You also had the Chinese coming to the US and American's taking a sizable chunk of the gold rush profit before and after they processed, essentially making them slaves. Then you had the foreign miner tax ... GDP was stifled.
Each gold rush in the US increased inflation since our money was backed by precious minerals. With that in mind, the net result is a loss in GDP growth. The max being that 1.8% for that 10 year period. Other than a few lucky SOBs that found a vein first, it really only made the rich, more rich.
As for slavery, 80% of the nation’s gross national product was tied to slavery in the 1860s, which was slavery's peak.
That 5-50% is a bunch of revisionist garbage.
The pre-Civil War South, produced well over half of all US export earnings with slave-grown cotton. Nothing else. By the 1840s ... the South grew 60% of the world's cotton while 70% was consumed by the British textile industry. The North developed a variety of businesses that provided services for the South (textile factories, meat processing, insurance companies, shippers, cotton brokers, equipment manufacturing for tools, etc.). Mix that all together and you will see it damn well near 80% on the conservative side of things.
... Is that really one of the arguments going on here???
I thought the current talking point for returning to bygone eras was the 1950s post-WWII America?
Which is whole other nebulous can of worms ...