re: #182 John Carter

This is true but the average southerner did not like that idea of freed slaves competing with them for work. It not only demeans them and probably forces the price of labor down.

Not to mention they might get it their heads that they can date their daughters.

Or that the vast majority of poor whites in the South aspired to one day own slaves and enter the planter class. Or that they might have relatives who owned slaves and most families were willing to allowed other family members to use their slaves for projects.