Industrialization and the Survival of the Peculiar Institution

 

Coming out of the American Revolution, the nation faced a slave problem that most today could scarcely imagine and that was unemployment. The Slave labor force had grown from reproduction and from importing of slaves by the northern slave traders in a situation that, using modern business terms, was more of supplier push than buyer pull. That is the suppliers wanted to sell their human cargo more than buyers wanted to buy it. When, during the Constitutional Convention, it was determined that the slave trade would be allowed to continue until 1808 instead of being ended at that time, the popular impression is that Southerners wanted the trade to continue and the Northern representatives simply agreed to it as a concession through negotiation but it was New England interests that wanted this and the provision was more of a concession to them.  The Duke de Rochefoucault Liancourt, traveling in the States in 1795 described,

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