“Down in the Deep South, however, there’s another kind of plantation entirely. Those are huge—like vast factories—and there a slave may still be worked to death.” He’d nodded grimly. “The most similar conditions I can think of are in the industrial factories and coal mines in England, where the workers are hardly better off, though they are at least paid a pittance. The only difference is that—in theory at least—the English poor have some rights, whereas, in practice, the slaves have none. Those big plantations, sir, eat up slaves and need fresh ones all the time. And where do they get them? Mostly from further north. Sold down the river, as they say. Virginia ships huge numbers every year.”

“Do you?”

“No. But I haven’t so many slaves, and unlike some of my neighbors, I’m not in need of cash. Otherwise, the temptation would be enormous.” He had sighed. “I’m not defending the system, Master. I’m just describing it. And the sad truth is that the big planters in the South need slaves, and many farmers in Virginia rely on the income they get from supplying them.”

“Yet the plantation owners are a tiny minority,” Frank had pointed out. “Most of the farmers in the South have few slaves or none at all. Do they have such an incentive to support the system?”

“A white man in the South may be poor, but at least he can look down on the black man. He also has two great fears. The first is that if ever the black slaves become free, they’ll take a terrible revenge. The second is that free black men would steal jobs from him and compete for land. For better or worse, Master, the wealth of the South is all tied up in slaves, and so is its culture. Destroy slavery and the South believes it will be ruined. For the fact is that the South has always feared the dominance of the North. They don’t want to be under the thumb of your ruthless New York money men, or your arrogant Yankee puritans.” He had smiled. “Even such kindly ones as your wife.”