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Originally Posted by Tuna
Do you have another historical example of slavery that was determined by race?
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Well aside from Canada, the Caribbean, and Europe during the same general time period I don't know of any examples that were quite as clear cut - mostly because in other places, although the slavery has been racially based it's been more diverse about the different racial groups enslaved. I'm pretty sure though, that in one way or another Nazi Germany, the Roman Empire, the Persian Empire, Russia, the Mongols etc have all used racially determined slavery (but not as clear cut as blacks and whites more like slavs and romans or whatever).
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Originally Posted by Tuna
Oh I agree that the North weren't completely innocent as they still treated blacks pretty poorly in the North (though not to the extreme of the South). Still a lot of Northerners were against the institution of slavery (abolitionists) for religious reasons or whatever else and even more realized that slavery just made our country look bad and behind the times.
The Civil War was years in the making. There was no "epidemic change of heart", it had existed for a long time before the war started.
Owning slaves was definitely cheaper than hiring workers, by the way. It had nothing to do with costs, otherwise the South would've most likely been on board for the Emancipation Proclamation.
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I think the abolitionist thing started with the Spanish and then the US got a kick in the ass when Britain jumped on board, but in the grand scheme of things, and considering the old testaments stance on slavery, it still seems to me like a pretty sudden change of heart for slavery to be abolished over a 100 year period based on religious reasons - I suspect there were some other reasons but I can only speculate without doing serious research.
On a large plantation slavery was still extremely cheap especially considering the standard of life. But in the cities and developed areas (think of Europe more so than the American South) there were enough people to work the land without slaves. Slavery tends to be profitable in farming, mining, primary labour etc. But industrialization and slavery don't mix as well - which is why we now have something even "better" than slavery - sweatshops. Considering the way the economics of slavery works, it kind of makes sense which places were for it and which were more likely to go against it. Its kind of telling that this whole shebang took place right on the cusp of the industrial era.