Morgan's book makes this exact point. The Virginians, especially the
slaveholders, spoke most eloquently about the virtues of freedom. For
Morgan, the lack of freedom for the slaves was essential for the freedom of
the masters.
Morgan, Edmund. 1975. American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordea
>Back when my brother was in college he wrote a senior thesis about how the
>exact same self-government and liberty arguments deployed by the American
>revolutionaries were deployed by sugar-island planters to defend their
>property. An insight that had been previously expressed by Samuel John
>>In response to Michael K.'s mention of Huntington, Brad's journal
>>recently published a counter example. It noted that the sugar colonies
>>in the Americas had the highest per capita income regardless of whether
>>the British, French or Spanish ruled them. It suggests that the factor
>>endowm
Jim Devine wrote:
> I'm sorry, but that example is pretty bogus. Given the nature of the crop
> (with inelastic demand and the spread of sugar to new lands and the
> development of new forms of sugar harvesting, e.g., beet sugar) the high
> per capita incomes were bound to fall. That is, the hi
>In response to Michael K.'s mention of Huntington, Brad's journal
>recently published a counter example. It noted that the sugar colonies
>in the Americas had the highest per capita income regardless of whether
>the British, French or Spanish ruled them. It suggests that the factor
>endowments
