This pamphlet by Daniel Goodloe puts forth an economic argument against slavery. Goodloe contends that capital invested in slaves provides a poor return on the investment and is the root cause of the economic differences between the northern and southern states. To learn more about the context of this argument, see the brief sketch of Goodloe in John Spencer Bassett's Anti-Slavery Leaders of North Carolina (1898) (http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/bassett98/menu.html), pp. 47-56.

Works Consulted: For more on Goodloe's life and work, consult Jeffrey Brooke Allen, "The Racial Thought of White North Carolina Opponents of Slavery, 1789-1876," North Carolina Historical Review, 59 (January 1982), pp. 49-66; Joseph Flake Steelman, "Daniel Reeves Goodloe: a Perplexed Abolitionist During Reconstruction," East Carolina College Publications in History, I (1965), pp. 66-90; and the Daniel R. Goodloe Papers (#278), Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (The finding aid for this collection is available online at: http://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/00278/.)

Michael Sistrom