It always amuses me (sickens me) how people justify slavery as being vital to an agricultural society. True migrant farm workers are exploited to this very day (2008) but then when you truly examine the issue farmers have always had the value of their work dismissed by the masses who demand 'cheap' food.
First it a fallacy to view the South as an agricultural paradise, a land of milk and honet with the tap only able to be opened by enslaving 'black' people.
Guess what?
This might shock you it certainly shocks many on this forum. Cultivating Corn & Wheat & Rye and other grains is Agriculture! Guess what states cultivated grains? The North, well actually farming moved west into Iowa, Indiana Illinois, Etc. And guess what? Using FREE labor, these states soon produced such a surplus that a new industry sprang up! Pigs & Cattle were fed surplus corn & grain and people in America for good or bad began eating more meat!
But I digress - - - this is the 'silly' explanation but I assure you it is true. Around the time of the American Revolution there were Southerners who were inclined to get rid of slavery. But then them 'd^mn Yankees' spoke out against Slavery, and gosh dern it no respectable Southerner was gonna let a 'D^mn Yankee' dictate to them! Thus they clung to their 'peculiar institution' and nearly made a religion out of it.
Oddly enough there was an economic factor but it had little to do with 'free' labor. Since Slaves were property, a person could take out a loan or mortgages based on that property. Southern Plantation Owners were heavilly in debt, yes to Northern Bankers as well as Foreign Bankers, based on loans & mortgages tken out in the value of their slaves. Hence a vicious cycle.
This article speaks well and shoots down the argument that Slaves were exclusively to be found on large planatations. It also emphasizes the fact that Slavery was naked racism.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2956.html
Peace///////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////////////
