Several posters have addressed the question of slavery economics -- was it in 1860 profitable and growing, or unprofitable and dying out?
Well, if you think about it, the answer is, "yes"!
And the reason is, we must understand, there was not "one South" and there was not just "one slavery".
In fact, broadly speaking, there were three different "Souths" with three different economies and three different methods for employing slavery, not all successfully.
The Deep South
In the Deep South, "Gone With The Wind" plantations were a common reality, not just fantasy.
In the Deep South half of white families owned slaves, and those who did not all aspired to, someday.
And the Deep South's slave-based economy had grown & boomed for many years because European demand for, and prices paid for, cotton continued to increase.
In the decades before 1860, Deep South cotton production doubled, and doubled again, while cotton prices rose much faster than inflation -- even including Federal import tariffs.
In 1860 and for decades before, the Deep South was booming like no other part of the country, indeed like no other country in history.
And one result was, average prices for slaves had doubled, rising 60% between 1850 and 1860 alone.
So, naturally, Deep South whites refused to see slavery as a necessary evil, but rather insisted slavery was a positive moral good, for which many justifications could be made, beginning with certain carefully selected biblical passages.
And they were totally intolerant of suggestions to the contrary, to the point of evicting other whites who mouthed-off too much about the evils of slavery.
The Border States
These were the slave-states just south of the Mason-Dixon line: Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky & Missouri and their situations were very different from the Deep South.
In the 1860 Border States slavery was, in fact, already dying out, just as it had naturally died in Northern states.
And ironically, one reason was precisely the very booming prosperity of the Deep South!
Deep South prosperity drove up the price of slaves, ever higher, until they became uneconomical in the Border States, which didn't grow highly profitable cotton.
The result was: Border State slave-owners sold many tens of thousands of their slaves to Deep South plantation owners, significantly reducing Border State slave populations, and therefore the political clout of their Slave Power.
At the same time (1850s), many tens of thousands of anti-slavery European immigrants settled in the Border States, turning their political complexion from Southern Slave-Power Democrats to Northern Unionists.
And this, indeed, is the root of the root cause of Confederate defeat in the Civil War -- Southern Border States refused to join the Confederacy, and supplied more than double the number of troops to the Union as they did the Confederacy.
Lincoln is quoted as saying that if the Union had lost Border-State Kentucky early in the war, it would have lost the whole war.
So, why did the Border States refuse to go Confederate?
Because slavery was indeed already dying a natural death in those states, and they didn't want to preserve it.
The Upper South:
The Upper South -- Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas -- was a mixed bag, with majorities slave-holders or supporters of slavery, but also large minorities opposed.
Western Virginia, Eastern Tennessee, Western North Carolina, Northern Arkansas were all bastions of Unionism which supplied troops to the North and opposed Confederates.
Some Upper South states also saw a net outflow of slaves in the 1850s, sold to the Deep South, but there were still enough that, when push came to shove, they elected to support the Confederacy's declared war on the United States.
Bottom line:
Question: in 1860 was slavery dying out, or was it more profitable that ever before?
Answer: yes to both. Slavery was dying a natural death in the Border States, but was more profitable than ever in the Deep South.
And that, almost by itself explains which side each state joined.
Very good point. My posts are focused on the situation in the Deep South. Certainly, the Border States were a far different animal. I am sure you would agree with me, then, that, at least in the Deep South, slave owners were not very likely to voluntarily end slavery. That would have amounted to nearly complete collapse of the economy.
Also, the average price of a slave continued to increase right up to the beginning of the war. So while slavery in sheer numbers was diminishing in some of the border and upper south states, slaves were still an appreciating asset, and readily "sold down the river" when cash was needed.
Very good post. Thank you.
Please note that my comment predicted a very slow death of the institution of slavery, although perhaps faster than the death of the abusive conditions in post-war Dixie. But your post is very interesting, and made me research further.
Your passage states that “In the decades before 1860, Deep South cotton production doubled, and doubled again, while cotton prices rose much faster than inflation — even including Federal import tariffs.”
I find this assertion about prices flatly contradicted by the data I can find. While production increased sharply, prices were very stagnant, having collapsed prior to 1830 and remaining quite low until the Civil War created a shortage.
I wonder if perhaps you are falsely figuring that an increase in demand of slaves means that slave plantations must be thriving? If the price of labor is booming, and the price of a product is so stagnant, then perhaps the death of slavery would have been coming faster than I foresaw it. The population of slaves in the decade prior to the Civil War increased 23%, compared to an overall population growth of 36%. This means that supply wasn’t keeping up with demand, resulting in higher labor costs, resulting in LOWER profits.