Canoerebel
Posts: 21100
Joined: 12/14/2002
From: Northwestern Georgia, USA
Status: offline
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In just posted a lengthy comment in the "General" forum about the Civil War, in response to a comment that 90% of southerners didn't own slaves. Since this is the beginning of the Civil War Sesquicentennial (Georgia withdrew from the Union 150 years + six days ago), this is an issue that we'll probably hear more about. Like many topics, this can deteriorate into a political issue, so I'm afraid that thread might get locked up. So I wanted to post my thoughts here, in a more private locale.
I researched and wrote an article on the "90% of southerners never owned slave" position a few years ago. I was surprised by what I learned.
It's true that approximately 90% of white southerners didn't owned slaves, but that is a misleading statistic for at least three reasons.
First, while only 10% of white southerners owned slaves, another 40% to 60% of white southerners were either married to, or the children of, that 10%. I researched two Confederate infantry companies in this regard - one drew men primarily from a major town in a slave-owning area; the second came from a remote mountain valley were there were relatively few slaves. In both instances, the percentage of the soldiers who owned slaves in those two companies was nominal (10% or less). However, the percentage of their fathers who owned slaves was much, much higher - about 25% for the mountain company, and nearly 50% for the town men. And those statistics were on the low side - if I couldn't find proof postive that a soldier owned a slave or was the son of a slave owning father, I assumed he he wasn't. If I had been able to track down more of those who I couldn't confirm, I got a strong feeling that the percentages would actually be much higher - probably more like 50% to 75% of Confederate soldiers had a direct interest in the perpetuation of slavery, either because they owned a slave, their fathers did, or because they were involved in a directly related occupation (one soldier, for instance, was the son of an overseer on a large plantation).
2. Nearly all southerners had a vested interest in the perpetuation of slavery. The economy was highly dependent upon slavery, so a threat to it was a threat to the welfare of the southern people - even those who weren't members of slave-owning families. And that threat had really rattled southerners. Population growth in the north was threatening to unbalance political power. If more free states were admitted to the Union than slave, the South would have a minority in the United States Senate, the only political body that stood between it and political impotence (the North already controlled the House of Representatives, had just taken the Presidency, and had the power to appoint anti-slavery justices to the Supreme Court. So the South was about to lose the political strength to protect itself from the North, and this scared most southerners to death.
3. While slave owners were only 10% of the white southern population, they dominated political office in the south. In other words, nearly all political power was excercised by slave owners. It should come as no surprise, then, that when a grave threat to political balance and the economy arose, southerners reacted with passion and ultimately violence.
I need to say that I am a southerner and proud of it. I love the South. I appreciate and honor the men who served their country. I recognize why they fought and the complexity of the issues that existed. I agree that a strong constitutional argument can be made that a member can withdraw from a union voluntarily created. I concur that state's rights is an important constitutional concept designed to limit the power (and abuses) of the central government. But while we southerners sincerely and with good reason raise a toast to state's rights, we must acknowledge that we were in the wrong when it came to human rights.
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RE: One Weird Battle - 
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