Abolition, the Extension of Slavery, and the Position of Free Blacks: A Study of Split Labor Markets in the United States, 1830-1863

Using the "split labor market" theory of ethnic and racial antagonism, this paper analyzes race relations in the pre-Civil War United States. Both slavs and free blacks are found to have been lower preced sources of labor than whites, to whom they therefore posed a threat of displacement. Slavery was a system which gave souther capitalists total control of a cheap labor force, permitting extensive displacement. It also put the South in conflict with northern capital, because the latter depended on higher-priced (white) labor. Abolition threatened to increase competition between black and white labor, spreading the problem to all regions and segments of the economy. But anumission also made blacks more vulnerable to counterattacks by white labor in the form of either exclusion or the economy. But manumission also made blacks more vulnerable to conterattacks by white labor in the form of either exlusion or caste. The various class interests of the three parties to split labor markets are presented for the North, South, and West on the issues of abolition, the extension of slavery, and the position of free blacks. It is argued that an understanding of the interests of the white working class and its power to implement them is of major importance for untangling race relations before the Civil War.