Sure, it might have fallen of its own accord in another generation. And the viability of it wasn’t the same in 1860 as 1770.
But that has nothing to do with the issue raised.
Would the south have been more advanced and more economically developed if it never had slavery? I find the claim ridiculous, but think what you want.
If it was so harmful, they could have stopped at any point. But year after year they continued, supposedly against their own interests.
I guess the keyboard warriors of 2022 knew more than the people actually there at the time what was best for their interests.
“Would the south have been more advanced and more economically developed if it never had slavery? I find the claim ridiculous, but think what you want.”
As a southerner, I say slavery held the South back. Southerners hated slavery. Very few, less than 1.4% ever held slaves at all. Slaves displaced paid workers. What Republican Wildcat posted is dead on.
“I guess the keyboard warriors of 2022 knew more than the people actually there at the time what was best for their interests.”
Seems you’re the keyboard warrior, making challenges to people’s personal statements.
Only an idiot thinks slave labor is better than free market capitalism.
So you must also believe that allowing millions of illegal aliens swarm across our border every year is good for the U.S. They could be stopped at any point (Eisenhower proved that in the 1950s). But year after year they continue.
Comparing slavery and illegal immigration is actually a perfect analogy. Democrats have wanted both for the same reason, to do work that they don't want to pay enough to hire U.S. citizens to do, and in both cases they get really mad when Republicans try to take their cheap laborers away.
Reality is not something that is debatable. You pretty much push the Leftist narrative of historical revisionism.
It is reality that slavery stifled innovation - where it was absent, commerce flourished due to innovation, and of course a free market labor force. This is hardly unknown to anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the history of how agriculture flourished in the North through technological innovation and remained stuck in time in the South as they continued to rely mainly on manual labor (and their belief in a master race destined to rule the inferior races - as is clearly written without any ambiguity in their resolutions of secession, stump speeches of their leaders, etc). Whereas you just make it up as you are going along even though all of the evidence of what you are claiming is to the contrary - what exactly is the point of that? Just to argue for the sake of arguing?
He was there.
He was intimately involved in commercial and money matters.
He had a better handle on it than most.
His conclusion was that slavery was an economic anchor; hence, south would have done better without it. As my old prof. James McPherson said, the way to figure out what people are really thinking is to read their private letters.