Replies

The 1860 census determined that there were fewer than 385,000 individuals who owned slaves. That would amount to only 1.4 percent of whites in the country or 4.8 percent of southern whites owning one or more slaves. There is no way that the continuance of slavery was the reason so many young boys left the non-slave family farm to join up with the army.

“The 1860 census determined that there were fewer than 385,000 individuals who owned slaves. That would amount to only 1.4 percent of whites in the country or 4.8 percent of southern whites owning one or more slaves. There is no way that the continuance of slavery was the reason so many young boys left the non-slave family farm to join up with the army.”

Bears repeating!

The 1860 census determined that there were fewer than 385,000 individuals who owned slaves. That would amount to only 1.4 percent of whites in the country or 4.8 percent of southern whites owning one or more slaves. There is no way that the continuance of slavery was the reason so many young boys left the non-slave family farm to join up with the army.

Your statistics are misleading, perhaps intentionally so, because you state the number of individuals owning slaves (actually 393,375) rather than the percentage of families. In fact the percentage of families owning slaves in the southern states was very significant. When you consider that these must also have been the wealthiest families with the most influence, then it is reasonable to conclude that the continuation of slavery was a central cause of the civil war.

Percentage of families owning slaves: (1860 census data)

Mississippi________49%
South Carolina_____46%
Georgia____________37%
Alabama____________35%
Florida____________34%
Louisiana__________29%
North Carolina_____28%
Texas______________28%
Virginia___________26%
Tennessee__________25%
Kentucky___________23%
Arkansas___________20%