Many Southern Plantation owners were working towards the day when they could convert their investment to more profitable industrial production as had been done in the North, and others felt that freemen who were paid wages would be more efficient than slaves who had no incentive to work. For the present, however, they were stuck with the system they inherited. They felt that a complete and sudden abolition of slavery with no transition period would destroy their economy and leave many of the former slaves to starve - all of which actually happened in due course.
G. Edward GriffinThere is much evidence indicating that the Capitalistic and Communist conspiracies BOTH are directed by a single master conspiracy which may have continuity with the Order of the Illuminati which was founded 200 years ago.
G. Edward GriffinThe nation's first experiment with the income tax was tried at this time; another violation of the Constitution.
G. Edward GriffinThe reason it is difficult is that we have been conditioned to laugh at conspiracy theories, and few people will risk public ridicule by advocating them. On the other hand, to endorse the accidental view is absurd. Almost all of history is an unbroken trail of one conspiracy after another. Conspiracies are the norm, not the exception.
G. Edward Griffin