THE INFLUENCE OF SLAVERY ON THE OLD SOUTHERN CIVILIZATION
Now that the “Old South” has passed away as utterly as the ancient kingdoms of Babylon and Assyria, before the very memory of her shall have faded from the earth, it may not be without interest to thoughtful readers to endeavor to trace the cause which produced the striking dissimilarity between her civilization and that of the Northern States of the Union. That such dissimilarity existed is beyond dispute; it only remains, therefore, to attempt to explain it. Beginning National life, as did the thirteen original colonies, under the same general conditions; with the heritage of a common origin, a common language, and a common faith, what influence was it which, within the term of a hundred years, was potent enough to effect so great a change in the habits, the manners, and the character of the people of the two sections?
Was the institution of Slavery mainly responsible for this result? I believe that it was.
While due allowance must be made for climatic and other local conditions, the institution of slavery, in its direct and indirect effects upon the Southern people, appears to be by far the most important factor in the equation.
Let us briefly consider the subject. On the colonial history of the Southern States, it is unnecessary to dwell. Suffice it to say, that while thoroughly imbued with the spirit of independence and taking a leading part in the struggle of 1776, in this course the South was actuated by a desire to assert its abstract rights, and to stand loyally by its sister colonies of the North, rather than by any personal grievance, or feeling of animosity towards the Mother Country.
Between the Southern States themselves, there were strongly marked differences, each possessing its own distinctly individual character. But in essentials, the family likeness between them was strong enough to make any one member of the group a typical representative of the whole, so far as the outside world was concerned. Bound indissolubly together by that common bond,—the institution of slavery,—in politics they were equally united. From those early days when the American Government was in its formative stage, down to the period of the Civil War in 1861, the South stood always a solid unit for republican principles as imbodied in the Constitution of the United States, and exemplified in the cardinal Southern doctrine of “States’ Rights.”
The term “democracy” as applied to the South is a total misnomer, and its application furnishes one of the many curious anomalies to be found in American political history. But this history is too tangled a skein to be unravelled here. Enough to say that the Old South was never a democracy, properly so called; on the contrary, it was an oligarchy of the most pronounced and exclusive type, its population being sharply divided into two classes, patrician and plebeian—the governing and the governed. Nay more, although nominally the entire white population belonged in the first category (and was therefore eligible for public office), practically the franchise was confined to the educated and property-holding class alone, the “poor whites” of the South being too numerically weak and insignificant to be an appreciable power in politics.
Thus it came about that, from first to last, in this fundamental particular the South differed from every other section of the Republic; and this difference was the direct result of the Institution of Slavery.
Secondly: The economic conditions existing at the South were totally unlike those in other parts of the country. The Old South was, emphatically, a community of agriculturists; and of all modes of making a livelihood agriculture is the one least liable to violent fluctuations and sudden collapse. It is true that in the South wealth never rolled up into the millions, and, judged by present standards, bank accounts were by no means imposing in round numbers; but all the real advantages and immunities that wealth can give were enjoyed by the Southern people who, as a class, were in possession of an assured income sufficient not only for the supply of their necessities, but for the gratification of their tastes as well. And in those days there was a solidity and a stability about men’s financial affairs which effectually removed from them the pressure of anxiety for the future, and protected them from that feverish, harassing mental strain only too well-known elsewhere.
And here again, we come face to face with that basal fact—“the institution”—on which rested the whole industrial system of the South.