Slavery
The debate over the economic advantages of slavery in the South has raged ever since the first slaves began working in the cotton fields of the Southern States. Initially, the wealth of the New World was in the form of raw materials and agricultural goods such as cotton, sugar, and tobacco. Slavery, without a doubt, had its profitable aspects prior to the Civil War. However, this postulation began to change as abolitionists claimed the land of the Southern Plantations was overworked and the potential income of slaves was lower than that of white people who had a vested interest in the productivity and success of the South.
The concept of slavery had been brought over to America by the ideals of British Mercantilism which called for strict regulation of the state and its people for the good of the national economy. In the early 1700's, Frenchman Colbert stated that, "no commerce in the world produces as many advantages as that of the slave trade"(Williams, 144). The inhumane practice of slavery began in the American colonies in 1619. Although Africans first came to the New World around 1501, the early colonists did not think to use them as slave labor. Instead, they imported poor, white indentured servants from Europe to clear forests and cultivate fields. It was the English colonists that incited the idea of using Black slaves. They could be caught easily because of their color and they could be bought and kept until they died. "Negroes, from a pagan land and without exposure to the ethical ideals of Christianity, could be handled with more rigid methods of discipline and could be morally and spiritually degraded for the sake of stability on the plantation," wrote historians John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss Jr. in "From Slavery to Freedom" (22). Where America failed in Mercantilism was in not providing enough slaves to generate a sufficient profit margin and by becoming a divided nation over the issue of slavery.
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