2Q J THE TENURE OF LAND BEFORE i860 2 g 



great arguments brought against slavery as an economic 

 institution was that since it offers no wholesome incen- 

 tives to the laborers, their work is performed poorly and 

 uneconomically. This is certainly true from an ideal 

 point of view, regarding all peoples as being fairly well 

 supplied with incentives and endowed with powers 

 capable of making an adequate response to the incen- 

 tives. It may happen, however, in the history of a race 

 that the desire for improvement may operate so slightly 

 that a distinct measure of progress may come from 

 properly bringing to bear upon such a race so circum- 

 stanced artificial impelling stimuli. If a' system can 

 exact a degree of co-ordinated economic activity greater 

 than would exist if natural inclination alone were opera- 

 tive, then the system, when applied under circumstances 

 favorable to large-scale organized production, may not 

 be so very bad as an engine of production. The opinion 

 is ventured that far more goods for consumption were 

 produced in Georgia before i860 through the slavery- 

 plantation system, than the same population would have 

 produced had each worked independently for himself. 

 Again, the assertion is ventured, that, although the 

 slaves undoubtedly produced more than they consumed 

 under the system, they consumed more than they would 

 have produced outside the system. 



All of this is said not so much in justification of slav- 

 ery as it there existed, as in explanation of its persistent 

 hold upon the people of the state. Herein, then, lies the 

 explanation of the growth of large holdings in Georgia 

 before the war: the abundance of land and the profit- 

 ableness of the slavery-plantation plan of production. 



