King Cotton is a phrase used in the Southern United States before the American Civil War. The phrase was used mainly by Southern politicians and authors who wanted to illustrate the importance of the crop to southern economy. This is because Southern plantations generated three-fourths of the world's cotton supply.http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/gahff/html/ff_108100_kingcotton.htm 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.

Southerners knew their survival depended on the sympathy of Europe to offset Union power. They believed that cotton was so essential to the European powers that they would intervene in any civil war. As Senator James Hammond of South Carolina said in the Senate: "What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years? I will not stop to depict what every one can imagine, but this is certain: England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her, save the South. No, you dare not make war upon cotton. No power on earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is king." http://www.sewanee.edu/faculty/Willis/Civil_War/documents/HammondCotton.html

However, when war broke out the Confederates voluntarily decided to refuse to export their cotton to Europe. This was a grass roots decision, not one made by the Confederate government. The idea was that this cotton diplomacy would force Europe to intervene. European states, did not, however, intervene and, with Lincoln imposing a blockade, the South was unable to move its millions of bales of cotton. Indeed, Britain and France discovered that if they wanted to get any American cotton they would have to get it from the North. Cotton production also increased in other parts of the world, like India and Egypt, to meet the demand. "King Cotton" was dead.

Notes

See also

• Eli Whitney
• Boll Weevil

References

• Frank Lawrence Owsley, King Cotton Diplomacy: Foreign relations of the Confederate States of America (1931)

• http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/gahff/html/ff_108100_kingcotton.htm
• "King Cotton." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2005. Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service 1 July 2005 ^*.
• Boyer, The Enduring Vision. 4th Edition

External links

• Cotton King Cartoon
• King Cotton

Confederate States of America | Fibers | Southern United States