This is a great exaggeration; and yet it is true that the
system militated in quite positive degree against the productivity of the
several white classes. Among the well-to-do it promoted leisure by giving
rise to an abnormally large number of men and women who whether actually
or nominally performing managerial functions, did little to bring sweat
to their brows. The proportion of white collars to overalls and of muslin
frocks to kitchen aprons was greater than in any other Anglo-Saxon
community of equal income. The contrast so often drawn between Southern
gentility and Northern thrift had a concrete basis in fact. At the other
extreme the enervation of the poor whites, while mainly due to malaria
and hookworm, had as a contributing cause the limitation upon their
wage-earning opportunity which the slavery system imposed. Upon the middle
class and the yeomanry, which were far more numerous and substantial[90]
than has been commonly realized, the slavery system exerted an economic
influence by limiting the availability of capital and by offering the
temptation of an unsound application of earnings. When a prospering farmer,
for example, wanted help for himself in his fields or for his wife indoors,
the habit of the community prompted him to buy or hire slaves at a greater
cost than free labor would normally have required.
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