Introduction to "Monetary Statistics of the United States: Estimates, Sources, Methods"

relative status of the South was no higher in 1860 than it was one hundred years later (when the backwardness of the South was not a point of dispute). As for the growth rate, Fogel and Engerman note in a formula on page 335 that about 30 percent of Southern growth was attributable to redistribution of population from east to west; it might be still more relevant to point out that by the same formula, 60 percent of the growth is attributable to the West South Central region. Which is to say that the growth was largely based on the exploitation of the fabulous natural wealth of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas, a conclusion which may not be so different from that of the older writers, generously interpreted. What stands out most clearly in the income figures is the absence of an Industrial Revolution in the Southeast concomitant with the westward movement, such as that observed in the North. Blaming this "failing" on slavery is a prickly business, as Fogel and Engerman show very well. But whatever the ultimate causes, the seeds of backwardness were sown early, even if the costs were borne primarily .later in history. Fogel and Engerman are not mainly concerned with post-Civil War history, but the long-run pattern is one important reason for interest in the subject of slavery. And there is good reason to believe that the lack of industrial development, racism, and what is politely called by economists backwardness in human capital investment, were significant factors in the painful slowness of the South's emergence from the devastation of the Civil War.