Prior to the Civil war, the slave holding states granted a 3/5 (or similar) count for slaves in the decision of how many representatives in the House were granted a state. So they counted for that but of course had no rights themselves. It was a sweet deal for the slave owners.

Then what economic stimuli caused the Brits to abandon slavery prior to the US? Not saying that economics played no part, but Christians led abolition around the world.

I don't see how it was a deal for slaveowners.

It was a deal to get the southern states into the union as those states feared the larger northern population would overwhelm the House of Representatives.

The northern states at first didn't want any slaves to count for anything. The southern states insisted they count for something so as to balance power in the House. That was the formula written into the Constitution.

Not our finest hour.

Industrialization made farming and manufacturing cheaper than a slave could do the same job. Before industrialization few Christians thought slavery was a sin in itself. It is clearly biblically acceptable.

There was one extraordinary person in England who championed it....and perhaps their style of government is less responsive to special interests...?

jeepers, talk about thread drift

The subject of "Chariots of Fire"

This. ^^^. Not only was it biblically acceptable, it was accepted by the Christian church for many hundreds of years. If you read the literature of southern Christians from the early 19th century which argues for the Christian endorsement of slavery, they have an air tight argument. The Christian anti-slave movement by comparison had extremely weak arguments for a Christian and traditional point of view. (not that I'm unhappy that the weaker argument won)
I'm reading a couple of books on Roman slavery and it's relationship with Xty at the moment. I had never given much thought to the fact that when Paul converted people in the NT, he converted whole households. He would convert the head of household and the head of household would baptize everyone in the house as Christians, including slaves, since they were his property and he could convert them. Not the kind of 'individual-his-heart-to-Jesus' we hear about today.

Please read up on 'The Whiskey Rebellion' to see how the Founding Fathers dealt with a similar situation.

If you wish to take up arms against the US you no longer have any rights as you are in open rebellion. So now it comes down to who has the most staying power.

I'm betting on the US even if Conservatives are not.

So who was President of the US when our nation turned it's back on the RSA?

Why, that would have been R. Reagan. I guess Reagan hated white people?

Read up on the Afrikaners history during World War 2. Smuts wanted to side with the Nazi's since they were such fine people who shared Smuts world view. This did not take place since the RSA was a Commonwealth Country and the King put his foot down by telling Smuts if they wished to join with the Nazi's they could and after the war was over Smuts could be hung with the rest of them.

Even though I am a Democrat I just thought I would throw that in to show to help show that the "Jim Crow Laws were well supported by the Common People of the time.

Also for Me the late 1950s and early 1960s when the "Jim Crow Laws" still existed is with in My Memory so to Me the time seems more recent than just another obsecure part of History.

It was interesting to see the Democratic Party "change its Spots".
Slavery was around in Ancient times but it was not racially based. People also sold themselves into slavery to pay debts.

My own thought is that Civil Rights for Blacks ha crept along at an extremely slow pace. I think it was the "Cold War" against Communism that helped People here examine their on Constitution.

The Communist were forever pointing and say that you say you Country is a free Country but look at the Blacks.

So in a sense Civil Rights became part of the "Cold War" struggle and the previous Government Policy of supporting "Jim Crow" Laws changed.

For Myself I feel no White Guilt over Slavery. Members of own Family immigrated to the USA by way of Mexico sometime between 1896-1902 from the Border between Austria and Italy.
No one in My Family had anything to do with USA Slavery.

Feeling guilty over something someone else did is even more dumb than the religious people who wear punishment devices and flog themselves. At least they are repenting their own sins. I'm sure I had an ancestor that did bad things to someone. Sorry, not biting. Your so and so can take it up with my so and so. I'm not paying for my father's debt nor do I expect him to pay for mine. I pay my bills and he can pay his.

I will agree with you on that.

Unless you can trace your ancestry to nobility or royalty, your ancestors were serfs, peasants or slaves. In my (proven) ancestry I have abolitionists, sharecroppers and slaveowners.

My guilt is at war with itself so I'll just stay out of it until my ancestors quit flogging each other.

It's what I do now that counts.

Why slavery disappeared is a bit of a puzzle to me. I've heard the argument that industrialization made it unnecessary. But that argument by itself I don't find convincing. What's cheaper about having free workers in a factory as compared to slaves? The best argument I can imagine is that factories are associated with cities and housing slaves in cities is expensive compared to housing slaves on a large farm. But that argument isn't completely convincing either since workers still have to pay for housing in cities.
On a macro scale, I can see where allowing free class movement from the lower classes to the upper classes is preferable since it allows smart people, who would otherwise be slaves, to move beyond the level of simple manual labor and contribute to the economy in more complex ways. So if the slave class gets educated, the economy might find a new Einstein or a new Bill Gates. But the micro process of that transition from chattel slavery to wage slavery eludes me. Do people know of specific examples where a slave owner switched from being a chattel slave owner to being a wage slave owner? I don't know of any.