownership by lowering prices through reopening the African slave trade. The decade ended with new political groupings demanding greater political and economic power for non-slaveholders.