Question

What may have caused Southerners to widely claim that “slaves won’t work unless compelled?”

Answer 1

Defenders of slavery argued that in the South, where dependence on slave labour was the base of their economy, the abrupt end of the slave economy would have had a drastic and killing economic effect. That will collapse the cotton industry. In the fields, the tobacco crop will dry out. Rice would cease to be viable.

Slavery supporters argued that there would be mass unemployment and anarchy if all the slaves were released. Uprisings, bloodshed, and chaos will contribute to this. They pointed to the "law of fear" of the crowd during the French Revolution and called for the continuity of the status quo, which supplied the slaveholding class and all free citizens who enjoyed the bounty of the slave system with prosperity and security.

Defenders of slavery claimed that slaves were better provided for in contrast to the poor in Europe and the workforce of the northern states. They said that when they were ill and old, their owners would support and assist them, unlike those who were left to fend helplessly for themselves if fired from their jobs.