It was! Chattel slavery represented a huge amount of equity in the United States. Owning slaves represented more than just wealth by means of productions, slave owners could borrow against their human property to expand their business and make more investments. The value of slaves then had a huge impact on the US economy in general. So by the secession of the slave states, the slave population of the United States was considered sustainable. The importation of slaves would increase supply in a market where demand was slowing down. Controlling the price of slaves was an excellent means of maintaining politics and economic power in the Southern States. The importation of slaves represented weaken in the economic power of slave owners throughout the south. This fact became especially important in the upper south as tobacco leveled out and declined in price. The Cotton Gin changed everything and in a sense "revitalized" slavery. With the expansion of the cotton gin, one of the primary "good" that came out of the post-Tobacco Upper South was the sale of slaves from the Upper South to the Deep South were cotton was increasingly important to the global economy.

The Confederate States wanted to maintain that economic isolation that been. Established in the early years of the Republic.

The Half Has Never Been Told by Edward E. Baptist Soul By Soul-Walter Johnson