Liberal Forum

Skans » 14 Feb 2023, 2:42 pm » wrote: ↑

14 Feb 2023, 2:42 pm

While slavery did lead to profits of plantation owners pre-Civil War, all of that wealth was completely lost, destroyed and/or confiscated through:

• The cost of engaging in a war paid to the southern states to fight the North
• Loss of slaves after emancipation - the slave owners were never compensated for the loss of their property 
• Loss of plantation owners' business and crop production
• Destruction of property during the invasion from Northern aggressors
• Loss of many white southern men during the war, leaving families completely destitute.
• Raping of what little wealth and property remained by carpetbaggers
• Northern military taking "spoils of victory" from the South

Whatever the South did build, whatever wealth southern land owners did accumulate disappeared.  Southern banks went bankrupt and out of business. Entire cities were destroyed and buried, like Atlanta.  And, confederate currency was worthless.  The South went bust after the war.  So, it's a complete fallacy to say that America was built on the backs of slaves.  It wasn't.,  America was re-built after the demise of slavery from the ground up.  And, while blacks over time may have been a part of that process, they were not slaves.  The South that was built pre-Civil War simply ceased to exist in any shape or form whatsoever.