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Slavery "worked" to concentrate wealth among a new American aristocracy. It "worked" to tie future hopes to the land, turning away from modernization and industy. In order for it to "work" it had to provide disproportionate political power to those landed few, shutting down proper representation for the people in the nation as a whole. So yeah, if you aspire to the gentry caste, I can see it "working" and can see why you'd advocate for it. Except....
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And that is precisely the kind of society the South had and the elite wanted to keep.
A few quotes Southern "thinkers" of the time.
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George Fitzhugh
His idea to rectify social inequality created by capitalism was to institute a system of universal slavery, based on his belief that "nineteen out of every twenty individuals have...a natural and inalienable right to be slaves."
South Carolinian Thomas Cooper. Individuals, he argued, only have such rights and liberties as society wishes to give them. And in a healthy society, true liberty will be restricted to a relative few.
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“Right is still right, even if nobody is doing it. And wrong is still wrong, even if everybody is doing it.”—Texas Ranger saying.
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