Economic Growth and Slavery

This article discusses what was more important to the colonists:  economic self-interest to keep slavery or moral convictions to abolish slavery?
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/con_economic.cfm

This goes back to our discussion in class on Friday -- that slavery was an easy solution to keeping the economy of colonial America growing.  Americans realized that if they did not have economic growth, the country would fall.  So when slavery started, they made the decision to take economic self-interest over the moral convictions of slavery.  However, once slavery became a big issue and people came to their senses... I believe slavery was abolished due to the morals of the American people (or some of them at least).