Comment by crazygringo
14 days ago
Yup. It's important to note that while slavery was bad economically for the South as a whole, it was certainly good for the tiny minority of rich white elite.
Interestingly enough, a virulent white supremacist at the time [1] pointed this out, and the South banned his book. He hated black people, but at the same time made the economic analysis that slavery was a tool for white elite to oppress not just black people but also poor white people. He wanted to end slavery not to benefit blacks (he wanted to build a railroad to send black people to South America), but to benefit poorer whites.
Fortunately, we learned from this lesson, and we'll never let elites bring in tons of outsiders to push down the price of local labor, to the detriment of everyone but themselves.
> He wanted to end slavery not to benefit blacks (he wanted to build a railroad to send black people to South America), but to benefit poorer whites.
Interesting. Abraham Lincoln also wanted to expel blacks. Lincoln was a member of the American Colonization Society which aimed to send blacks (free or enslaved ) to africa. Also, lincoln was a virulent white supremacist as well. But for some strange reason history doesn't like to dwell on that inconvenient truth.
I had never heard of him. Thanks for the pointer!