Chapter 24: Southern owners begin “breeding” excess slaves.

Meanwhile, with the 1808 ban on importing slaves from abroad, the South begins to “breed excess slaves” to be auctioned off to new plantations at windfall profits. This notion of monetizing the potential pregnancies of enslaved females is articulated by none other than Thomas Jefferson in an 1820 letter to his brother-in-law Francis Eppes:

I know no error more consuming to an estate than that of stocking farms with
men almost exclusively. I consider a woman who brings a child every two years
as more profitable than the best man of the farm. What she produces is an
addition to the capital, while his labors disappear in mere consumption.

This practice continues unabated until 1860 when historian Robert Ransom pegs the auction value of the 3.9 million slaves at $3 Billion vs. the total US GDP of $4.4 Billion!

Hence the abolitionists – or any antislavery sentiments in the North — are viewed as existential threats to southern wealth.