[91] The high price of
slaves, furthermore, prevented many a capable manager from exercising his
talents by debarring him from the acquisition of labor and the other means
of large-scale production.
[Footnote 90: D.R. Hundley, _Social Relations in our Southern States_ (New
York, 1860), pp. 91-100, 193-303; John M. Aughey, _The Iron Furnace, or
Slavery and Secession_ (Philadelphia, 1863), p. 231.]
[Footnote 91: F.L. Olmsted, _Journey through Texas_, p. 513.]
Finally, the force of custom, together with the routine efficiency of slave
labor itself, caused the South to spoil the market for its distinctive
crops by producing greater quantities than the world would buy at
remunerative prices. To this the solicitude of the masters for the health
of their slaves contributed. The harvesting of wheat, for example, as a
Virginian planter observed in a letter to his neighbor James Madison, in
the days when harvesting machinery was unknown, required exertion much more
severe than the tobacco routine, and was accordingly, as he put it, "by
no means so conducive to the health of our negroes, upon whose increase
(_miserabile dictu_!) our principal profit depends."[92] The same
letter also said: "Where there is negro slavery there will be laziness,
carelessness and wastefulness.
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