This was the case in the early history of the colonies; and experience proved that an appeal to moral rectitude was unheard in Carolina when rice had become a great crop, and in Massachusetts when the rum-slave-traffic was paying a profit of 100%.
Du Bois emphasizes the historical challenges of appealing to moral values in the face of economic interests during the early colonial period.
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So the Cotton Kingdom still lives; the world still bows beneath her sceptre.
The form and disposition of the laborers’ cabins throughout the Black Belt is to-day the same as in slavery days.
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Fully ninety-four per cent have struggled for land and failed, and half of them sit in hopeless serfdom.