What were the social differences between the North and the South?

This answer will focus on the social differences between the North and the South before the Civil War. The biggest difference between the two regions was that the South held, by 1860, nearly four million enslaved people. The states where slaves made up the largest percentage of the population were in the Deep South--South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi--though Virginia had nearly half a million in its own right. Meanwhile, in the North, slavery had...

This answer will focus on the social differences between the North and the South before the Civil War. The biggest difference between the two regions was that the South held, by 1860, nearly four million enslaved people. The states where slaves made up the largest percentage of the population were in the Deep South--South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi--though Virginia had nearly half a million in its own right. Meanwhile, in the North, slavery had been abolished by 1860, slowly dying out under gradual emancipation laws in most cases. This transition accompanied another, equally significant transition. The Southern economy became more and more based on cotton as a cash crop while the Northern economy diversified and industrialized. In the North, a large industrial working class began to develop in the cities, its numbers increased by immigrants from Ireland and elsewhere. The prevalence of slave labor, and the capital invested in slaves, meant that no such free working class emerged in the South. Rather, most poor whites remained small farmers. So in short, the existence of slavery, which made the emergence of a cash crop economy possible, marked the most important social difference between the North and South.