About 6% of white southerners owned slaves. Sounds like most whites were NOT the equivalent of the Communist Party leaders.
Now, examining the working conditions of early factories in the North...
But they tended to have wives and children. In some states close to 50% of all families had slaves. That's a better statistic to judge just how important it was.
Now, examining the working conditions of early factories in the North...
Those factory workers didn't have to worry about waking some morning and finding their wives and children sold out from under them.