I ran across a couple of citations that might yield some interesting
information.  I haven't looked at the books or articles themselves in any
depth, so I make no promises as to their true relevance.  I hope, though,
that at least their bibliographies would yield some of the antebellum
citations you're looking for:

Conrad, Alfred H. and John R. Meyer. The economics of slavery, and other
studies in econometric history. Chicago: Aldine, 1964

David, Paul A., Herbert G. Gutman, Richard Sutch, Peter Temin, and Gavin
Wright.  Reckoning with Slavery: a Critical Study in the Quantitative
History of American Negro Slavery.  New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.

Fogel, Robert William and Stanley L. Engerman. Time on the Cross: the
Economics of American Negro Slavery.  Boston: Little, Brown, 1974.

Genovese, Eugene D. and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese.  "The Slave Economies in
Political Perspective."  Journal of American History, Vol. 66, No. 1. (Jun.,
1979), pp. 7-23.

Moes, John E. "The Economics of Slavery in the Ante Bellum South: Another
Comment."  The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 68, No. 2. (Apr., 1960),
pp. 183-187.

Ramsdell, Chas. W. "The Natural Limits of Slavery Expansion." The
Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 16, No. 2. (Sep., 1929), pp.
151-171.

Best Regards,

--Eric Johnson

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