To be fair, Whitney wasn’t trying to rescue slavery. In fact, if I remember correctly, he thought his invention would help end slavery because it so greatly reduced the amount of labor needed to clean seeds out of cotton.
Best laid plans and all that...
No, indeed he was not, but it is often not always possible to predict the social/financial effects of a new idea. For example, who would have thought television and movies would have wrecked the culture? Their inventors envisioned them as great teaching aids, and worthy benefits to society instead of the empowerment of Liberals and the streams of cultural sewage they have turned out to be.
In fact, if I remember correctly, he thought his invention would help end slavery because it so greatly reduced the amount of labor needed to clean seeds out of cotton.
He should have invented a cotton picker to go with it. Much misery would have been averted.
Best laid plans and all that...
Yeah. The law of unintended consequences can be a stone cold b*tch.