Lyle -- I think you're working from material that's way out of date. The institution of slavery was performing beautifully and the slaveholders had no intention of getting rid of it. I may have posted this Fogel quote before, but I guess it bears repeating. Henry Wiencek From Robert Fogel, "The Slavery Debates, 1952-1990," P. 27: "During the decade of the 1970s, the growing mountains of evidence finally made it obvious that the profitability of slavery was increasing, not declining, on the eve of the Civil War. Moreover, the sharp rise in the purchase price of slaves relative to their rental price meant that slave owners were never more confident about the future of their system than they were during the last half of the 1850s. . . . Far from stagnating, the per capita income of the South was growing faster between 1840 and 1860 than that of the North." ______________________________________ To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html