Political Crossfire Forums

[The Perplexed One]

How do you southerners feel about the US, do you guys harbour any serious thoughts about resurrecting the Confederation and independence or has the last 15 decades united all of you guys together? your thoughts plz.

[Artificial_Eternity]

I'm not personally from the south, but my girlfriend lived in Louisiana for 3 years. She says that everyone there hates anything to do with Yankees, including accents, idealogies, flags, whatever. I'm sure this isn't true of everyone down there. She says that if a Yankee (such as me :P ) were to go down there, I would be spit on a treated like dirt.

As for ressurecting the Confederation, I don't know. Personally I doubt it; they were beaten, and they know they were beaten. However, she also says that many people sport the Confederate flag, but I don't think it really has anything to do with the actually Confederacy.

I hope this help to clear anything up for you. :)

[Simon De Montfort]

Speaking as a southerner I'm glad the North won. I even had ancestors that died fighting for the Confederacy. A split Union would have been a disaster for both North and South.

You will run into a few redneck holdouts down here. Artificial_Eternity, your girl friend probably ran into a group of rednecks who felt that way. But that in no way describes how the vast majority of southerners feel. You are more likely to run into that kind of thinking among uneducated rural people. Educated urbanites realize that we are better off as a unified nation. You will find educated people that look back on the Confederacy with a nostolgic affection and as a source for regional pride. But that doesn't mean they want to secede again.

In regards to the Confederate flag. There are two reasons people display it. The vast majority who display the Confederate battle flag (with the St. Andrews Cross) do so as a sign of regional pride. The South has, more than any other region, a great deal of regional pride. This is due in large part to our brief stint as a sperate nation. There are a few racist elements that have leeched on to the Confederate flag and use it as their banner. Unfortunately it is this smaller group that has been associated with the Confederate battle flag thus resulting in an unfair stigma being attached to it.

[dcoltonbrown]

The US is a large nation. Regionalism exists in every way. Southerners are quite different from Northerners who are quite different from midwesterners who are quite different than westerners. There are different cultures, different political ideology, unique accents, archecture and so on.

Resentment in the South does exist. Some of it being the remnants of reconstruction, but the majority of it just a difference in culture.

[addam1212]

Well think of what the South would have been like if there was no civil war. The slave system would have continued until who knows when, but as we see during the cotton kingdom time, the development of cities was slow and the push for new technology was also sluggish. If the South was allowed to continue to rely on the slave system, that region would not only have not developed technologically speaking, but would have had a firmly entrenched aristocracy, and even a caste system, something that is contradictary to what this country was founded on.

[Simon De Montfort]

addam1212 wrote: ... the push for new technology was also sluggish. ... that region [the south] would not only have not developed technologically speaking

Actually that is not an accurate picture of the antebellum south. Having taken 2 graduate level courses on southern history prior to 1860 I have read quite abit about the subject. The south was every bit interested in adopting new technologies to improve agricultural output. Though much of southern agriculture relied on slave labor they weren't indifferent to the productive capacity of the slaves. Productive slaves meant greater output and bigger profits. Also we must remember that the vast majority of southerners OWNED NO SLAVES. So relying on throwing mass number of slaves at a farm or factory was just not an option. To increase profits southern farmers and manufactures knew that the had to adopt new technologies and they did. Furthermore the vast majority of slaveowners owned only 1 or 2 slaves. Not everyone in the south lived like people in "Gone With the Wind." :lol:

The south was far behind the north in miles of railroads but that wasn't because Southerners were reluctant to adopt new technologies. This was due in large part to the fact that the south is blessed with great system of navigable rivers therefore reducing the need for railroads.

Slavery did cause one major problem for southern industrial development and that was in reducing the amount of available capital. Buying slaves requires a huge capital investment in ones labor whereas the use of wage labor does not. Therefore in free states people with money had the cash to invest in factories and railroads.

Another point that must be remembered that most comparisons between the north and the south prior to 1860 is like comparing apple and oranges. The bulk of the states that seceded in 1861 were part of the "Old Southwest." Of the eleven states that seceded 7 were not part of the original colonies. Of those seven four were in land added to the US after
Independence. My state Alabama became a state in 1819. It had only been state for a little over 40 years prior to the Civil War. Whereas Massachusetts had been settled for over 200 hundred years prior to the Civil War. You just can't compare the two and make conclusions about southern economic development. A better comparison for most southern states would be with the midwest since they were settled at the roughly the same time. For example Indiana became a state in 1816 a comparison between it and Alabama would be more fair. You will find that the difference in the level of development between the states prior to 1860 insignificant.

And let us not forget that the Civil War was really hard on southern development. You just can't predict what might have happened based on what did. No Civil War, no reconstruction you have a much different south. (btw I'm glad the South lost, slavery and secession bad ideas)

Quote: would have had a firmly entrenched aristocracy, and even a caste system, something that is contradictary to what this country was founded on

I have heard this before and believed it myself until I did some reading on it. Alabama's state constitution in 1819 was one of the MOST democrat state constitutions in the US. Wealth among free whites in the
Old South was not more uneven than in the north. So there is not factual basis for your assumption. Did the wealth have a greater say in state politics? Well ... yes but that fact was true in any state. The sad fact was that most southerners felt that slavery was crucial to there economic health of the whole region. So the felt the need to protect it and then seceded when they thought is was threatened.

[Picaro]

The pre-Civil War South had a higher per capita income than the North. Technological advancement was what made slavery lucrative again, after years of decline and diminishing returns on slaves; the cotton gin revived it as a legal institution in the South. Also, New York City almost seceded with the South; cotton was King, and our major export. Some estimates put 40 cents of every dollar paid for cotton ending up in New York pockets.

The drawbacks of slavery are well known, and it in fact retarded many whites' abilities to find work that paid, being unable to compete with slave labor, and did lead to the South being backwards in some respects which ultimately contributed to it's defeat by the Northern forces and the 4 or 5 slave states that stayed with the Union. In any case, a certain serendipity came along in the North, the discovery at Titusville, PA. that oil could be pumped out the ground like well water, led to a quick surpassing of cotton as the leading export for the U.S., so the loss of the cotton business didn't lose the North much business and foreign trade. Just rambling here, but it was an interesting, if horrible time.

Quote: Actually that is not an accurate picture of the antebellum south. Having taken 2 graduate level courses on southern history prior to 1860 I have read quite abit about the subject.

Cool. Do you think slavery was really the ultimate reason for war, or the stiff tariffs? I tend to blame the tariffs as the main cause, even though the national politics revolved around 'slavery', at least for public consumption, at the time.

[Simon De Montfort]

Picaro wrote:
Quote: Actually that is not an accurate picture of the antebellum south. Having taken 2 graduate level courses on southern history prior to 1860 I have read quite abit about the subject.

Cool. Do you think slavery was really the ultimate reason for war, or the stiff tariffs? I tend to blame the tariffs as the main cause, even though the national politics revolved around 'slavery', at least for public consumption, at the time.

Short answer: Slavery.

Slightly longer answer: Slavery was why the south seceded but secession was the reason for the war. Slavery lead to secession, secession lead to war so ultimately slavery lead to war.

The tariffs caused a lot of anger in the south in the 1830's but by the time of secession many of the tariffs had been repealed or lowerd.

[Picaro]

Yes, they almost went in in 1830. New England, or some of them,. anyway, almost went even earlier, during the 1812 war period. So, you consider the Morill Tariffs the Republicans ran on in 1860, and passed later, were just a pretext?

[Simon De Montfort]

Picaro wrote: Yes, they almost went in in 1830. New England, or some of them,. anyway, almost went even earlier, during the 1812 war period. So, you consider the Morill Tariffs the Republicans ran on in 1860, and passed later, were just a pretext?

The south would not have seceded over tariffs. Yes, I know SC tried to nullify the 1832 tariff. But that's far from secession.

In 1860 the Democrats split over the issue of expanding slavery into the territories. This split allowed Lincoln to win the election. It was his declared policy to prevent the expansion of slavery into the territories that convinced radical southern leaders to secede.

[d_the_sandman]

I live in the heart of Texas, and all of ya'll are over-estimating people, in general. Not just Southerners, but Americans.

Put it this way.........

Do all Northerners think in terms of Civil War disputes? Seriously? Do all Irish people shake and tremble when they see a potato? Do all New Yorkers still feel affected by the gang wars in the 1800's?

In general, the vast majority of Southerners like Chicken Fried Steak. I don't think the Civil War has anything to do with that, but that's our main connection to eachother.

[cap'n queasy]

Who doesn't like chicken-fried steak?

I never heard of such a thing! :lol:

[cap'n queasy]

Simon De Montfort wrote: Speaking as a southerner I'm glad the North won. I even had ancestors that died fighting for the Confederacy. A split Union would have been a disaster for both North and South.

You will run into a few redneck holdouts down here. Artificial_Eternity, your girl friend probably ran into a group of rednecks who felt that way. But that in no way describes how the vast majority of southerners feel. You are more likely to run into that kind of thinking among uneducated rural people. Educated urbanites realize that we are better off as a unified nation. You will find educated people that look back on the Confederacy with a nostolgic affection and as a source for regional pride. But that doesn't mean they want to secede again.

In regards to the Confederate flag. There are two reasons people display it. The vast majority who display the Confederate battle flag (with the St. Andrews Cross) do so as a sign of regional pride. The South has, more than any other region, a great deal of regional pride. This is due in large part to our brief stint as a sperate nation. There are a few racist elements that have leeched on to the Confederate flag and use it as their banner. Unfortunately it is this smaller group that has been associated with the Confederate battle flag thus resulting in an unfair stigma being attached to it.

I feel the same way. The Confederacy wasn't what a lot of people would like it to have been.

It was basically anti-American interests. They got a lot of support from foreign countries who had an interest in a less powerful USA.

There's a lot of dirt in that whole story.

[d_the_sandman]

cap'n queasy wrote: Who doesn't like chicken-fried steak?

I never heard of such a thing! :lol:


You know what's funny, man....................if you go to a LOT of states, outside of the south, they have never even heard of Chicken Fried Steak, LOL. It's insane. You think I'm lying, but ask people from Wisconsin or somewhere.........they'll give you a blank look.

Same thing with Brisket. They have no idea what it is.

[milo1047]

cap'n queasy wrote: Who doesn't like chicken-fried steak?

I never heard of such a thing! :lol:

I love Chicken-Fried steak, and I live in freakin' California. Our local restaraunt, the Putah Creek Cafe, makes a good one, imho. =)

[Simon De Montfort]

Don't foget sweet ice tea. :-D Why the rest of the country hasn't adopted this nectur of the gods is beyond me.