Replies

In both the book and the movie, the character Mammy had more sense than all the white characters combined. She spoke more for the social traditions of the South than anyone else.

Not everyone in the South treated their slaves [and then former slaves] well; however, in my research, I have found countless examples where freed slaves chose not to leave their former owners or the plantations on which they lived. Others left but found really hard times ahead of them.
One very telling example is a story related to me recently by a 94 year old friend:

She was working for the local doctor in this rural county when a very elderly black man came in one day, with his hat in his hand, and said, "Excuse me, Miss, but they tell me you are Miss Austinia's granddaughter". She replied, "Yes, I am." He then told her, "We went North after the War. We were terribly poor and there was no work. If Miss Austinia had not taught me how to read, I never would have made it ...".
In this state, and probably in others as well, it was against the law to teach blacks to read. Schools were conducted on many plantations and children from surrounding farms were educated there. In any number of cases I have run across, black children were taught to read as well.
The South is much maligned and unrightly so. Slavery would have died a natural death as it had become un-economical in an increasingly industrial age. The history of this country was forever changed, and not for the better, by the deaths in the Civil War of a generation of the best young men ... South and North.

Slavery would have died a natural death as it had become un-economical in an increasingly industrial age.

Thomas Sowell made the point that Christianity changed in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. He pointed out that slavery existed and was taken for granted an an institution in all cultures and worldwide, throughout history. And that includes Christian culture as well as Confuscian, Budhist, Hindu, and Moslem.
But in the past two centuries Christianity became able to prevent slave raids of its own territory, and then became willing to fight for the freedom of strangers. Britain established a squadron of the Royal Navy permanently stationed off western Africa for no other purpose than to interdict the slave trade, without any hope of recompense, never mind profit. Not only so, but Britain did not recognize the Confederacy and interfere in the Civil War, which would have doomed the Union, even though cotton fueled Britain's industrial revolution. Fear of just such action by the British was the sole reason for the Emanicpation Proclamation, which was unpopular in the North and anathema in the South, but assured that British Christians would not support the Confederacy in any way.
Sowell points out that the South had a tiger by the tail and could not let go; abolition would mean letting abused black slaves have the opportunity to undertake to get even. And for that reason, before the war abolition was a marginal, radical, position upheld by few.

The history of this country was forever changed, and not for the better, by the deaths in the Civil War of a generation of the best young men ... South and North.

Unquestionably.

The Ruling Class of the South cannot be maligned since it was one of the stupidest most pigheaded collection of traitors one could find out of today's Democrat party. Dragging the rest of the South into their treason was contemptible as was their attempt to destroy the Union, the greatest Nation ever to exist. The RATS of 1860 were just as dishonest and treasonable as their present day descendants. The Reign of Terror they unleashed upon LOYAL Americans in the South cannot be condemned enough.

The 100,000+ Southerners who remained true to the ideals of the Founders are the most praiseworthy of those who fought for the Union. Those enthusiastic in their treason cannot be maligned since nothing is worse than Treason.

The South is much maligned and unrightly so. Slavery would have died a natural death as it had become un-economical in an increasingly industrial age. The history of this country was forever changed, and not for the better, by the deaths in the Civil War of a generation of the best young men ... South and North.

Slavery has always been un-economical in the long run. It's a lazy, shorted-sighted, and exploitive way to run a business and economy. The industrial revolution wouldn't have had much impact, as slavery was a product of a wrong mindset, rather than technological shortcomings. Even today, in the Information Age illegal labor is being invited into the country to do the "work Americans won't do."