Economic differences in the North and South

This is a vague one, so pardon me if this is a bit all over the place.

As you may know, the Northern US is far, far, far, far far far far far, far, far more industrialized than the Southern US.  Well, maybe it isn't so obvious now, but it was up until around the civil war, which was from 1860 to 1865.  Oh, and I'm talking about the eastern part of the united states, because the rest wasn't occupied or even discovered for quite some time.

Geology
So first off, the geological conditions of the north aren't exactly spectacular for growing crops; this was a big part of the early failures to colonize America, since hardly anything was produced.  The terrain is rocky, the weather is cold and variant, and the soil is no good.  The plains of the south, however, are perfect for planting wide expanses of sugar, tobacco, and cotton (something I hope to discuss later).

Meanwhile, the rocky terrain in the north that I mentioned is fantastic for mining metals and granite, and the incredible forestation provided for plenty of wood to build tools, houses, and burn stuff (my vocabulary is amazing, I know).  But more out of necessity for income, northerners actually had no other alternative but to try the factory system.

Immigrants
Because land costs a whole heaping ton of money, and a whole heaping ton of land is needed to make a profit, agriculture in the south was usually reserved for the rich.  Sometimes after making a profit in northern industry, people would buy some land and some slaves in the south, and move there.

But this also made immigrants from europe go to industry because it was so much cheaper, and extra labor was always helpful.  Factory owners preferred immigrant labor as well, since they would work for so much less, giving the factory more profit and allowing for the factories to spread.

And while a single plantation took up hundreds of acres, a factory would take up [insert small size of factory here].  This allowed the factories to multiply far faster than the farms.  And if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Snowball

First Bank of the United States

AP US History midterm is coming up, and it's scaring the crap out of me, so I'm going to summarize as many US economic events and machines up to the 20th century as I can before said midterms, posted here for your enjoyment :)  First up, the Bank of the United States!

The First Bank of the United States began operations in 1791 as part of debates forming the American constitution (and no, it has nothing to do with "Bank of America (NYSE: BAC)", which is a completely private bank).  The intention was to centralize banking operations under a main bank, which would then help smaller existing banks when decided by the government.

Operations included:
-Issuing a standard currency
-Guarding government surplus money
-Facilitating public financial transactions (such as taxes)

Currency
The currency situation was a rather hilarious ordeal which is almost another issue in itself, but ultimately the problem was that the disorganized developing nation of the US didn't have anyone in particular to assign a monetary standard.  But because people needed a place to stash their loot, private existing banks had to make their own standards just to organize their assets.

But since there were several of these private banks, each had a different currency, and financial transactions as seemingly simple as buying tea became virtually impossible.   Imagine that I paid you in euros for a product, which you would convert to yen (as per your bank) and then turn around and use yen to pay for Bob's donuts, who uses canadian dollars.  Then multiply that by several hundred thousand.  Yeah.

Thus standardizing currency under a unified government would speed up finance considerably.  Today, however, this task is performed by the Federal Reserve (aka "the Fed")

Money Storage
Since government funds would be stored in the bank, along with all private cash of the citizens, the bank could more effectively give out loans using stored capital.  This would give a far more reliable backing for that risk-filled business.  However, this would also mean that if the central bank failed, the country would fail.  It's doubtful if it would have made it through the sub-prime mortgage recession we're still feeling the effects of today.

Cons
Obviously there's a problem with the bank, otherwise it would still be around today.  The chief complaint lies in that it completely eliminates any competition in the financial sector, and we all know how much Americans hate not being able to personally control markets.  The government would be entirely responsible for corrections in the face of recessions, contrasting with republican support of state banks.

The fall
No big recession stopped the bank, its charter just expired in 1811 by one vote, only to be chartered and rechartered again later.  As I mentioned before, its remains today are the federal reserve, which just gives out loans to large businesses and prints currency.  Its supporters were chiefly northern merchants who relied heavily on frequent and simple transactions, but eyed with suspicion by southern farmers who had little need for such centralization, and only saw it as constricting their freedoms.

Phew!