The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
Posted on 01/01/2017 6:44:11 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
Oh, duh.
I know. It's ridiculous to say: "New York, Boston, Chicago, etc. hated and despised the Southern people, considering them uneducated, backwards and immoral."
If you were a wealthy New Yorker or Philadelphian in 1830 or 1840, you did business with wealthy Southerners. You socialized with them. Your family intermarried with theirs. They were your peers. You didn't think yourself superior to them. If they had more money or older money or didn't have to work, you might even have felt inferior to them.
You probably wouldn't be aware of non-elite White Southerners and didn't think about them much. If you did, you probably didn't consider them worse than Blacks or the Irish or your own backwoods cousins. What people forget is that before the Civil War, even states like Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey had large rural populations which included many poor people.
Easterners in those days did look down on Westerners. Bostonians or Philadelphians or New Yorkers who were horrified by Andrew Jackson hated him because he was an uncouth Westerner, not a Southerner. They felt differently about the Virginians and South Carolinians they knew.
It's particularly laughable to say that Chicagoans would have looked down on Charleston or Savannah, or Richmond. Chicago had been a swamp in 1830. By 1860 they still weren't snobbish. Illinois politicians often came from Kentucky or Virginia or Carolina families or married into wealthy Southern families -- as Lincoln and Douglas did. Those Southern families usually had more social pull than commercial Yankee families.
Things changed as slavery entered the picture. You did begin to find Northerners who regarded the South as immoral because of slavery. Intellectuals also began to deplore the lack of public schools and libraries in the slave states. But even then, a fiery abolitionist like Bronson Alcott had fond memories of the cultured Southern families he met when he was a poor and awkward Yankee peddler traveling through the South.
Northerners forgot that slavery had been a part of Northern history as well and that the North still benefited from the Southern plantation economy, and that was unfortunate, but really, don't we in some way feel "superior" to cultures that still have slavery or some other abuse, like genital mutilation? Wouldn't it be surprising if a free society didn't feel that they'd gotten something right that a slave society got wrong.
The idea that the "Tobacco Road" picture of the South as poor and backward was a constant in American history just isn't accurate. That's something that took off after the Civil War when the South really was impoverished and lasted for decades, in fact for a century, but it wasn't much of a factor before the war.
And what about the other side of the coin? In the 1850s Southern planters looked down on the "mudsills" of the North -- the Northern working people who were "slaves without masters" in George Fitzhugh's view. There was plenty of contempt for the North among Southern elites.
I don't think prosperous N.Y. attorney George T. Strong got that memo. In the 1840's and 50's he was downright contemptuous of southerners, upper or lower class.
Very well said, sir.
A crotchety misanthrope. Not necessarily representative of anyone but himself.
Philip Hone's diary of the 1840s shows increasing conflict over slavery, but no contempt for Southerners.
Sorry to be late to the dance, but I will agree that the contempt flowed one way, South toward Northern Abolitionists and their supporters.
This actually was the platform that David Aitchison was trying to use to win back his Senate seat against his deadlock with Thomas Hart Benton.
Having spent much of my life prior to retirement in Johnson County and Douglas County (Lawrence), Kansas and Platte County, Missouri as well has having a great grandfather that "rode with" John Brown, the stories of the Missouri-Kansas Border war are near to my heart.
The hatred that David Aitchison felt and used in setting up the Blue Lodges and the other Ruffian efforts led to Bleeding Kansas as surely as his dismantlement of the Missouri Compromise.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
Very thoughtful comments. I wonder if my pastor has ever been in a “house of ill-fame.” I think he’s more an habitue of hospitals and nursing homes, but one never knows.
Opinionated, biased, no doubt, though I suspect some of his more sensational criticism is tongue in cheek. But no misanthrope is George Strong. Within his admittedly narrowly defined bounds he sees helping his fellow man through public service as a duty. His service as Columbia College trustee, Trinity Church alderman, supporter of the arts and volunteer in Republican Party campaigns all testify to this.
My pastor is a retired police under cover officer.
She may well have impersonated such people to gather evidence for prosecution.
And, yes, she’s black — brings the Holly Spirit to our small town congregation like no one ever before.
Among the group’s we support is “She’s Somebody’s Daughter” who help women escape the life.
That’s very interesting, thanks. I think there are quite a few anti-trafficking organizations, but one often doesn’t see prostitution referenced directly.
One can generalize that the warmer the climate the less industrious people are. It’s not a hard and fast rule but the idea of a siesta disappears for those who have snow to shovel. This observation isn’t unique to the US. It’s noted worldwide.
Note especially the pages sub-headed "Get the Facts".
Thank you.
Yes, that’s a good point.
Oooops.
Holly = Holy
group’s = groups
Might be just my clumsy fingers, or maybe tbe tablet’s automatic word completion.. yes, that’s the ticket... I’ll blame the computer. ;-)
I wondered a little whether the “Holly” was a seasonal pun ;-).
Your church sounds very nice.
For me especially, wonderful & amazing.
A conversation for another time & thread perhaps.
Could be. Anyway, I’m always happy when anyone has a church they love.
I finished “The Red Badge of Courage” on the elliptical yesterday. It didn’t really end, just kind of stopped.
I loved the character of drunk, tubercular Stephen Crane in “The Rough Riders.”
Thanks for the kind words, StoneWall Brigade. There are others on Free Republic just as, if not more, knowledgeable than I and to whom I bow on certain topics.
I've been on the road for the last two weeks enduring the snow up north and visiting our grandchild. Just got in tonight. It will take me a while to unpack, process hundreds, if not thousands, of photos, catch up on Free Republic, pay the bills, etc. I'll be underwater for a while.
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