I disagree with the premise that the Confederate democrats were mostly conservatives. I believe they would be more correctly defined as libertarians. They were radical and extreme in their views on individual liberty to the point of having an outlaw mentality and a disregard for the law.
It also leaves out the fact that the South was also heavily into populism. In fact, the Conferderate democrat party of the South around the time of the Civil War was not that much different then the demcorat party today. Many anti-Wall Street, anti-banker populists like the Peoples party of the old South and then many radical libertarians as well. Both the democrats then and now only liked the Constitution when it suited them and worked to destroy it when it suited them as well.
After the merger between the democrat party progressives and the democrat party populists for the election of Woodrow Wilson the South celebrated. The terrorist wing of the democrats was revitalized and the march onwards attacking the Constitution and attacking the rule of law went forward.
The Democratic Party today, engages in the most vicious form of class warfare. They seek to redistribute the multi-generational, accumulated wealth of successful American families. In the old South, in total contrast, there was great respect for multi-generational achnievement; mutual respect between all levels of society, everyone from the greatest plantation owner down to the youngest field hand, so long as they behaved in a responsible manner. This is as close to an exact opposite to the demagoguery represented by Obama & others, as you will find.
There were many--not just in the South--who saw the pre-war Southern Culture as perhaps the last true civilization. The concept grew out of that mutual respect between diverse classes--the ability fight so well as they did, while outnumbered & without a serious fraction of the North's industrial capacity, reflected such moral strength.
Yes, most of them were libertarian in their philosophy, just as Washington, Jefferson, Madison, etc., were libertarian in their outlook. American Conservatism has very libertarian roots; while the South, culturally, has always been more tolerant of eccentricity, and hence more consistent with the general Libertarian Culture that emerged with the Revolution.
William Flax
What nonsense. An education into the political philosophy of Andrew Jackson, James Polk, or any number of southern Democrats of the 19th century would serve to correct your miseducation.
A good start would be for you to read Clyde Wilson’s essays in his From Union to Empire