page_title: Origins of the American Civil War
section_title: Southern culture
hierarchical_section_title: Origins of the American Civil War / Historical tensions and compromises / Antebellum South and the Union / Southern culture
caption_attribution_description: English: Scars of a whipped slave (April 2, 1863, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA. Original caption: "Overseer Artayou Carrier whipped me. I was two months in bed sore from the whipping. My master come after I was whipped; he discharged the overseer. The very words of poor Peter, taken as he sat for his picture." Other sources claim that this slave was known as Gordon and photographs show that he joined the U.S. Army with the rank of private and fought in the American Civil war. In Harper's Weekly issues (July 4, 1863) &amp; (July 2, 1864) show woodcuts of Gordon as a slave and then as a U.S soldier[1][2] Français&#160;: Cicatrices de flagellation sur un esclave, (2 avril 1863, Bâton-Rouge, Louisiane, États-Unis). Légende originale&#160;: «&#160;Le contremaître Artayou Carrier m'a fouetté. À la suite de cette flagellation, j'ai eu des escarres pendant deux mois. Mon maître est venu après que j'ai été fouetté&#160;; il a licencié le contremaître. Ce sont les propres paroles du malheureux Peter alors qu'il posait pour la photo.&#160;»
context_page_description: Historians debating the origins of the American Civil War focus on the reasons why seven Southern states declared their secession from the United States, why they united to form the Confederate States of America, and why the North refused to let them go. While virtually all historians in the 21st century agree that conflicts over slavery caused the war, they disagree sharply regarding which kinds of conflict—ideological, economic, political, or social—were most important.
  The primary catalyst for secession was slavery, most immediately the political battle over the right of Southerners to bring slavery into western territory that had hitherto been free under the terms of the Missouri Compromise or while part of Mexico. Initially, states entering the Union had alternated between slave and free states, keeping a sectional balance in the Senate, while free states outstripped slave states in population and in the House of Representatives. Another factor for secession and the formation of the Confederacy, was white Southern nationalism. The primary reason for the North to reject secession was to preserve the Union, a cause based on American nationalism.
context_section_description: Although a minority of free Southerners owned slaves, free Southerners of all classes nevertheless defended the institution of slavery—threatened by the rise of free labor abolitionist movements in the Northern states—as the cornerstone of their social order.
  Per the 1860 census, the percentage of slaveholding families was as follows:
  26% in the 15 Slave states (AL, AR, DE, FL, GA, KY, LA, MD, MS, MO, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA)
  16% in the 4 Border states (DE, KY, MD, MO)
  31% in the 11 Confederate states (AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA)
  37% in the first 7 Confederate states (AL, FL, GA, LA, MS, SC, TX)
  25% in the second 4 Confederate states (AR, NC, TN, VA)
  Mississippi was the highest at 49%, followed by South Carolina at 46%
  Based on a system of plantation slavery, the social structure of the South was far more stratified and patriarchal than that of the North. In 1850 there were around 350,000 slaveholders in a total free Southern population of about six million. Among slaveholders, the concentration of slave ownership was unevenly distributed. Perhaps around 7 percent of slaveholders owned roughly three-quarters of the slave population. The largest slaveholders, generally owners of large plantations, represented the top stratum of Southern society. They benefited from economies of scale and needed large numbers of slaves on big plantations to produce cotton, a highly profitable labor-intensive crop.
  Per the 1860 Census, in the 15 slave states, slaveholders owning 30 or more slaves (7% of all slaveholders) owned approximately 1,540,000 slaves (39% of all slaves).(PDF p. 64/1860 Census p. 247)
  In the 1850s, as large plantation owners outcompeted smaller farmers, more slaves were owned by fewer planters. Yet poor whites and small farmers generally accepted the political leadership of the planter elite. Several factors helped explain why slavery was not under serious threat of internal collapse from any move for democratic change initiated from the South. First, given the opening of new territories in the West for white settlement, many non-slaveowners also perceived a possibility that they, too, might own slaves at some point in their life.
  Second, small free farmers in the South often embraced racism, making them unlikely agents for internal democratic reforms in the South. The principle of white supremacy, accepted by almost all white southerners of all classes, made slavery seem legitimate, natural, and essential for a civilized society. White racism in the South was sustained by official systems of repression such as the "slave codes" and elaborate codes of speech, behavior, and social practices illustrating the subordination of blacks to whites. For example, the "slave patrols" were among the institutions bringing together southern whites of all classes in support of the prevailing economic and racial order. Serving as slave "patrollers" and "overseers" offered white southerners positions of power and honor. Slave "patrollers" and "overseers" also won prestige in their communities. Policing and punishing blacks who transgressed the regimentation of slave society was a valued community service in the South, where the fear of free blacks threatening law and order figured heavily in the public discourse of the period.
  Third, many yeomen and small farmers with a few slaves were linked to elite planters through the market economy. In many areas, small farmers depended on local planter elites for vital goods and services, including access to cotton gins, markets, feed and livestock, and even loans (since the banking system was not well developed in the antebellum South). Southern tradesmen often depended on the richest planters for steady work. Such dependency effectively deterred many white non-slaveholders from engaging in any political activity that was not in the interest of the large slaveholders. Furthermore, whites of varying social class, including poor whites and "plain folk" who worked outside or in the periphery of the market economy (and therefore lacked any real economic interest in the defense of slavery
caption: Violent repression of slaves was a common theme in abolitionist literature in the North. Above, this famous 1863 photo of a slave, Gordon, deeply scarred from whipping by an overseer, was distributed by abolitionists to illustrate what they saw as the barbarism of Southern society.
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