Racial Capitalism: How Slavery Shaped American Economics and Capitalist Structure and became the Precursor of the Civil War
Introduction

It was William Henry Seward’s (1858) belief that “the very constitution of the Democratic party commits it to execute all the designs of the slaveholders, whatever they may be.” In other words, the Democrats of the 19th century were firmly in the pocket of slave owners—agents of the slave system. Seward represented the Republican Party and viewed the upcoming election as one that would alter the course of history—as one that would finally bring about a solution to the moral problem of slavery. However, Seward gave a typically political and simplistic account of the conflict among labor, ownership of the means of production, freedom and social mobility. The reality of capitalist structures and racial capitalism in the US was complex and complicated as much by inconsistencies in the North as by continued injustices in the South during Reconstruction. One of the clearest depictions of the reality of the situation comes from Berlin et al. (1986), who state that “central to all the unresolved questions—and to the agenda of Reconstruction—was the conflict over the meaning of free labor” (109). This paper will explain why the meaning of free labor was so integral to the issue of racial capitalism and how slavery shaped the economics of the USA, capitalist structures and inevitably led to the outbreak of Civil War.

What Slavery Represented

Slavery represented the gulf between labor and capital, as Berlin et al. (1986) point out. The owners of the means of production in the South could utilize slave labor to increase profits for themselves. It is little different from what multinational corporations do today in obtaining cheap labor from third world countries. Notions of freedom and free labor were as conflicting and different in the 19th century as they are today. What remained an uncontested fact was that the separation between labor and capital was nowhere more pronounced than in slavery.

As Edward Delony pointed out in 1858, “the policy of the increase of negro labor to supply the present and growing deficiency of that species of labor in the more Southern States, the only kind that can ever be stable and profitable, or that can effectually develop their resources and increase their wealth and prosperity, is now assuming that position and grave importance which it is entitled to, and which demands the deliberate consideration of the Southern people.” Delony’s report was meant to justify the importation of slave labor into Louisiana. The gist of the justification was that it would be the only type of labor that would allow the state to make the kind of profit it sought and to flourish. In other words, it was a way to maintain the gulf between labor and capital. The immorality of slavery did not enter into the equation—and it only did so for abolitionists. For those who profited from it, slavery represented a way to maintain capital structures. Racial capitalism was the main shaper of American economics and the fact that the South profited so significantly from it while Northern industry did not was a major factor in the build-up to civil war.

The Issue of Slavery in the West

The issue of whether slavery would be permitted in the West was one that exacerbated an already tense debate between the abolitionists and those who wanted to retain the structures of racial capitalism. None of the great compromises of the 19th century had helped to settle the matter—neither the Missouri Compromise nor the Compromise of 1850. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was its own political mess, and the question of who would control the destiny of the West remained up in the air, with Democrats believing Republicans were out to destroy their political power, as James Henry Hammond laid out in his speech on the admission of Kansas to the Union under the Lecompton Constitution in 1858. Republicans won the election, which infuriated Democrats and led directly to the secession of Southern states.

Lincoln identified the problem tersely in his 1861 inaugural speech: “One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is...…the top.

Slaves made it so that the South was profitable—but the Union profited from that system, even as abolitionists who benefited from the Union objected to the means by which the Union accrued its wealth. When the South objected to Republican interference in the aims of Democrats who sought to maintain the Mason-Dixon Line out West and thereby maintain the capital structures and system of racial capitalism employed in the South, the federal government took notice. A Republican president was elected in 1860 and the South promptly seceded from the Union, believing it had the right to self-determination. The South did not want the federal government defining free labor for it. It wanted to define it for itself. The gulf between labor and ownership was the issue. The federal government wanted to maintain its ownership over the capital structures of America. The South wanted to maintain its power over racial capitalism. The two were at a crossroads—and war broke out as neither wished to yield to the other in 1861.

Conclusion

What did it mean to enjoy free labor in the 19th century? To different parties it meant different things. To Southern slave owners it meant having the ability to profit from slave labor. To the federal government, it meant having the ability to benefit from the slave system without having to endorse the immorality of slavery. To abolitionists it meant blacks being able to work for themselves. These conflicting viewpoints came to a head mid-century as the nation expanded westward and politicians on both sides of the aisle attempted to use the issue of slavery as a means of maintaining or obtaining political control over the government. Republicans used the issue of abolitionism to subvert Democratic power, and Democrats used the issue of slavery to allege that their party was being victimized by a tyrannical central government. Both parties benefited from racial capitalism; both used the capital structures that had bolstered the US economy up to that point for their own ends. The Civil War was about who would control the future of the capital structures—the South or the federal government.

Bibliography

Berlin, Ira, Steven…