Winston Churchill put slavery into perspective in volume three of his History of the English Speaking People, when he began discussion of the subject by saying,” An aristocracy of planters living in rural magnificence and almost feudal state, and a multitude of smallholders, grew cotton for the world by slave labour. Of the six million white inhabitants of the so-called ‘southern states’ less than three hundred and fifty thousand owned slaves, and only forty thousand controlled plantations requiring a working unit of more than twenty field hands. But the three or four thousand principal slave-owners generally ruled the politics of the South as effectively as the medieval baronage had ruled England.”
After the Convention, the growing of cotton and invention of the cotton gin in 1794 revived slavery and made it appear lucrative. Only appearance was possible, because Southern planters provided the basic needs for all slaves even though only a little more than half labored meaningfully on a plantation and they without incentive to be productive.
Slavery disappeared from the Northern states, because indentured servitude and European hardships, such as the Irish Potato Famine and Scottish Clearances, had provided cheap sources of labor for factories and farms. It should have disappeared from the South as planters moved to indentured servitude and/or became tobacco and textile barons through vertical monopolies.
Essentially, the Industrial Revolution made slavery obsolete. The wealth of the country was developed by exploiting machines. Slaves and slave holders became of ever more minimal importance as the 19th century progressed and we changed from an agricultural to a manufacturing country.
Yes, Slavery was dying, at least in the western world, and the Cotton Gin did indeed give it a reprieve at least temporarily... but even without the Civil War, slavery as a viable economic model, was doomed. No this doesn’t make it any less inhumane, but it is the truth.
The insanity that these “fact checkers” engage in is just flat out ludicrous. Slaves were not cheap, and very very few people owned them (rich).. and those rich folks like rich folks do, tended to be the folks who had the most influence. The idea of owning a slave was beyond the means of 98% of the southern population, and while I have little doubt that slave owners would certainly would be willing to rent out their slaves at times, especially during after harvest and before spring planting. The idea that close to 10% of the southern population were bossing slaves around is just ludicrous on its face.
In 1860 the average price of a slave was 1500-2000 women were a little less. The average income in 1860, was < 18.20 per month, or less than $220 per year. Only the exceedingly wealthy, or those that had inherited them could remotely think of owning a slave. Folks making $220 a year didn’t have the means to buy a $1500 item or even finance one... and that’s just the actual purchase price, slaves need fed and clothed and housed etc etc etc.
I don’t have any doubt that you could work out arrangements with a slave owner to rent one of their slaves for labor, much like day labor today) when they weren’t busy with the needs of their masters plantation, but the idea that this represented 8% or 10% of the population having a slave at their becking call regularly is just flat out ridiculous.
Slavery is wrong, but lying about it, doesn’t help anything or anyone. Snopes or whoever it is that published this claptrap should be ashamed of themsevles. This is just flat out lies, just like that moronic professor who got famous lying about the US giving smallpox infected blankets to the indians... IT NEVER HAPPENED! Yet that lie is still out there being repeated.. This kind of crap needs to be called for the BS it is.