Man, that's like asking me to write a book. That's perhaps a new thread, or at least give me time to compose such a long argument.

That's what many slaves were saying, too, when the economy started booming (due to slavery and cotton farming) and slave owners were considering themselves righteous "progressives" by providing for their slaves better (and in many ways [in the latter years], they were being taken care of better than the "free workers" of the north). But, just because some were happy, doesn't mean they were free. The 'progressives' of that day and under that social condition (slavery) are essentially equatable to the "progressives" (bourgeois liberals) of today and today's social condition (capitalism); that is, attempting to provide for the enslaved better but never suggest emancipation.