What does it mean to be “Southern”?
This question has vexed Americans since the founding.
Every American knew that sectional differences existed. George Mason, for example, worried that the “Eastern States” would plunder the agricultural States further south. He drafted an amendment that would have prevented “navigation laws,” i.e. protective tariffs, for that reason. Gouverneur Morris openly suggested that if the differences between the States were too great to reconcile in 1787, they should immediately part ways and abandon any hope of union.
That might have been a good thing, but with only around four million people huddled along the coast and threatened by hostile neighbors—both European and American—most Americans argued that some form of Union was necessary. So, Southerners and Northerners embraced federalism as a necessary component of sectional harmony.
The South could remain “Southern.” That reflected both economics and culture.
For some Americans, Southern revolved around the institution of slavery, though in 1776, every American State was a “slave State.” South Carolina and Georgia seemed to be wedded to the institution more fervently than the other States. Yet, George Washington openly complained that Great Britain did not return captured New York slaves at the end of the War in 1783.
Views on race were not unique to the South. Southerners were no more “racist” than their Northern compatriots, and perhaps, arguably, less so as they lived in a bi-racial society and mingled with black Americans on a regular basis. Blacks could vote in North Carolina until the 1830s, and nearly every early anti-slavery society originated in the South. Certainly, one could be anti-slavery and “racist,” and most Americans were, but familiar and interpersonal relationships created unique social dynamics in the South. In other words, neither race nor slavery created Southern culture or the Southern tradition and neither defined “Southern.”
It had to be something else. The coming of the War in the 1860s forced Americans to think about sectional differences, and again, slavery seemed to be the defining factor. That is the simple answer, but both Southerners and Northerners understood that slavery as an abstraction did not define the South or the Southern tradition. The conflict over slavery, as Jefferson Davis correctly insisted both before and after the War, was not a “cause” but an “incident,” a symptom of the deeper political, economic, and cultural divisions in the United States.
Loss forced Southerners to reflect on their “Southernness.” Most accepted defeat as part of God’s plan. They also knew that America had undergone a second revolution long before Eric Foner made that a popular thesis. So did other Americans. The “populist” revolt of the late nineteenth century took place because many Northern farmers understood that they cut a raw deal with Northeastern business interests. Southerners could smugly respond that they predicted the problem, but that didn’t solve anything. Tom Watson titled his populist newspaper The Jeffersonian, but he loved Robert Toombs, the old Whig who Watson believed personified the South. He said that Toombs was, “an Idol of the South because he carried in his hear the very passions, prejudices, hopes, aspirations, distinctive traits, habits, strength and weakness of the South; and every Southern man felt that here was a man who loved the South with all his mind and soul and heart, hating intensely everything and everybody who hated her.”
Toombs represented the “natural superiority of Southern politicians” as David Chandler wrote in 1977. Southerners embraced debate before football on college campuses—though they also helped define that element of collegiate life as well—and Southern culture forged a class of men who excelled at the art of politics and statecraft. Northerners whined of the uneven results of the three-fifths compromise in the United States Congress, but their chief concern was that their best rarely matched that of the South. Only Daniel Webster is remembered as a “great orator” from New England while Southerners once filled the annals of American history. Jealousy colored their scorn.
Of course, the South is not monolithic (and never has been), but there’s something in the mud that makes her people different, unique. Sam Ervin once said that “defeat allowed the South to shake the glory out.” By 1930, Southerners hoped to offer a critique of modern America, one that focused on regionalism, provincialism, and land. They couldn’t all be farmers, and many Southerners eagerly abandoned the plow for the factory. William Gilmore Simms, one of the greatest writers of nineteenth century America, was a city boy who admired the farm but never wanted to make that his profession. But the land did strengthen his character and his attachment to his people and his State. The Southerners who wrote I’ll Take My Stand in 1930 and Who Owns America? in 1936 thought there was something to it.
Simms was local, that old English tradition of the shire over the king. That bottom-up mentality held on in the South longer and more doggedly than in any other American section. Where your people are buried means something.
This is the larger appeal of the Southern tradition in 2025. It can be the principles of decentralization, the founding documents, or the “superiority” of historic Southern figures. It could be Southern manners, hospitality, or localism. Or it could just be the music, the food, or the accent. But the Southern tradition appeals to America and the world because it is fresh, unique, and authentic. That is what we hope to capture on a daily basis at the Abbeville Institute. If you enjoy our website, conferences, webinars, videos, books, and programs, consider a tax-deductible donation to our organization. Our enemies have unlimited resources. We have dedicated patriots like you.
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