From: Technotranscendence (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Date: Sun Sep 22 2002 - 20:37:55 MDT
The Economics of Slavery
by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
In a recent review of my book, The Real Lincoln, for an economic history
website (EH.Net) Gerald Gunderson of Trinity College in Connecticut
creates a straw-man and then attacks it by misstating what I say about
the profitability of slavery in the mid nineteenth century. He claims
that I "dismiss" slavery "as an inefficient institution, lacking
incentives for growth such that it probably would have disappeared if
left alone."
I do not say this at all, however. I basically concur with Jeffrey
Hummel's analysis in his book, Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men,
that antebellum slavery was propped up by such laws as the federal
government's Fugitive Slave Act (which Abraham Lincoln strongly
supported) and that the abolition of that law would have greatly reduced
the profitability of slavery and quickened its demise. I also agreed
with both Northern abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison, and
Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens, that in 1861 slavery was
more secure in the Union than out of it because of the Fugitive Slave
Act. Garrison advocated Northern secession for decades precisely because
that would have nullified this insidious Act and greatly encouraged
runaway slaves, breaking the back of that institution.
For the rest of this article, see
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo29.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:17:14 MST