Slavery, industry, and Confederate war capacity

Slavery was the cause of the conflict, but the division between the two sides was not a clean division between slave and free states: some slave states remained in the Union. Wage earners in the industrial North bought clothes, household goods, and other products, circulating money through the economy. Enslaved people had little independent purchasing power, while enslavers' use of forced labour undercut the opportunities of paid workers. Wealth therefore concentrated among a minority without creating the same broad consumer market. In this economic interpretation, slavery helped explain the South's slower industrial and infrastructure development. Maintaining the system also demanded armed internal control, which diverted manpower when the Confederacy needed to equip, move, and supply field armies.