Dennis --

Thanks for the kind words. I once worked for a truck company and managed driver records, so I appreciate what you do.

It seems that most Southerners really took notice of sectional differences after the Harper's Ferry Raid. After that event people became highly suspicious of Northern education, Northern books and Northerners in general. They became interested in Southern schools and educating their children in Southern states and education by Southern teachers. There was a Congressional investigation, and the 1860 election campaign began with discussions of which politicians were to blame or knew about the raid and did nothing to stop it.

For Southerners the Harper's Ferry Raid represented a kind of antebellum 9-11, a wake-up call about the dangers posed by single-issue religious zealots in the North. Southerners were shocked to read about the prominent, respected Northern men who provided cash for all the arms John Brown brought to Harper's Ferry. They were even more astonished by the wave of sympathy expressed for this terrorist during his trial and execution.

As one Alabama editor stated, this isn't the end -- it's the beginning of Seward's "irrepressible conflict."
These people intend to kill us, our wives and our children in our homes. Like it or not, Southerners must realize they are at war. The abolitionists are already at war with us.