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Myths Propagated
*** government collusion with the privileged “elite” ***
Date: 9/8/2015 8:56:19 PM ( 9 y ) ... viewed 1442 times
12 Liberal Myths Propagated To Destroy Our Economy: Slavery Was A By-Product Of Capitalism
September 6, 2015 by Staff 1 Comment
slavery
This myth is a particular favorite of the guilt-ridden Liberal Left. The seeming logic is irresistible: greedy, white Southerners hell-bent to make as much money off their crops as possible perpetuated a horrible practice in order to benefit from all the “free” labor slaves would provide them. Sounds plausible, but the facts clearly fly in the face of this feeble fable.
Actually, the opposite is true. The Industrial Revolution was killing this inhumane institution as it could not be reconciled with the demands of a free marketplace. As a matter of fact, slavery was actually in decline in America as early as the 1790s. Left to its own, the demands of the marketplace and economics would have brought about the demise of slavery without government intervention and quite probably without the bloodiest conflict in American history.
According to economist Mark Thornton, “Between the 1790 and 1800 census, the free black population of American increased by over 82 percent and in the South Atlantic states by over 97 percent…” He goes on to state that, “The total free population increased from 8.5 percent to almost 16 percent of the total black population between 1790 and 1810.” Much of this increase was the result of voluntary manumission and from the number of slaves purchasing their own freedom. Essentially, the economic realities dictated that white farmers and others really couldn’t afford to keep slaves.
But the state governments stepped in, often at the behest of a distinctly small, but influential minority of wealthy plantation owners. For example, fugitive slave laws were passed as early as 1793. Soon after that, mandatory slave patrols were instituted and manumission laws passed to restrict and limit slave owner’s ability to free their own slave. Once again, government collusion with the privileged “elite” led to tax payer dollars being used to alleviate their own overhead.
Still, had it not been for the unfortunate timing of the cotton gin’s invention, it is estimated by some that slavery would have most likely withered an economic death by the 1830s or 1840s. But because the institution had been artificially perpetuated and propped up with government complicity and public funds, the arrival of the cotton gin signaled the beginning of tragic phase in the history of American slavery.
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