[Nosterrex]

Having lived in the Midwest in a rural farming community, I know the difference between being wealthy on paper and having money in the bank. If you looked at the balance sheet of many farmers, they were multimillionaires, but they had to work two jobs in order to live. If you want to count slaves as wealth and conclude from that the South was wealthy, that would be misleading. The reason that slavery would die out was for a very simple reason, it was economically unfeasible. Slaves were primarily used for labor, such as clearing fields, planting and harvesting. If a machine can do that faster and cheaper, there is not need for slaves. Slaves are expensive. You not only have to buy them, but you have to feed, clothe, house, and provide medical attention. When the slave is too old to work, you still have to provide for his needs. Who wants to do that when you can buy a machine? This is happening today in modern farming. Fewer people are needed to farm more land. People cannot make a living on a quarter section of land as they did fifty years ago. Economics trumps everything.

[BroJoeK]

"If you want to count slaves as wealth and conclude from that the South was wealthy, that would be misleading. "

Of course I agree, but am merely telling you what some defenders of the Southern Cause have argued to me here on Free Republic.
They say that in the 1850s, the South was both wealthy and prosperous, and in a sense they are right.
If you count the income produced by slaves, and the value of those slaves, then the average Deep South slave owning family was considerably more prosperous than their northern farmer and factory-worker cousins.

As to the eventual effect of modern farm machinery, you have to be circumspect here.
Remember, machinery is only designed and produced to supply a perceived need, and where there is no need, no machines will be built or used.
So as long as the South considered itself to be prospering under its slave economics, where is the motivation to change?

Indeed, we have modern-day examples of how this works.
Even in hi-tech California, where low-cost Mexican workers are available to harvest crops, there is relatively little farm mechanization going on.
Why should a farmer buy a million dollar harvester, when he can hire a few Mexicans dirt cheap?
As for the cost of caring for slaves -- didn't they pretty much take care of themselves, grow their own food, etc.?
I doubt if the cost of caring was all that high.
What was high was the cost to purchase slaves, but that was strictly a function of the market place of supply and demand.
Slaves were expensive because they were worth a lot -- so they were much in demand.