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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.

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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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