So you are saying that it is okay to beat, rape, torture, dehumanize, chastise, displace, and alienate a person or group in order to earn some money? Slavery has existed for centuries upon centuries in various cultures and the whole thing was about the idea of someone else doing the work while the other person takes the credit for it. All of these great civilizations were created from the work of people who never got the real credit, but the slaveholders did, including our country. It's all about bragging rights and ego, but at the same time don't you think that the real slaves were the slaveholders themselves? Think about it. They didn't know how to do anything for themselves. That's why it hurts so many Southerners (the racist ones) to this day--because once slavery ended their ignorance and worthlessness (which was what they felt condoned the ill treatment of blacks) was equal to the sentiments that they felt for Blacks. They could not do anything on their own and reap the superiority complex spoils that they once so much enjoyed. They were just as poor and uneducated (you know being they weren't making money without paying people anymore to afford school) as those slaves they once so loathed. Oh, but they didn't loathe them that much not to sleep with them. The slaveholder then became a slave to slavery themselves. They didn't know what to do without it! The mistreatment of Blacks because of slavery still rears its ugly head out today and is the reason for many stereotypes, lack of family values, confidence, distrust, and paranoia among other things in the Black community as well as racial strains between races today. Nothing at all was good about slavery--except in your opinion some money? Sounds good, but how about this? Why don't you go to work everyday and not get paid for it while your bosses and company board get paid and travel the world and send their children to college? Why don't you eat the poorest parts of meats, vegetables, or fruits and have a poor diet while your boss eats good? Why don't you get whipped on the back and have infected wounds that lead to all types of disease because they are untreated while your manager is going to see the doctor because his big toe hurts? Speaking of which, why don't you walk around barefoot while your manager is sitting on his office with his feet perched on his desk? Why don't you let your boss tell you what God you should pray to and say that your family beliefs are garbage? Why don't you let your boss have free sex with your wife, girlfriend, sister, or mother and have illegitimate children with them that A-they didn't want and B-they will never see them again anyway? Then when he is done raping them, he can make you look like less of a man in front of them for not protecting them and then he can beat you to make you look weak. Better yet, why don't you just be the slave yourself for the betterment of the South? You seem so concerned about it and all, so why don't you do the selfless thing and offer your body, mind, and spirit for the cause?

 First off all i have to say is to all the people that believe that slavery should still be apart of our nation deserve to get crap beat out of them. How can you sit there and say that and not feel even remotly guilty for that statement? How would you like it if you were boo'ed everyday just for walking down the street? Or if you had to use separate bathrooms and restaurants and water fountains just because you were different color. How would you like to be beat and raped up and down 24/7, how would you like to be sold auctioned off to people that you don't even know and now you have to go work for them! What about the children, they didnt get any type of good education, they were raped, and beaten as well, also sold meaning they were taken away from there families. How would you like to be terrified each and every day because on your way home at night you saw a crowd of white people huddled around a cross in flames with a black women lynched to it. How dare you say that slavery should be apart of out country how dare you. Seriously did you not learn anything in school. Blacks, hispanics, irish, German's EVERYONE deserve equal rights, they deserve to be heard and to have opinions and have the right to choose. Shame on you for wanting to take that away from them. People like you make our country look bad, make white people look bad and if i had it my way everyone that wants slavery i wish you could endure it first hand just to see what you would put them through. You people DISGUST me!

 Hell yes slavery never should have happened in the first place. Even though today we black people still get treated like dirt. Racism is something we will always see hear and have to go through. But we black folks don't put up with it cause they already know whats headed their way if they call one of us a nigger.(sorry for typing the word out but it is true they will get hurt for saying that word to a black person.

 I don't believe I'm even taking time to vote on the obvious. But I think thats the purpose of some of these questions. My first question was dumb!

 Ok, if you really think about it, at the time slavery seemed to work and sure it made things easy...for some people. However, the north did just fine without it, and the south is doing just fine without it today. So, no the south does not need it, and yes it was completely necessary for them to get rid of slavery. Let me ask you this, how would you feel if you and your entire family and loved ones were working your rear ends off sun up to sun down, only for the privilege to live. And really it wasn't even worth living considering the way that the African Americans were treated back then. I dont' think anyone in this world would like to live like a slave. So why is it ok to expect others to be ok with it?

 Slavery is wrong in any form

 Of course. Slavery is inhumane and just plain wrong.

 Yes and if they tried to bring it back there would be another war!!!

 The North was able to get along without slavery. If it had never existed or had been abolished sooner, maybe the South would have adapted along with rest of the country. Unless somebody out there thinks they would have wanted to be a slave, I think it should have never happened.

 The South did NOT need slavery to exist. I would have developed in a completely different fashion, just as the West would've without enslaving Native Americans and Oriental slaves.

 Of course we should have gone rid of slavery i cant believe its even questioned

 Wow! I for one am so glad that slavery is not as popular and rampant today as it was years ago. I would hate to see my family and children forced into slavery. I would have to say yes that it was necessary to get rid of slavery, otherwise I think there would have been some kind of uprising or something. I am glad that is was stopped. Well legally anyway.

 Yes, BUT SOME of the Indian's and others still suffer TODAY!

 Yes, its not right to control another human like slaves were done back then.

 It did not make up the "Entire Economy in the South". The average "white" was not a slave-owner. It may've supported the middle and upper classes. Without slavery the South would still have developed, but in a different fashion.

Native populations were routinely enslaved or virtually-enslaved in the "West" also.