A House Dividing compares Virginia and Pennsylvania to answer
a crucial question of American history: how did slavery undermine
the development of the southern economy? Extensive archival
research reveals that in the first decades of the nineteenth
century, local residents in each state financed transportation
improvements to raise land values and spur commercial growth. In
the 1830s, however, Philadelphia capitalists began financing
Pennsylvania's railroad network, eventually building integrated
systems that reached deep within the Midwest. Virginia's railroads,
still dependent upon local investment and funds from the state
government, remained a collection of local lines without western
connections. The lack of a great city that could provide capital
and traffic for large-scale railroads was the Achilles' heel of
Virginia's slave economy. The chains of slavery, Virginians learned
to their dismay, also shackled the invisible hand of the
market.