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and the people were deceiving themselves.
The real conflict was . . . between the capital that hired free labor and the capital that owned slave labor.1
And Mr. Simons represents the Northern capitalists in the anticipation of a future struggle between themselves and their employes, as deliberately determining that the capitalists of the South should not enjoy the “privilege of an undisturbed industry.”
It seems to me that anyone who can believe this can believe anything that he wishes to. The fact is that slave labor did not compete with the free labor of the North.
The South had a practical monopoly of the production of cotton, tobacco, rice and sugar, and slavery was chiefly confined to that production.
The relative cheapness or dearness of slave labor had consequently no appreciable effect on Northern labor; and if it had, it is absurd to suppose that Northern capital appreciated the fact or brought about the war for any such reason.
It is true that the North desired a protective tariff for its manufactures, and that the South preferred free trade so that it might have a world-wide market for its cotton.
It is true that North and South tach desired to control the national government.
1 Quoted by Mr. Simons from a former work by Benjamin E. Green.
Chicago: the Public Publishing Company, 1905.
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