I thought it was getting increasingly disadvantageous and on the way out, then cotton mill suddenly make it advantageous again, recementing slavery.
replyExactly. As distasteful as it is to put it in these terms, some slaveholders had massive "balance sheets" consisting of thousands of human "assets". Outlawing slavery meant reducing the value of these assets to zero.
replyWhich is identical to all the balance sheets today will oil and gas infrastructure and the billions dumped into ICE R&D they were hoping to amortize over the next 30 years.
replyThey’ll fight tooth and nail