There's a lot of historical truth to this - the founding documents of the Confederacy express as much hostility to the North's public infrastructure projects and "internal improvements" as they did support for slavery They saw it as the same issue, their "way of life" https://twitter.com/theashleyray/status/1302024072725839872 …
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The intricate system of canals that had been built in the Northeast, considered one of the wonders of the world at the time, pissed him off SO MUCH "We could build canals if we wanted to, we have the money, but why should I have to chip in to build something I DON'T OWN"
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"If a man wants to build HIS OWN canal on HIS OWN property that's his right but demanding EVERYONE pay to build a canal WHETHER OR NOT THEY PERSONALLY BENEFIT is THEFT, it's BONDAGE, it's TYRANNY" He just keeps getting madder and redder
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Whole history of the South is like this George Washington, who was very forward thinking for a Southern aristocrat, wanted the new capital city named after him to be a metropolis, he wanted it to be the center of a new canal system to rival New York's
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As soon as he died they abandoned all work on this and Washington DC remained an embarrassing muddy cow town with the White House and Capitol awkwardly parked in it until the 20th century The Washington Monument went up 100 feet and then stayed unfinished for decades
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Jefferson Davis met with Confederate state governors repeatedly during the war to talk about building a railroad because they really needed one, it would be a massive boost to their economy and make the war effort so much easier Never got off the ground
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Slavery, it turns out, is a great way for a civilization to be lazy You, personally, don't have any reason to give a shit about improving anything because your life remains comfortable as long as you can throw human labor at the problem The workers this affects don't get a vote
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(Hence the whole thing about ancient civilizations inventing things "early" -- the Inca only using wheels as children's toys, the Greeks inventing Hero's Aelipole, a simple steam engine, as an experiment -- but not using it for anything because why bother when you have slaves)
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End of conversation
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Also public schools.
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This comes up in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Dred, too. She focuses primarily on pre-war education, but it's the same hatred for public infrastructure
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Yeah, they were ironically democrats before the southern democrats reformed the republicans and drastically moved the party far more "right" and what was once right became left.
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