Labor as a commodity

I have been a self-actualizing self-learner for more than 25 years. It began to develop into a hobby in 1980 while reading a book on the Vietnam Civil War when I decided that to understand this civil war in Vietnam I must understand our own Civil War in the United States.

I have since that time read many books about this important part of our history. The most enlightening book that best answered my questions was the book “The Mind of the South” by W.J. Cash. Cash says-- “With an intense individualism, which the frontier atmosphere put into the man of the South also comes violence and an idealistic, hedonistic romanticism. This romanticism is also fueled by the South conflict with the Yankee. Violence manifests itself in mob action, such as lynching, and private dealings.”

One question that developed early in my reading was why the ordinary white citizen of the South was such a good soldier, superior to the Union soldier. Why did the ordinary southern man fight so valiantly to preserve slavery when he was not a slaveholder himself? This valiant southerner fought with very little comfort and support from the Confederacy because the Confederacy was a financially poor institution. The rebel soldier often did not even have shoes. The rebel soldier often had to find food on his own. Very little in the form of supplies were provided to the rebel army.

I have over the years discovered answers to my questions. One particular aspect of this situation, which I had not considered, was how the fact of slave labor in a culture affects the culture totally. In the South there was no free labor. Slaves did virtually all labor. The effect of this reality determined to a great extent the nature of the society.

The white man would not work for anyone because he considered laboring for hire made him no better than the black slave and his superiority to the black man was essential to his self-esteem. There was no labor class in the antebellum south. The slaves did the labor but the slave was a capital investment just like a horse or oxen. Here was a total society without a laboring class.

What were some of the effects of no free labor in the South? The most important factor I suspect was that the ordinary white man felt any labor was beneath his dignity. This lack of ‘free labor’ led to many of the characteristics of the Southern man and woman that probably is a factor today in the character of the Southerner.

This lack of ‘free labor’ led to many of the characteristics of the Southern man and woman that probably is a factor today in the character of the Southerner. Which characteristics would they be? And what is the character of a southerner?

The white man would not work for anyone because he considered laboring for hire made him no better than the black slave and his superiority to the black man was essential to his self-esteem. There was no labor class in the antebellum south. The slaves did the labor but the slave was a capital investment just like a horse or oxen. Here was a total society without a laboring class.

What were some of the effects of no free labor in the South? The most important factor I suspect was that the ordinary white man felt any labor was beneath his dignity. This lack of ‘free labor’ led to many of the characteristics of the Southern man and woman that probably is a factor today in the character of the Southerner.

Less than 2% of southerners owned slaves. The south was an agricultural society that had little manufacturing (most industry was in the north).

The average white person in the south did his own labor (and one could easily argue that farm labor was more difficult than industrial labor). While your hypothesis may be correct for the plantation owners and their families, the generalization relating to all southerners is incorrect. I seriously doubt that the plantation owners, had to resort to manual labor even after the abolishment of slavery, they would hire general labor to perform these tasks.

I think that the wheel might be a useful analogy for understanding the mind of the South. The spokes of the wheel represent the essential components of all societies--economy, law and culture. The hub to which all spokes focus is slavery. The antebellum South revolved around slavery.

This area of the United States developed as any frontier area in the US during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The climate and the circumstance of the cotton gin invention led to the evolution of a society that never lost its frontier characteristic while becoming an agricultural economy dependent almost totally upon cotton.

The economy was cotton and the power controlling the society was the cotton plantation. Early in the nineteenth century South Carolina plantation owners gained complete political control of the entire state and these plantation owners became the core that moved the eleven Southern states to emulate the South Carolina system. By the 1820s the South Carolina plantation politicians determined their goal to be separation from the Union if the Union failed to allow the expansion of slavery into the developing land as the nation moved West and new states began to join the Union.

There were three basic economic classes—plantation owners, yeomen farmers and poor whites. I do not include slaves as an economic class—they were basically capital (objects) just as horses and oxen are capital. The plantation owners controlled the wealth and power in their particular areas and banded together to control the wealth and political power in a region of state.

The yeomen and poor white were primarily subsistence farmers. Some of the yeomen had a few slaves but by and large the vast majority of slaves worked the large plantations. The plantations owned the good land leaving the less desirable land for the yeomen and poor white. Basically population ringed the best lands of the plantation with each succeeding lower rung in the economic ladder existing on less and less productive land.

There was somewhat of a heterogeneous mixture of relatives occupying each economic sector. The plantation owner was related by blood to many of the citizens in the area. There was not a great sense of hierarchy in class sensitivities because of the interrelated blood relationships. This fact also made it easier for the plantation owners to exercise their power over the community.

All classes recognized the importance of slavery to the whole society. While the yeoman and poor white did not, in most cases, own slaves they were as dependent on slavery as was the owner of slaves. For the yeoman and the poor white their self-esteem depended upon their sense of superiority to the slave. For these reasons the laws and the culture took the same attitude toward the importance of slavery, as did the plantation owners.

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The antebellum Southerner is violent, romantic, hedonistic and indolent. The dictionary defines a romantic as marked by the imaginative appeal of what is heroic, adventurous, remote, mysterious, or idealized and hedonism: the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the sole or chief good in life. All of these character traits were developed and maintained because of the culture of slavery. The yeoman and the poor white were strong white supremacists because it was a necessary component of their self-image, of their self-identity.

The character traits of a strong sense of honor, violence, devil-may-care romanticism and their lifetime of hard bare survival living coupled with outdoor hunting and acquaintance with guns were great assets as a soldier. The Southern officer was far superior to the Union officer and most obviously this is exemplified in the person of General Robert Lee. Also they fought for their homes and their self-identity and way of life. They managed to salvage the substance if not the form of white supremacy after defeat through the Jim Crow laws that held for one hundred years.

The South came within a whisper of winning the war because of these personal characteristics and also because of the excellent officers. The South nearly won even though the North was an industrial giant in comparison, with a greater population and wealth. The South had no industry.

I think you're overestimating how much Southern society "revolved around" slavery. Then again, I could be wrong.

I think you're overestimating how much Southern society "revolved around" slavery. Then again, I could be wrong.

No, you are not wrong DF

Thank you. Maybe someone who knows more about the Civil War than I do could provide some evidence to refute this person's claims?

Thanks for the further character clarification coberst. I find the whole psycological profile theory quite interesting. I have always had a fascination with the south.

The Old South: Images and Realities

Period: 1840s

Pre?Civil War Americans regarded Southerners as a distinct people, who possessed their own values and ways of life. It was widely mistakenly believed, however, that the North and South had originally been settled by two distinct groups of immigrants, each with its own ethos. Northerners were said to be the descendants of seventeenth-century English Puritans, while Southerners were the descendants of England?s country gentry.

In the eyes of many pre-Civil War Americans this contributed to the evolution of two distinct kinds of Americans: the aggressive, individualistic, money-grubbing Yankee and the southern cavalier. According to the popular stereotype, the cavalier, unlike the Yankee, was violently sensitive to insult, indifferent to money, and preoccupied with honor.

The Plantation Legend

During the three decades before the Civil War, popular writers created a stereotype, now known as the plantation legend, that described the South as a land of aristocratic planters, beautiful southern belles, poor white trash, faithful household slaves, and superstitious fieldhands. This image of the South as ?a land of cotton? where ?old times? are ?not forgotten? received its most popular expression in 1859 in a song called ?Dixie,? written by a Northerner named Dan D. Emmett to enliven shows given by a troupe of black-faced minstrels on the New York stage.

In the eyes of many Northerners, uneasy with their increasingly urban, individualistic, commercial society, the culture of the South seemed to have many things absent from the North?a leisurely pace of life, a clear social hierarchy, and an indifference to money.

Despite the strength of the plantation stereotype, the South was, in reality, a diverse and complex region. Though Americans today often associate the old South with cotton plantations, large parts of the South were unsuitable for plantation life. In the mountainous regions of eastern Tennessee and western Virginia, few plantations or slaves were to be found. Nor did southern farms and plantations devote their efforts exclusively to growing cotton or other cash crops, such as rice and tobacco. Unlike the slave societies of the Caribbean, which produced crops exclusively for export, the South devoted much of its energy to raising food and livestock.

The pre-Civil War South encompassed a wide variety of regions that differed geographically, economically, and politically. Such regions included the Piedmont, Tidewater, coastal plain, piney woods, Delta, Appalachian mountains, upcountry, and a fertile ?black belt??regions that clashed repeatedly over such political questions as debt relief, taxes, apportionment of representation, and internal improvements.

The white South?s social structure was much more complex than the popular stereotype of proud aristocrats disdainful of honest work and ignorant, vicious, exploited poor whites. The old South?s intricate social structure included many small slaveowners and relatively few large ones.

Large slaveholders were extremely rare. In 1860 only 11,000 Southerners?three-quarters of one percent of the white population?owned more than 50 slaves; a mere 2358 owned as many as 100 slaves. However, although large slaveholders were few in number, they owned most of the South?s slaves. Over half of all slaves lived on plantations with 20 or more slaves and a quarter lived on plantations with more than 50 slaves.

Slave ownership was relatively widespread. In the first half of the nineteenth century, one-third of all southern white families owned slaves, and a majority of white southern families either owned slaves, had owned them, or expected to own them. These slaveowners were a diverse lot. A few were African American, mulatto, or Native American; one-tenth were women; and more than one in ten worked as artisans, businesspeople, or merchants rather than as farmers or planters. Few led lives of leisure or refinement.

The average slaveowner lived in a log cabin rather than a mansion and was a farmer rather than a planter. The average holding varied between four and six slaves, and most slaveholders possessed no more than five.

White women in the South, despite the image of the hoop-skirted southern belle, suffered under heavier burdens than their northern counterparts. They married earlier, bore more children, and were more likely to die young. They lived in greater isolation, had less access to the company of other women, and lacked the satisfactions of voluntary associations and reform movements. Their education was briefer and much less likely to result in opportunities for independent careers.

The plantation legend was misleading in still other respects. Slavery was neither dying nor unprofitable. In 1860 the South was richer than any country in Europe except England, and it had achieved a level of wealth unmatched by Italy or Spain until the eve of World War II.

The southern economy generated enormous wealth and was critical to the economic growth of the entire United States. Well over half of the richest 1 percent of Americans in 1860 lived in the South. Even more important, southern agriculture helped finance early nineteenth-century American economic growth. Before the Civil War, the South grew 60 percent of the world?s cotton, provided over half of all U.S. export earnings, and furnished 70 percent of the cotton consumed by the British textile industry. Cotton exports paid for a substantial share of the capital and technology that laid the basis for America?s industrial revolution.

In addition, precisely because the South specialized in agricultural production, the North developed a variety of businesses that provided services for the southern states, including textile and meat processing industries and financial and commercial facilities.

In addition, precisely because the South specialized in agricultural production, the North developed a variety of businesses that provided services for the southern states, including textile and meat processing industries and financial and commercial facilities.

I find that extremely interesting. It does make sense that the North became more and more industrialized precisely because the South was almost entirely agricultural.

The way for a person to resolve their doubts or questions about a matter is to borrow a book from the library and find out for your self--it really is great fun.

If that was a snide comment towards me, I resent that. I haven't had time yet today to read the sections about the antebellum south in any of my history books, but as soon as finish all my obligations for the day I certainly will.

The way for a person to resolve their doubts or questions about a matter is to borrow a book from the library and find out for your self--it really is great fun.


I would also suggest that you read multiple books related to the topic you are researching. Evaluate the material, notice any predisposition of the author(s) to a select viewpoint or stereotype, and make your own opinions based on rationalization and interpolation of the sources and their objectivity. The internet can also a great source of varying "takes" on many issues and related historical perspectives (albeit many postings are much more likely than books to be agenda driven or even false/misrepresented).

I certainly hope that the quote was directed at myself and not DF, for as most of you know, I cannot read, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once.

I cannot read, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once.

Hahaha... I have no idea why, but that is the funniest thing I've seen all day.

I know I can't speak for coberstm but in my opinion, I seriously doubt he was trying to belittle anyone. It's not the way they post.

for as most of you know, I cannot read, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once.
Hey, you only recently confessed to an inability to spell. NOW you tell us you can't read.

What was the cat's name in that primer?

I think you're overestimating how much Southern society "revolved around" slavery. Then again, I could be wrong.

What makes you say that?

What makes you say that?

Well the fact that only 2% of Southerners owned slaves, as mentioned by OldPhart, and that from all the things I've read and watched about the Civil War, I just didn't get that impression.

If slaves weren't important to southern society, then why did they feel the need to go to war about the issue of abolition?

Pro-slavery forces started the civil war by attacking the town of Lawrence Kansas(a.k.a. "Bloody Kansas") because they chose to be abolitionist.

Please show me where I said that slavery wasn't important in the South. You are completely misconstruing what I said.

Please show me where I said that slavery wasn't important in the South. You are completely misconstruing what I said.

You said you didn't think Southern Society "revolved around" slavery, correct?

Yes, I don't think it revolved around it, as in I don't think that slavery was the most important thing in their society. Obviously it was important, and obviously it contributed a lot to the culture.

I think that more than 2 percent of southerners owned slaves:

The figures given here are the percentage of slave-owning families as a fraction of total free households in the state. The data was taken from a census archive site at the University of Virginia.

Mississippi: 49%
South Carolina: 46%
Georgia: 37%
Alabama: 35%
Florida: 34%
Louisiana: 29%
Texas: 28%
North Carolina: 28%
Virginia: 26%
Tennessee: 25%
Kentucky: 23%
Arkansas: 20%
Missouri: 13%
Maryland: 12%
Delaware: 3%

From this data it appears that slavery was quite a major issue in the south

http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/stat.html

More on that:

In the Lower South (SC, GA, AL, MS, LA, TX, FL -- those states that seceded first), about 36.7% of the white families owned slaves. In the Middle South (VA, NC, TN, AR -- those states that seceded only after Fort Sumter was fired on) the percentage is around 25.3%, and the total for the two combined regions -- which is what most folks think of as the Confederacy -- is 30.8%. In the Border States (DE, MD, KY, MO -- those slave states that did not secede) the percentage of slave-ownership was 15.9%, and the total throughout the slave states was almost exactly 26%.

Interesting WindWip...I can't remember much about the history of that time as I took it too long ago. The one thing I thought I could recall, was that slavery had a total impact upon the south. So that would mean culturally, socially, religiously, and most importantly, economically. And of course it would then impact the whole country in those ways too.

Interesting, the different takes.

Interesting WindWip...I can't remember much about the history of that time as I took it too long ago. The one thing I thought I could recall, was that slavery had a total impact upon the south. So that would mean culturally, socially, religiously, and most importantly, economically. And of course it would then impact the whole country in those ways too.

Interesting, the different takes.

Yup, it would make sense that slavery would be a pretty damn large issue if they ended up fighting a war over it - I'm no expert on the civil war though. Dunno why, but it never intrigued me.

All the non-slaveholding Southerners were technically fighting for "states' rights", or so I understand it. There were other issues at stake in the Civil War, but like, WindWip, I've never been that interested in the subject, and although I've learned about it, I just don't retain that information well.

I think that more than 2 percent of southerners owned slaves:
From this data it appears that slavery was quite a major issue in the south


I knew it was false when they posted it.

I just wanted to let them ramble on for a bit with their --"You're overestimating how much Southern society "revolved around" slavery" -- silliness before bringing them back to reality.

You beat me to it. Thanks for the stats.

I was wrong... I believed what OP said, and I don't know anything about the Civil War. Jeez, I must be a complete idiot because I don't know everything like you do, FT!

I was wrong... I believed what OP said, and I don't know anything about the Civil War. Jeez, I must be a complete idiot because I don't know everything like you do, FT!

I very much like reading what you have to say.....and you seem to be a rational and thoughtful person.

I apologize if I offended you...that was not my intent. :flowers:

I was just making a bit of backhand swipe at anyone who thinks (if anyone here fits the description, maybe they do not) that slavery was not a huge part of what made the southern USA -- "the South".

:D That was so nice FT, thank you. I tend to overreact when I make a mistake and it's pointed out... I feel bad about myself usually.

I knew it was false when they posted it.

I just wanted to let them ramble on for a bit with their --"You're overestimating how much Southern society "revolved around" slavery" -- silliness before bringing them back to reality.

You beat me to it. Thanks for the stats.

My pleasure :)

I was wrong... I believed what OP said, and I don't know anything about the Civil War. Jeez, I must be a complete idiot because I don't know everything like you do, FT!

Hey, you forgot me! I know everything too :D

FT used a kissy face smiley!

FT used a kissy face smiley!

I know, I was quite surprised.

I feel special because I think I've earned the respect of most of the people here, liberal and conservative alike. Almost everyone is usually nice to me. :D

I know, I was quite surprised.

I feel special because I think I've earned the respect of most of the people here, liberal and conservative alike. Almost everyone is usually nice to me. :D
It's a gift.