Uncle John's Ahh-Inspiring Bathroom Reader (80 page)

One of the ironies of the invention is that the wealth it helped create ultimately led to the Civil War and doomed the South to defeat. King Cotton gave Southerners a false sense of security. The North
needed
cotton, the thinking went, so how could it go to war against the South?

And what about England, which imported 90% of its cotton from the South? Cotton fueled its economy too, and Southern leaders like Jefferson Davis (who would become president of the Confederacy in 1861), were convinced that if war did come, England would side with the South. England would have little choice but to use the Royal Navy to keep Southern ports open, so that its access to cotton would be guaranteed. The North knew this as well, the Southerners reasoned, and that made it even less likely that the Northern states would ever go to war over slavery. Fighting the South was one thing; fighting England
and
the South was another.

“You dare not make war upon our cotton,” South Carolina Senator James Henry Hammond proclaimed in 1858. “No power on Earth dares make war on it. Cotton is King.”

But when the war finally did come in April 1861, England didn't hesitate—it immediately declared its “strict and impartial neutrality” and then sat on the sidelines. Why? England didn't have to worry about cotton—the long, slow buildup to the Civil War
had given English mills plenty of time to stockpile extra cotton. When that ran out, they would make do with what they could buy from countries like Egypt and India. And unemployment resulting from cotton shortages was tolerated, because many English textile workers opposed slavery and were willing to go without jobs to help end it.

Another nail in the coffin: The South's failure to expand its economy beyond a single cash crop left it vulnerable. The invention of the cotton gin had encouraged cotton cultivation not just in the southern United States, but all over the world, and as cotton plantations sprang up in other countries, the price of cotton began a long, steady slide throughout the 1850s.

For decades, Southern planters had reinvested their profits into expanding cotton production instead of diversifying into factories, textile mills, or anything else. As the price of cotton fell, plantations lost money. By the late 1850s, there was little cash available to diversify the Southern economy, even if the South had wanted to. It was too late.

In the North, things were different. Manufacturers of everything from doors and windows to nuts, bolts, shoes, plows, and grandfather clocks had adopted the principles of Eli Whitney's “American system,” and were now using machine tools to mass-produce their wares. Soaring profits encouraged further investment and growth; from 1840 to 1860, the 100-mile-long region between Delaware and New York was the most rapidly industrializing region on Earth.

With the growth of industry came increased economic and military strength. By the start of the Civil War, factories in the North were producing goods at a rate of 10 times that of the South. For every ton of iron produced in the South, the North produced 15; for every firearm the South produced, the North manufactured 32. Northern states had more than twice the population of Southern states, and three times the wealth.

And though the South grew 24 times as much cotton as the North, the North had 14 times as many textile mills. So when war
came in April 1861, it was the Union soldiers, not the Confederates, who were best outfitted for battle. Though the Civil War dragged on from 1861 to 1865, its outcome was a virtual certainty from the very beginning.

For a person who had never discovered a continent, never commanded an army, and never served as president, Eli Whitney had about as big an impact on American history as anyone. And unlike his fellow inventors Henry Ford and Alexander Graham Bell,
two
of his inventions altered the course of history, not just one.

Cotton gave the South its wealth and strengthened the institution of slavery, sparking the tensions that would lead to the Civil War. At the same time, cotton convinced Southerners that if war did come, its importance guaranteed that the South would never lose. And that made the South all the more willing to fight.

With the invention of mass production, Whitney gave the North the military might and economic strength that it used to destroy the South that the cotton gin had built.

“If Whitney's cotton gin enabled the slave-system to survive and thrive,” writes historian Paul Johnson, “his ‘American System' also gave the North the industrial muscle to crush the defenders of slavery in due course.…He is a fascinating example of the complex impact one man can have on history.”

“Rome post-office workers were confronted by a group of men delivering a very big package, too big for the security hole that packages are normally slipped through. Ignoring security rules, employees asked the group to go to a service window behind the counter. As soon as they brought the package inside, a robber burst out of the carton, waved a gun, and shouted, ‘It's a holdup.' The criminals escaped with 115,000 lira.”

—Townsville Bulletin
(Australia)

On page 211, we gave an overview of the commonwealths and territories owned by the United States. Here are some of the smaller, uninhabited islands and their stories. (Well, they may have a few inhabitants, but no natives.)

Wake Island

Location:
North Pacific Ocean, between Hawaii and the Northern Mariana Islands

Size:
Two and a half square miles

Population:
300

Background:
Wake Island is an atoll made up of three islets around a shallow lagoon. It was discovered in 1796 by British sea captain William Wake. The United States annexed it in 1899 for a telegraph cable station. An airstrip and naval base were built in late 1940, but in December 1941 the island was captured by the Japanese and held until the end of World War II. Today the facilities are under the administration of the Federal Aviation Agency.

Location:
North Pacific Ocean, between Hawaii and American Samoa

Size:
Less than one-half square mile

Population:
Uninhabited

Background:
The U.S. annexed this reef in 1922. There's no plant life on the reef (which is frequently under water) but it does support abundant and diverse marine life. In 2001 the waters surrounding the reef were designated a National Wildlife Refuge.

Location:
North Pacific Ocean, north of Hawaii

Size:
Less than two and a half square miles

Population:
150 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service personnel

Background:
Part of the Hawaiian island chain, Midway was first discovered by a Hawaiian sea captain in 1859. At the urging of the North Pacific Mail and Steamship Company, which was looking for a coal depot for its Asian mail run, the U.S. Navy claimed the atoll for the United States in 1867. Midway is best known as the site of a U.S. naval victory over the Japanese fleet in 1942, one of the turning points of World War II. The naval station closed in 1993. Today the island is a wildlife refuge open to eco-tourists.

What is guano? Bird droppings. Fish-eating birds have been dropping their poop in the same spots for thousands of years. The result: huge deposits of guano, rich in nitrogen and phosphorous and highly valued as an agricultural fertilizer.

The Guano Act was enacted by the U.S. government in 1856. It authorized Americans to take “peaceable possession” of any uninhabited, unclaimed islands for the purpose of mining the guano. Nearly 100 islands were claimed for the United States under the act, mostly in the South Pacific. The U.S. still owns a half dozen—the others were abandoned or given up to other countries that claimed them. They're not really anybody's idea of paradise, so don't expect to see any postcards from these tiny islands. But some of these poop-covered rocks have interesting histories.

Location:
Caribbean Sea, between Haiti and Jamaica

Size:
Less than two and a half square miles

Population:
No permanent residents

Background:
The Baltimore-based Navassa Phosphate Company began mining guano in 1865, using convicts at first, then former slaves. In deplorable living conditions, the ex-slaves were forced to mine one and a half tons of guano per day for a daily wage of 50 cents. In 1889 they revolted, killing 15 white overseers. Forty workers were taken to Baltimore for trial. Acknowledging the basis for the uprising, the court sentenced only one worker to death—the rest were given life imprisonment. The Navassa Phosphate Company continued to mine guano until 1898.

In 1998 a California entrepreneur named Bill Warren filed a
claim under the Guano Act, obtained a deed from heirs of the Navassa Phosphate Company, and claimed ownership of the island. Predictably, the U.S. government denied his claim.

There is also a dispute between the U.S. and Haiti, which maintains that the island lies within its territorial boundary.

Location:
North Pacific Ocean, between Hawaii and Australia

Size:
A little more than one-half square mile

Population:
Uninhabited

Background:
Claimed by the American Guano Company in 1858. Its other claim to fame: in 1937 an airstrip was built on the island as a stopover for aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart on her round-the-world flight. Earhart and her navigator took off from Lae, New Guinea, but never reached Howland. (The unexplained disappearance still intrigues conspiracy buffs.) Today Howland Island is a National Wildlife Refuge.

Location:
North Pacific Ocean, between Hawaii and Australia

Size:
One-half square mile

Population:
Uninhabited

Background:
Named by an American whaler, Michael Baker, who found the island in 1832. Presently, it is a National Wildlife Refuge run by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Location:
North Pacific Ocean, 800 miles southwest of Hawaii

Size:
One square mile of dry land; 50 square miles of shallow water

Population:
1,000 military and support personnel

Background:
The four tiny islands were discovered in 1796 by an American sea captain.

During World War II, the military used Johnston Island, the largest of the four outcroppings, as a refueling point for aircraft and submarines. A few days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese submarines fired on military facilities there but caused no casualties.

The U.S. Air Force took over in 1948 and used the site for
high-altitude nuclear tests in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1964 a series of open-air biological weapons tests were conducted near the atoll using several barges loaded with rhesus monkeys. Chemical weapons have been stored on Johnston Island since 1971, but the U.S. Army began destroying them in 1981. Munitions destruction is reportedly complete, and the Army plans to turn over the atoll to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2003.