What does it for the South? Is it that they were broken by the Civil War and developed the "Stockholm syndrome"? Is loyalty for institutions an inherit trait of Southern society but after the Civil War this trait was applied to the Union out of default i.e. Southerners have a need to be loyal and patriotic and they had no nation to be patriotic about but to the one that conquered them??
Yes, but the South was part of the Union before they succeded and became the Confederacy. So in a way it was just going back to the way it was before the war.
This is and always will be our nation and will be honored and cherished.
We have no 'stockholm syndrome' nor were we broken. If you have to even ask why we are so loyal and patriotic then you don't have the love of Country in your heart and therefore you'll never understand.
It is what it is.
I've never quite thought of that way. You're right -- that does seem to be an ironic twist on things. You can't drive a mile in Dallas without seeing an American flag, either hanging outside stores or on car bumpers. They're everywhere. Northerners visiting me have remarked about it and I had also noticed in my many trips to the north that displays of the flag are much scarcer up there.Could it be the Stockholm syndrome? I don't know.
It's inherently that white Southerners tend to be fairly homogenous, have most ancestors that predate the Civil War and are most conservative socially.
All of that contributes. The South is also more rural (but that is changing quick) and that contributes.
It is ironic granted although in the aforementioned dispute, the South had issue with Yankee political hegemony and not the Founders....most of whom the more influential were Southern as well.
By the way....we were NEVER broken and Stockholm is for sissies.
Just look around this forum, we have not forgotten about when Yankees act smug and self righteous (some still do today...not all or even most arguably).
I'm 4 generations removed from my closest ancestor who fought in that war and he was only a kid at Vicksburg.
Btw, we would bristle much less about it all if folks left us alone about it but they can't help it.....we know that.
Destro,
Here's my read: My uncle served for the South in the Civil War. He was in his 60's when he married my Dad's sister who was the second oldest of 11 children, and in her teens, while my Dad was the second youngest of the 11. They and their descendants lived in the mountains of VA. They are fiercely loyal to family. The family most likely migrated there from Scotland to settle and to farm in mountain pastures resembling those in Scotland. It is, in my opinion, the fierce family loyalty which makes them cling to their Southern roots. Not so much South vs North idealogy, but rather that the 'North' disrupted the comfortable and pastoral lives of those in the South, which required them to defend their honor. As you know, Southern honor to family and to home runs 'deep.' In their opinion, the 'North' just 'doesn't get it' and does not understand their desire to remain farming people with simple lifestyles with rural people there not generally interested in following national politics or events, then or now. They live in a world quite removed from the one you and I may experience. The culture there is completely different than any I can describe elsewhere. However, if Sherman burned their farmlands enroute to his march to the sea, I have a feeling I can understand the deep-seeded resentment....
I don't really know the answer to your question. It is a feeling. Could be that the South felt a bond born out of loyalty to a cause. I was fortunate to have a grandmother who was a small girl in 1862, who with a sister, helped the soldiers of both sides by giving water to them from a spring on their farm in Kentucky. I was raised on her stories about the Battle of Perryville, KY. Civil War history is fascinating because it was fought in our own country. Lincoln was truly a great man, which is evident in how he kept the Union together.