Do You Support Slavery in the American South?

[Sam Spade]

It would be kind of cool to enslave all those racist crackers who voted for Bush down south.

Another classic.

[Sam Spade]

FYI, I would have supported slavery in the South until about 1850, when it became apparent that economically it was devastating the South by postponing necessary advancements in an industrial society.

Northern forms of "slavery" were much more effective after that point till the 1930s of course.

Right now, I would of course oppose slavery in every possible form or circumstance.

I wonder how opebo feels for those Thai "sex slaves" that he seems to like to frequent?

[Sam Spade]

No, because it was economically stupid after the Mexican War.

By 1850, good mechanical cotton harvesters had been invented. If the wealthiest slaveholders had been good businessmen, they would have bought the harvesters, kept a minimum of field slaves to tend to the machines, and hired out the rest of the slaves out as corvees or industrial labor. They could have monopolized cotton growing and manufacture in one sitting, instead of shipping their crops 3000 miles off to Britain for spinning, etc.

The small cottongrowers could have scraped together enough money to buy one harvester for use among the group (like midwestern farmers had with the wheat threshers, or European peasants with the steel plow). During harvest time, the small farmers would share the machine and use their individual slaves as value-added labor in the local town.

Bingo.

[Sam Spade]

No, because it was economically stupid after the Mexican War.

By 1850, good mechanical cotton harvesters had been invented. If the wealthiest slaveholders had been good businessmen, they would have bought the harvesters, kept a minimum of field slaves to tend to the machines, and hired out the rest of the slaves out as corvees or industrial labor. They could have monopolized cotton growing and manufacture in one sitting, instead of shipping their crops 3000 miles off to Britain for spinning, etc.

The small cottongrowers could have scraped together enough money to buy one harvester for use among the group (like midwestern farmers had with the wheat threshers, or European peasants with the steel plow). During harvest time, the small farmers would share the machine and use their individual slaves as value-added labor in the local town.

Bingo.

You two of course are right on this. But I must add that the institution had become so ingrained and part of the social order and owning a slave was a class statement that it didnt matter that it was out of date. It was a part of the culture.

Very true.  The interesting thing is how defense of that culture spread across white society in most of the South, even among those who didn't own slaves.