#UShistory Slavery Lasted in the Antebellum U.S. Because the Federal Government Protected It Because slavery would not have survived in a free market, it needed the federal government to socialize the costs to make it profitable. Secession, ironically, hastened the day when slavery was ended altogether. https://mises.org/mises-wire/slavery-lasted-antebellum-us-because-federal-government-protected-it