lready examined. They are, for the most part, weaker in comparison to the previous studies with the possible exception of a comment by Frederick Jackson Turner in which he questioned the study by Rhodes. He said of Rhodes’ idea of an interest in slavery solely with planters and certain higher classes, “Logically, this would lead to the conclusion that the institution of private property in the United States rests on the interest of only the most prosperous, who control the larger portion of the property but constitute only a very small percentage of the population. The great slaveholders of the south represented the concentration of wealth in slaves on a scale comparable with the present concentration of holdings of private property, generally, in the United States.” He adds that, “in the regions where slavery flourished, there was a society which depended upon the institution, and this society was dominant throughout the South.” The first comment is an interesting one to which Olsen will build a bit more and the second is one that contradicts some of what the antislavery movement has always promoted. Although neither Turner nor Olsen offer any quantitative evidence it is believable that an institution such as slavery in which thirty percent of the white population is directly influenced could easily be perceived as a dominant society. As the reader might assume, Olsen approaches the same statistical evidence with a different perspective. Where historians usually calculate the percentages of slave ownership using all slave states Olsen points out that in the seven states of the lower South the numbers show a different story. He lists them in the order of their secession from the Union: South Carolina with 48.7 percent of the white families owning slaves, Mississippi with 48 percent, Florida with 36 percent, Alabama with 35.1 percent, Georgia with 38 percent, Louisiana with 32.2 percent and Texas with 28.5 p...
