Renewable Revolution

It all started with a Constitution that allowed slavery to continue unmolested in the Southern states, only limiting the importation of additional slaves after 1808. In addition to requiring the return of escaped slaves to the slave labor camps, it required them to be included in the census as three-fifths of a free person for taxation and representation.

Because seats in the House of Representatives are based on population, not on the number of registered voters or even on the number people eligible to vote, but of total population—including people held in slavery, even if each was only considered three-fifths of a man—the South received more that their fair share. And it was not just extra House seats that their slave population provided, but also additional muscle in the Electoral College that selects the president. According to Edward E. Baptist in The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism:

Historically accurate sordid details of how it was done along with graphics and pictures at link below. If you still think American Capitalism is a benign practice that produces prosperity, you are in Empathy Deficit Disordered Denial.