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Yes, slavery exists today- it's particulary prominent in Sudan, where Muslim Arabs regularly seize people from the Christian and anamist south and sell them. In this case it's most certainly not mere economics.

Though I would agree that slavery was certainly begun in the South for economic purposes. Tobacco and rice were labor intensive crops, and indentured servants from the British Isles were lousy. So black slaves were brought in. Not cheap, but effecive labor. The racial ideas developed with the settlement and development of the South. But along with these ideas there also developed ideas of freedom and liberty, which were embraced by most Southerners. Yet they viewed blacks as unfit for these new ideas of liberty and freedom. It was already well established that blacks were intended to be subservient to whites, so most people in the South saw little conflict with the ideas of liberty with slavery. I think that if Southerners had not possessed their views of blacks slavery would have been significantly less popular. Certainly the economic system was important- but so was the perception of blacks, especially by those outside of the economy of slavery and slave-supported agriculture.

"Though I would agree that slavery was certainly begun in the South for economic purposes"

I don't think you meant this the way it was said. Slavery was not begun in the Southeastern United States. It was begun before history was written. It was ended by Europeon white males in the United States.

"Although the South would have preferred any honourable compromise to the fratricidal war which has taken place, she now accepts in good faith its constitutional results, and receives without reserve the amendment which has already been made to the constitution for the extinction of slavery. This is an event that has long been sought, though in a different way, and by none has it been more earnestly desired than by citizens of Virginia." Gen. R.E.

"The racial ideas developed with the settlement and development of the South. But along with these ideas there also developed ideas of freedom and liberty, which were embraced by most Southerners. Yet they viewed blacks as unfit for these new ideas of liberty and freedom. It was already well established that blacks were intended to be subservient to whites, so most people in the South saw little conflict with the ideas of liberty with slavery. I think that if Southerners had not possessed their views of blacks slavery would have been significantly less popular. Certainly the economic system was important- but so was the perception of blacks, especially by those outside of the economy of slavery and slave-supported agriculture."

This is what makes me howl. There was no difference between Northerners and Southerners in the perception of the black race. NONE!

"The North, it seems, have no more objections to slavery than the South have..." John Stuart Mill, 1861.

"The Northern onslaught upon slavery was no more than a piece of specious humbug designed to conceal its desire for economic control of the Southern states." Charles Dickens, 1862.