I have an entirely different analysis.
Southerners were overwhelmingly Jeffersonian Democrats right from the time of the ratification of the Constitution up to their defection from the Democratic Party en masse in the 1950s-1992 when they elected Republican congressional majorities for the first time since the end of the Occupation.
What did Jeffersonian Democrats believe in? A balanced budget, limited government expenditures, decentralized power and state’s rights, the right to keep and bear arms, and they always had a strong cultural affinity for the military. These views have been remarkably consistent among Southerners for well over 2 centuries. That have never waivered from them.
Look at the Democratic Party today. Which of those do they believe in? Absolutely NONE of them. The Democrats today are the party of big government, centralized power, massive expenditures, gun grabbing and military weakness.
It was not Southerners who left the Democratic Party, it was the Democratic Party which left the South.
The Left is of course LYING when they claim the only reason anybody could ever oppose them and their agenda was and is racism. This smear tactic is their answer to any disagreement with their socialist/cultural marxist pronouncements on any and every issue. They dare not engage on the issues so they just try to slime anybody who doesn’t go along with them.
Well said.
Another thing which everyone seems to know but is not true is that Blacks were not able to vote in the South. I suspect that was true of some places but it was not at all the truth where I lived.
NW Florida is probably the most conservative area in the nation. My Grandfather was a politician and he always carried the Black Precincts. I always wondered how Granddaddy managed it but he did.
There’s a problem with your argument — the Southern states had viable Whig parties (except for SC) before the Civil War. In my state of TN, the Whigs were in the majority for a decent period. They effectively were formed in opposition to President Jackson. They could’ve continued (albeit only in the South) after the Civil War (a decade after the party ceased to be elsewhere), but were effectively absorbed into the Democrats since the GOP was deemed too radical (and anti-Southern) for them to enter into and have any influence. All the ideological battles from left to right were had within the Democrats in the South.