How Important was slavery to the Econoyf the Southern States?

How Important Was Slavery to the Economy of the Southern States?
Advanced Higher History Dissertation


Whether slavery was profitable is one of the key questions that over time, historians have tried to answer. The relevance of this question to our field of study is that slavery was an issue that played an essential role in causing the American Civil war in the 19th Century. The issue is whether it made economic sense for Southern landowners to keep slaves. People have debated this fact since the end of the Civil War in 1865, the general view of slavery was that conditions were poor, treatment cruel and the slave life was very harsh.
Economists and politicians throughout the mid-nineteenth century have debated whether slavery was economically profitable. Historians have simply added to the debate. Much depends on defining who slavery was profitable for, the slave, the slave owner or the South as a whole. Much of the debate about whether slavery was profitable for the sl...