Swarthout’s Reviews > The Reckoning: From the Second Slavery to Abolition, 1776-1888 > Status Update

"'In total, then, close to $600 million – equivalent to a third of total ordinary revenues over the period – can be seen as a reasonable low estimate for the Federal Government’s expenditure on western expansion'"

"'slavery retarded regional economic growth by absorbing the savings of slave owners, “crowding out” investment in physical capital – including the forms of capital formation represented by improvements in the value of land'"

"Credit promoted crop specialization within the South, as well as the opening of new areas and a shift from tobacco and rice to cotton, sugar and wheat. Slave-holdings supplied collateral and the slaves themselves were – quite literally – a mobile asset playing their onerous part in the slaveholders capitalism"