That was my whole point. Thanks for agreeing. Slavery in the American South was the most well-regulated in world history.
Its not a latitude issue, its a social policy issue.
It's both, but primarily a latitude issue. The practice of working slaves to death and buying replacements came from the material reality of Caribbean plantations. It was too expensive to care for workers, and they couldn't sustain themselves. In America, the crops grown and material conditions surrounding labor differed significantly enough that, even without regulation, there just wouldn't have been death on a significant enough scale to justify ready replacement.
The majority of Americans even after the Civil War weren't proletarian laborers. They were farmers. This was true everywhere except New England-New York. The South was the wealthiest region of the U.S...so that's a moot point.
Literal whataboutism. You just conceded the point. Not only were middle-class positions essentially unavailable (for the same reasons that motivated lower and middle class northerners to oppose slavery), but they also had to compete with field slaves for exports, knowing fully well that they could get bought out and replaced by slaves if they didn't make enough to buy slaves for themselves.
And you know this because? Would be awfully weird for the fourth most industrialized place on the planet at the time to not continue investing into industrialization.
Again, see the trajectory of Brazil. Industrialization isn't a top-down initiative. Without a strong middle class to form a domestic market, you wind up as an export colony subject to protectionist tariffs.
The South was infinitely more likely to deport freed blacks than a victorious Union ever was, if you're gonna pull out muh racial demographics card.
Sure, after slavery was abolished.
You also didn't dispute the hypocrisy or aggression of the antebellum North at all
Because it's a load of shit, and I don't care about that.