Been thinking about your post, and decided I agree more than I had thought initially.
The Upper South, in particular Virginia, had existed financially for decades primarily on the sale of slaves to the Deep South. Virginia crops, particularly those raised by plantations, had been financial losers for a long time.
I have always found the insistence on their “honor” of VA aristocrats somewhat disgusting, as most of them made their living by ranching human beings, then selling them off to the horrors of cotton and sugar plantations. With, of course, the best-looking of the females winding up in brothels in New Orleans and other cities.
Some significant but unknown percentage of those sold were the biological sons and daughters, or brothers and sisters, of the sellers.
The southern response when this was pointed out was to demand that nobody say such a thing. The southern sense of “honor” seemed to rest more on what others were allowed to say about what they did than about what they actually did. This reminds me strongly of two groups in today’s society: ghetto thugs and their response to being dissed, and the Muslim reaction to an insult to Islam.
This type of honor was of course a holdover from the decaying aristocracy of Europe. The southern way of life, in its ideal, was an aristocracy, with the “aristocrats” existing without work on the labor of inferiors. As such, it was utterly in conflict with the true American ideal of every man earning his own living.
IMO, true honor comes from what one does, not what others say about you. This is the Christian ideal. The Romans thought Christ was dishonored, because he was executed in what they considered a dishonorable way. Christians, OTOH, believe his death ennobled crucifixion.
"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on..."In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on..."