The consequences of slavery were stunting to the individual Southerners (and to the southern economy generally), who just like today, were priced out from being competitive labor markets by people who thought themselves noble for 'civilizing savages'.

I think a lot of people forget about this about the Slavery debate during its own time. I know I brought up with you before my states history of Bleeding Kansas where we started shooting people trying to force us to become a Slave State against our will when we wanted to be a Free State. Well, what doesnt get talked about a lot is that the people who were actually abolitionist were a fairly tiny amount of the population here, and were generally regarded as the fringe crazies who were unstable and itching for a fight (and to be fair, the Abolitionist movement spawned the nations first domestic terrorist in the form of John Brown).

But the overwhelming majority of the state was Free-Soilers, not out of any sort of desire to see blacks liberated from Slavery. Most didnt care. It was 100% a case of "You expect me and my farmstead to compete with some mega-plantation running on free labor?! Fat chance!"

Additionally, for all the talk the Black Supremist types have about how "Our ancestors built this country in chains!", America during the time of Southern slavery was a global backwater, and the South itself was woefully behind the times (Insert Sherman's Pre-Civil War speech in Louisiana here). It wasnt until after the end of the Civil War and Slavery, as well as a few decades to shake off the rust, that the US became the powerhouse it would eventually become. So quite the opposite, their ancestors were merely here, and had little to do with the nations rise, other than they were part of the rise because they could work like most others.