regt

[lilkekemoe]

discuss three was slavery effected the economy of the old south?

[jno]

they needed it for the labour-intensive cotton economy - they could have done without it but couldn't have kept prices down low enough. You could also say it led to the civil war, which devastated the south'se conomy.

[hotfatchik]

well, jno is right about the plantation owners needing the "free" labor of the slaves to make a profit and sell cotton cheap, but not about slavery being the cause of the civil war. there were non-slave states that seceeded from the union and slave states that remained a part of the u.s. the big issue was "states rights." the states that became the confederacy believed in a small federal government and that the individual states should have more say in the laws of the state. the u.s. government was headed in the direction of growing larger and states having less control over their own legislation. also it wasn't really a "civil" war because when the confederate states left the union, they formed a new nation, and a civil war takes place between to parts of one nation. that's why it's often called "the war between the states." plus there's nothing civil about war.