re: #88 Khal Wimpo

Very astute. In just the way that oil represents “free money” where just owning the land that it comes out of entitles you to vast amounts of wealth … so too did owning plantations result in crazy-fat income streams.

As long as you were able to enslave others to work those fields, that is.

You might be interested in reading Mary Boykin Chesnut’s A Diary from Dixie. She was married to James Chesnut, Jr., United States Senator from South Carolina 1859-1861. Mr’s Chesnut was a native of South Carolina. The book is based on the diaries she kept through the war years. She is not an apologist for the South and her book provided me with some insights regarding Southern culture, attitudes and politics at the time.