how might the banning of slavery affected the south's economy?

well slavery was a big part of the south. so let's compare this to a rival stealing all a man's money and treasures. once you lose something you cannot live without, you'll have to learn how to adapt. the southeners had to adapt to this new living condition, some even had to do their own work or now pay for labor. when slavery was abolished, the economy suffered greatly. there was no one to cultivate the people's farms in order to help maintain other's lives. from there, what do you think happened? ;]

The people in the south (especially those with large farms) were accustomed to the free labor, and were dependent on it. When slavery was banned they were forced to pay for labor. Basically the south's economy went down because in order to continue the same amount of production they had to spend a lot more money on labor.

The South's economy would be a lot less productive, because it depended so much on the work of slaves. It would cause the farmers (especially the big plantation owners) to lose a lot of money so the ecomony would slow down a lot. The South would have to find new ways of getting their work down. It would be a big mess.

The South would have no slaves to do all of their work on the plantations, causing slow production, thus leading to a economical decline.

The same way that today's agricultural buisness would be if there were suddenly no Mexicans.