The Arkansas in the Civil War Message Board

Re: Southern unionist.
In Response To: Re: Southern unionist. ()

Very good points, Brian. I was wondering if anyone would bring up the issue of slavery, and its geographic and demographic factors. Now, some Southerners get upset with the idea of tying secession and the war, however remotely, to slavery; but we're fooling ourselves if we refuse to acknowledge the centrol role that slavery played in the rise of sectionalism and political extremism, which in turn were among the direct causes of the war.

Slavery being much less prevalent in the mountainous regions of the Upper South, for the reasons you cited, I think there was a feeling among some hill people that they didn't really "have a dog in this fight."

Also, the farther west you went in the South, to the mountains and beyond, the larger the percentage of fairly recent emigrants from other sections of the South. In Arkansas, for example, a comparison of the 1850 and 1860 censuses (censii?) illustrates the large influx of recent emigrants -- so recent that they would not have had the "blood ties to the land" to the extent that native Virginians and Georgians would have had.

Like you said, I did not expect that we would arrive at a definitive list of reasons why certain regions reacted to the Civil War in different ways. I look upon subjects such as these as chewing gum for the brain. It's enjoyable (and good exercise) to discuss them.

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Meant for you, Bill
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