Thomas Jefferson once warned that if it continued, slavery would be as damaging to whites as blacks. This Olmsted also found to be true. At the time when he visited the South, more than 70 percent of whites didn’t own a single slave. Yet slavery permeated every aspect of society. Olmsted tried to get an umbrella fixed and was stunned by the ineptitude of the white repairman. The very concept of work had been degraded. This went a long way toward explaining the rutted roads and constant delays encountered everywhere while traveling. Nobody wanted to do anything. Whites didn’t value work because
...more
