How the South belatedly won America's civil war

Greetings from North Carolina, where I'm spending the next few months as a visiting fellow at something called the National Humanities Center. It's located mid-way between the three cities of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, which together form one of the fastest-growing communities in the United States, along with the region that includes Charlotte, the largest city in the state.

Here's an example of what is known as the "New" South, which is booming as never before. For some time economic power has been shifting in this country, away from the old, industrialised North East towards states that were once far less prosperous than they have recently become. And over the last three decades this change in the distribution of wealth resources and people has also had major implications for American politics and American government.

For much of its history, North Carolina was one of the poorest southern states. The first English settlers arrived in 1585, but they survived barely two years, and it was not until late in the 17th and early 18th centuries that immigration began in earnest. But the soil was unwelcoming, farming was hard, and the colony never achieved the level of prosperity, dominated by great plantations, that characterised neighbouring Virginia and South Carolina.

North Carolina was also backward in other ways: it was reluctant to join the American Revolution, and it was one of the last states to embrace the union after freedom from the British had been won. And although it was a slave-owning state, it was also slow to sign up with the Confederacy on the outbreak of the Civil War. But a quarter of all the southern troops who died in that conflict came from North Carolina, and by the end of the war, the state was a shambles. So, as the 20th century dawned, North Carolina was a poor and under-resourced region, where nearly 20% of whites, and nearly 50% of blacks, were unable to read.

But by then, North Carolina had become home to one major industry, and that was tobacco. In 1881, a machine was invented which could roll cigarettes automatically, and soon after Durham became a great centre of tobacco manufacture, dominated by the Duke family who established the American Tobacco Company in 1890.

They were among the largest employers in the town, they built enormous factories and warehouses, and in 1924 they endowed the local college with a massive gift of $40m, which ever since has borne the Duke name, and is now one of the best universities in the country.

There are many ironies here. The Duke family had made their money by manufacturing a product which often killed people, if consumed in sufficient quantities. Yet Duke University, which they had transformed by their benefaction, has in recent times become renowned for its medical centre, which seeks to save and prolong lives. Such can be the contradictions of capitalism and of philanthropy.

Despite the job opportunities which the tobacco industry created, for both blacks and whites, North Carolina continued to languish down to World War II and beyond. And all this time, North Carolina was a segregated state, along with the rest of the South, with separate schools and buses, and cafes for blacks and whites.

It's hard to imagine that that such a state of affairs still existed within the lifetime of many Carolinans living today. But it did.

To make matters worse, from the 1980s onwards, the cigarette industry went into decline, and this took away a major source of employment. The economic base of Durham seemed on the brink of collapse, and the great tobacco warehouses now stood silent and derelict. This is hardly a cheering story, and North Carolina was hardly a cheering place when I first visited America during the early 1970s. There seemed no good reason to go there.

In fact, I only encountered the state indirectly. For one of its senators, Sam Ervin, was the chairman of the Senate Committee which was then in the process of investigating the Watergate affair, and he waged a vigorous and ultimately victorious battle against President Nixon, who sought to withhold evidence by claiming executive privilege.

The committee hearings were televised, and they were riveting daytime drama as Ervin became a national celebrity, not only for his decent and determined conduct against a crooked and conspiring president, but also for his folksy humour and pithy observations.

Yet by then Sam Ervin was becoming an example of a fast-vanishing breed: the Southern Democrat. From the early 1930s until the late 1960s, the Democratic Party had dominated American politics, after a long period of Republican ascendancy, and the architect of that dominance had been Franklin Roosevelt.

One of Roosevelt's greatest achievements had been to put together an election winning coalition of northern workers and big city bosses, along with representatives of the white, segregationist South. As such, it was a coalition that was contradictory to the point of instability, but from Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson, it was somehow held together, and Senator Sam Ervin was a quintessential example of its southern component.

But by the time of Watergate, something had already happened in American politics which portended the break-up of this Democratic coalition, (especially the Southern element in it) and that was the passing of the Civil Rights Act by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

Johnson's Civil Rights Act was not only overdue and admirable but a rare example of a politician doing something he believed in but which was not consistent with his own, or with his party's, political self-interest

Johnson himself was a Texan, and a product of the segregated, graft-ridden world of southern politics. Yet once he gained the White House he became persuaded that segregation had to end, and that blacks should finally receive full political rights. He duly deployed his formidable political will, and brutal operating skills, to berate, persuade and coerce a reluctant Congress into passing the Civil Rights Act. To this day, it remains one of the greatest pieces of legislation ever sponsored by an American President, and whatever Johnson's failings and errors in his mis-conduct of the Vietnam War, this measure must always stand to his credit.

Yet even as he exerted himself to secure its passing, Johnson conceded that the Civil Rights Act meant the Democratic Party would lose the American South for a generation: for while the newly-enfranchised blacks would vote Democrat, the southern whites would increasingly turn to the Republicans. And that is exactly what has happened.

One indication was that in 1972, North Carolina elected its first Republican Senator in the 20th Century. His name was Jesse Helms, and for the next 30 years he was a powerful conservative force in the nation's capital, fighting against restrictions on smoking and on guns. Today, in Washington, there's scarcely a Democratic senator from the old South left.

Johnson's Civil Rights Act was, then, not only both overdue and admirable, it was also a rare example of a politician doing something because he believed it to be right, but which was not consistent with his own, or with his party's, political self-interest.

It's not only Johnson's civil rights legislation which has transformed the old South during the last 30-odd years. For at the same time, the economic balance of power in the United States has tipped away from states like Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Ohio, and towards the sunrise and sunshine states of the south and the west.

Places like North Carolina are no longer derided as marginal, backward and poor. Instead, they have become extremely attractive to young and old Americans alike; to those wishing to make their careers (and often their fortunes) in IT, or medical research or bio-technology, or to those who wish to retire from the cold North East to warmer climes. Hurricanes like Katrina notwithstanding, the major growth areas in the United States are now in places like North Carolina, and here in Durham. The once-derelict tobacco warehouses have recently been re-born as ritzy lofts (I'm living in one myself) and fashionable restaurants and boutiques.

Such prosperity has never happened in the South before of course, and as Katrina did so vividly show, this isn't true every where. The old poor South does linger, in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, and there are still substantial areas of poverty in the Carolinas and in Georgia. Be that as it may, the South is richer than it's ever been, and it's also become politically more influential as a result.

But as Johnson had both foreseen and feared, this enhanced political clout is no longer mobilised in support of the Democrats. For in recent decades the South has been a major force in the revival of the Republican Party.

One indication of this is that the Texas of Lyndon Johnson is now the Texas of George Bush and of his father. Another is that it is now scarcely conceivable that an American president could be elected who's based in the North East.

That would probably be true even if he was a Republican, and it would be still more true if he (or she) was a Democrat.

John Kerry found that out the hard way in 2004. Will Hillary Clinton be taught the same lesson in 2008? If she is, it will be one more indication that the American South has finally, peacefully and belatedly won the American civil war.

There's being jealous and then there's being nuts.

The United States is called United for a reason. The South did violate the Constitution by seceeding; I don't care if they had popular votes in those states or not. Up until the late 1850's the majority of Southerners considered secession to be illegal, which was why no ohter Southern states supported South Carolina during the Nullification Crisis.

Some diehard unreconstructed rebels are just plain unrealistic. The South didn't have the economic means to win the war and got no foreign recognition. I know the Brits gave some aid, but they did so more out of their own self-interest than any real support for the Confederacy (they'd outlawed slavery in 1833). The South's economy was based on slavery; it would have collapsed eventually regardless of what the North might have done. As for the Lincoln bashers, I think any President would have done what Lincoln did to prevent the country from splitting apart.

Culturally we ARE two different countries. The Conservative Christian South........and the atheist socialist north. I took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. How about yourself?

""Every male in my family has served in the military from the Revolution to the present. I doubt you could say the same of your New Yorkers.""

Both my grandfathers served in the military. One was from an Old Georgia family and the other was from New York.
And my great Uncles, who were Italian Americans from "NEW YORK" served in World War II. More than 500,000 Italian-Americans served in World War II, and I'd venture to say they didn't come from South. The Italians were also interned. Sorry they weren't here in time for the Civil War, they immigrated later. But the Irish in my family were. I had family on both sides fighting. Should give you my pedigree papers?
OH I ALSO FORGOT, I'm also a descendant of a passenger from the Mayflower! So basically, I have family somehow in someway, who served in every single American war ever fought. What's your point?
`

"What's your point? "

Take a look at the last electoral map. You socialist blue-zone gun-grabbing abortionists voted overwhelmingly for a dishonorably discharged traitor and you've got the balls to call Southerners "unpatriotic"? Don't make me laugh.

This article is simplistic pap. It sounds as if a high-schooler trying to impress his leftie teacher wrote it. Late in joining the Revolution? Has this dolt never heard of the Halifax Resolves, the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence or the Regulator War? Backward? As far as the War Between the States is concerned, there were very good reasons to ponder secession. Despite all the rhetoric, there was no monolithic pro-slavery sentiment in the south in general, and in North Carolina in particular. I'm residing in a county that voted against secession; many others did so as well, particularly in the mountain counties. Becoming surrounded on all sides by states that had seceded sealed the decision. Once in, they gave their all.

And, this author purports to write some sweeping history of an entire state, apparently without leaving the posh confines of his converted loft in Brightleaf Square. Has he never heard of textiles before?

I could go on and on, I suppose. But, this kind of whitewash happens all the time. This one is a little less snide than most, so it could be worse.

I think some of the Founders would have disagreed. What was the Declaration of Independence and Revolutionary War if not a secessionist document and movement?

Its not like the United States will last forever anyway. And that's not an endorsement of dissolution or secession, but rather a statement of what history likely portends.

LBJ's Civil Rights Act has very little to do with the resugence of the GOP in the south. Southern people are generally conservative and are increasingly fed up with the disgusting perversion that the Democrat party has turned into.

I think it's too simplistic to say that red and blue means north and south. Look beyond the cities (or at the red vs. blue election map from 2004) and you'll see that most of the country in the North votes and thinks Red just like the South. Look at West Virginia, for instance-we're represented by Robert KKK Byrd, but we overwhelmingly went for Bush both times.

People who keep fighting over something that ended more than a hundred years ago are little better than people who want reperations for slavery. Robert E. Lee, a man of enormous integrity and honor, would have been the first person to tell today's unreconstructed rebels to get over themselves and move on.

At least we don't have our own flag.

Sure you do:

What you seem to be forgetting about the U.S. Flag Lauralee is how many of those stars and in particular, how many of those 13 stripes represent the South.

"I think it's too simplistic to say that red and blue means north and south."

Not altogether simplistic, on the state level. The nature of the electoral college creates a greater distinction than actually exists, and for good reason; this provides further validation of national election results, and reduces squabbles and disputes, such as we've seen in the last two presidential elections. Imagine if there were no electoral college and we had such a close election ... we'd have challenges across the entire country, where ever there was some chance of overturning a result. Absolute mayhem.

But, truthfully, the red/blue divide is largely a split between urbanites and suburban/rural voters.

Yeah, sure. The South got the busybody north with all their liberals and a federal government out of control.

And the North got the Johnson presidency, the Carter presidency, and the Clinton presidency. Haven't you gotten even yet?

I don't think his charges are about Texas politics. I read his book, he puts together a pretty convincing picture of a desperate LBJ who was about to be thrown off the ticket for '64. Johnson faced new questions over Bobby Baker, the Senate was reopening its investigation, which was killed after JFK was too.

Johnson was looking at the federal pen. He was backed into a political and legal corner, his only way out was to become president himself. The only way he could do that was to kill Kennedy. I think he did.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.