First
Lifer
- Jun 3, 2002
- 10,518
- 271
- 136
Is it just possible that the loss of a sizable fraction of the adult male population and the near total destruction of economic infrastructure might have had something to do with the postwar collapse of the Southern economy?
Of course the Civil War destruction had a lot to do with it, but fact is that, based on the numbers of states that seceded, those states were dependent on crop plantations that made up a vast majority of their economy before the war. That's just the reality of the situation, they were too dependent on something that was widely regarded as morally reprehensible on many levels. It had to be abolished because the South became dependent on it. That's just how it was.
Also, contrary to your Gone With the Wind perspective on the antebellum South, plantation owners were a very small fraction of the white population.
Your point is irrelevant here since a large percentage of the economy at that time was controlled by the upper 2% of the white population.