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Comment by saraid216 | Hacker News Reader

As a vague summary, it's actually not wrong. One of the main reasons that Northerners opposed the Civil War was because they had business interests in the South. And one of the main reasons that Southerners opposed the Civil War was because emancipation would wreck their economy.

But there are dozens of other ways to understand that cross-section of history.

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Exactly, I dont believe that it was THE foundation for our economy. The Industrial Revolution may be THE foundation for our MODERN economy, I dont find agriculture as our foundation anymore. We can literally watch China go through it now.

>But there are dozens of other ways to understand that cross-section of history.

This.

The pre-war southern economy was an agricultural economy made possible by slave labor.

From Wikipedia, but any research will back this up:

While about a third of Southern families were slave owners, most were independent yeoman farmers. Nevertheless, the slave system represented the basis of the Southern social and economic system, and thus even non-slaveowners opposed any suggestions for terminating that system, whether through outright abolition or case-by case emancipation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Southern_United_...

"a struggle between the bourgeoisie of the north and the landowners of the south."

Your only talking about the South. I was talking about both sides. The quote had both in it too.

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