was the slaveowning population
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freepcrusher
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« on: January 10, 2021, 01:17:44 AM »

in some ways actually more liberal (relatively) than the rest of the white south writ-large? I remember Skill and Chance in some post earlier this year - mentioned that the religious right/evangelical movement was largely descended from poorer whites who lived in the upland south. In general I feel the sort of redneck culture associated with the south is most accurate in the upland areas where slavery wasn't much of a thing.

This is not in any way to excuse slavery. I'm sort of curious if anyone agrees with this hunch or if there any books written on this topic?
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Catalyst138
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« Reply #1 on: January 10, 2021, 02:41:10 AM »

President Andrew Jackson and his supporters definitely fit this description of “liberal racists.” I feel like Jackson would agree with the modern progressive left on a decent amount of issues.
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Alcibiades
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« Reply #2 on: January 10, 2021, 04:49:09 AM »

Overall no, certainly not economically, and not on racial issues either. That said, there is a bit of nuance to this, and a few points worth mentioning:

If we are talking about their descendants, i.e. the plantation elite after slavery was abolished, then I think many had a sense of noblesse oblige towards African Americans, whereas poor whites had very little sympathy for black people, as they viewed them as economic competition. For instance, apparently a reason that the jury acquitted Emmett Till’s killers was because it was mostly drawn from poor hill country whites, rather than the elite living nearer the Mississippi River. I think that many of the white elite, while staunchly supportive of segregation, were far less comfortable with lynchings and I also read that many refrained from using the n-word because it was viewed as uncouth.

That said, they were very reactionary overall, seeking to preserve a quasi-feudal society, with both poor whites and blacks prevented from rising up the economic ladder or voting. The most liberal whites in the South were those living in lily-white upland areas, because they were both staunchly supportive of the New Deal, and very rarely had any interactions with African Americans, so viewed them as less of a threat than the poor whites living in closer proximity to them.

As for your point about the Religious Right, my understanding was that its base has always been found in affluent suburbs (obviously the main area of Republican strength in the South in the late 20th century), whereas the poorer rural areas had much lower levels of religious observance.
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Unconditional Surrender Truman
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« Reply #3 on: January 10, 2021, 07:13:15 AM »

When it comes to the evangelism of poor whites in the upper South prior to 1850 or so, it's a mistake to assume that such is an indication of what we would consider social conservatism. There's an excellent book called The Democratization of American Christianity by Nathan O. Hatch that talks about how groups like the Baptists and the Disciples of Christ were a liberal reaction to the conservative ecclesiastical hierarchy of the Episcopal Church. In the period immediately following the Revolution,

                                               
America's nonrestrictive environment permitted an unexpected and often explosive conjunction of evangelical fervor and popular sovereignty. It was this engine that accelerated the process of Christianization within American popular culture, allowing indigenous expressions of faith to take hold among ordinary people, white and black. This expansion of evangelical Christianity did not proceed primarily from the nimble response of religious elites meeting the challenge before them. Rather, Christianity was effectively reshaped by common people who molded it in their own image and who threw themselves into expanding its influence. Increasingly assertive common people wanted their leaders unpretentious, their doctrines self-evident and down-to-earth, their music lively and singable, and their churches in local hands. It was this upsurge of democratic hope that characterized so many religious cultures in the early republic and brought Baptists, Methodists, Disciples of Christ, and a host of other insurgent groups to the fore. The rise of evangelical Christianity in the early republic is, in some measure, a story of the success of common people in shaping the culture after their own priorities rather than the priorities outlined by gentlemen such as the framers of the Constitution. (1)

In short, while upsurge in evangelism associated with the Second Great Awakening in the early nineteenth century was a democratizing force in American Christianity, and sprung from the same Jeffersonian faith in the common people and suspicion of established hierarchies that defined American liberalism during this period. While eventually, as new denominations became more established, like all institutions of Southern society they too would be called upon to provide the social and political defense of slavery, in the beginning these denominations were somewhat more likely to include moderate anti-slavery elements. Barton Stone, an ordained Baptist minister and one of the leading figures in the Disciples of Christ, published anti-slavery essays in his paper The Christian Messenger in the 1840s, while Alexander Campbell, another leader in the DoC, was an advocate of colonization; Campbell later abandoned his anti-slavery stance for fear of sowing divisions within the church. As president of Bethany College, he played a prominent role in an explosive controversy within the church surrounding the expulsion of several students who argued that slavery was incompatible with Christianity. (Some of the students were subsequently admitted to North Western Christian University, later Butler University, in Indianapolis, that school having been established by abolitionist and church leader Ovid Butler in the later 1850s.)

The slaveholding class tended to be Episcopalians, and while some like Jefferson were drawn toward a liberal political philosophy, they tended to be conservative politically —supporting the Federalist party in the 1790s and the Whigs after 1833. George Washington was baptized in the Anglican Church and remained a member throughout his adult life. Lucretia Hart Clay, the wife of Senator Henry Clay, was a devout Episcopalian; Clay himself was not a practicing Christian, but became more religious later in life. As Alcibiades notes, they occupied the role of landed gentry in the quasi-feudal society of the Antebellum South and were broadly opposed to democratization and other liberal political ideas, except when (as in the case of the Virginian gentry and free trade) it could be made to suit their economic self-interest.



(1) Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven: Yale, 1989) 9.
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MATTROSE94
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« Reply #4 on: January 10, 2021, 07:21:16 PM »

President Andrew Jackson and his supporters definitely fit this description of “liberal racists.” I feel like Jackson would agree with the modern progressive left on a decent amount of issues.
I disagree. Andrew Jackson was pretty much a right wing populist and would have loved having Donald Trump, Josh Hawley, Ron DeSantis, or Matt Gaetz as President.
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freepcrusher
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« Reply #5 on: January 10, 2021, 07:58:00 PM »

did Andrew Jackson own slaves? Middle Tennessee I don't think was ever a slave-heavy part of the country. The only part of TN that was was the western part.
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DistingFlyer
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« Reply #6 on: January 10, 2021, 08:10:29 PM »

President Andrew Jackson and his supporters definitely fit this description of “liberal racists.” I feel like Jackson would agree with the modern progressive left on a decent amount of issues.

Don't forget all the Southern segregationists who were also ardent New Dealers (and major progressive reformers in the years prior to the 1930s); racism is often thought of as being purely on the political right, but it's a little more complicated than that - just look at the PQ or Bloc here in Canada.
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E-Dawg 🇺🇦🇦🇲
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« Reply #7 on: January 10, 2021, 10:27:25 PM »

did Andrew Jackson own slaves? Middle Tennessee I don't think was ever a slave-heavy part of the country. The only part of TN that was was the western part.
Andrew Jackson owned about 200 slaves in his lifetime.
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freepcrusher
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« Reply #8 on: January 10, 2021, 11:24:43 PM »

how though? I mean I have a hard time seeing Nashville being a slave hotspot.
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Stranger in a strange land
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« Reply #9 on: January 11, 2021, 11:02:38 AM »

Overall no, certainly not economically, and not on racial issues either. That said, there is a bit of nuance to this, and a few points worth mentioning:

If we are talking about their descendants, i.e. the plantation elite after slavery was abolished, then I think many had a sense of noblesse oblige towards African Americans, whereas poor whites had very little sympathy for black people, as they viewed them as economic competition. For instance, apparently a reason that the jury acquitted Emmett Till’s killers was because it was mostly drawn from poor hill country whites, rather than the elite living nearer the Mississippi River. I think that many of the white elite, while staunchly supportive of segregation, were far less comfortable with lynchings and I also read that many refrained from using the n-word because it was viewed as uncouth.

That said, they were very reactionary overall, seeking to preserve a quasi-feudal society, with both poor whites and blacks prevented from rising up the economic ladder or voting. The most liberal whites in the South were those living in lily-white upland areas, because they were both staunchly supportive of the New Deal, and very rarely had any interactions with African Americans, so viewed them as less of a threat than the poor whites living in closer proximity to them.

As for your point about the Religious Right, my understanding was that its base has always been found in affluent suburbs (obviously the main area of Republican strength in the South in the late 20th century), whereas the poorer rural areas had much lower levels of religious observance.
Yeah it bears repeating that, contrary to current trends, suburban areas in the South switched to voting Republican long before White rural areas did, and these types of areas continued to show a lot of residual support for downballot democrats for a pretty long time, especially in the upland/rim South: see the OK & KY senate races in 2004 for example.
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Del Tachi
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« Reply #10 on: January 11, 2021, 11:05:12 AM »

how though? I mean I have a hard time seeing Nashville being a slave hotspot.

Well, it was.  The City of Nashville even purchased 24 slaves for $12,000 in 1846.

To answer OP, slaveholding Whites in the South were planter aristocracy.  They were social elites who ruled the region's cultural and civic institutions:  universities, military colleges, theatres, etc.  Their agrarian culture was imitative of the slow, genteel pace of English estate life, which of course put them at odds with increasingly industrious and Germanic Yankees.  Describing this dynamic as "conservative" or "liberal" in a contemporary culture war sense is really missing the point. 
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Diabolical Materialism
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« Reply #11 on: January 11, 2021, 11:13:45 AM »

President Andrew Jackson and his supporters definitely fit this description of “liberal racists.” I feel like Jackson would agree with the modern progressive left on a decent amount of issues.

Don't forget all the Southern segregationists who were also ardent New Dealers (and major progressive reformers in the years prior to the 1930s); racism is often thought of as being purely on the political right, but it's a little more complicated than that - just look at the PQ or Bloc here in Canada.
What's the story with PQ and Bloc?
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Alcibiades
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« Reply #12 on: January 11, 2021, 11:55:14 AM »

Overall no, certainly not economically, and not on racial issues either. That said, there is a bit of nuance to this, and a few points worth mentioning:

If we are talking about their descendants, i.e. the plantation elite after slavery was abolished, then I think many had a sense of noblesse oblige towards African Americans, whereas poor whites had very little sympathy for black people, as they viewed them as economic competition. For instance, apparently a reason that the jury acquitted Emmett Till’s killers was because it was mostly drawn from poor hill country whites, rather than the elite living nearer the Mississippi River. I think that many of the white elite, while staunchly supportive of segregation, were far less comfortable with lynchings and I also read that many refrained from using the n-word because it was viewed as uncouth.

That said, they were very reactionary overall, seeking to preserve a quasi-feudal society, with both poor whites and blacks prevented from rising up the economic ladder or voting. The most liberal whites in the South were those living in lily-white upland areas, because they were both staunchly supportive of the New Deal, and very rarely had any interactions with African Americans, so viewed them as less of a threat than the poor whites living in closer proximity to them.

As for your point about the Religious Right, my understanding was that its base has always been found in affluent suburbs (obviously the main area of Republican strength in the South in the late 20th century), whereas the poorer rural areas had much lower levels of religious observance.
Yeah it bears repeating that, contrary to current trends, suburban areas in the South switched to voting Republican long before White rural areas did, and these types of areas continued to show a lot of residual support for downballot democrats for a pretty long time, especially in the upland/rim South: see the OK & KY senate races in 2004 for example.

Hell, the Democrats held the Mississippi and Alabama state legislatures until 2010 off the back of strength in white rural districts.
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TDAS04
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« Reply #13 on: January 11, 2021, 02:03:18 PM »

how though? I mean I have a hard time seeing Nashville being a slave hotspot.

Andrew Jackson and James K. Polk were both major slave-owners, and from Middle Tennessee.
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DistingFlyer
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« Reply #14 on: January 11, 2021, 03:51:23 PM »

President Andrew Jackson and his supporters definitely fit this description of “liberal racists.” I feel like Jackson would agree with the modern progressive left on a decent amount of issues.

Don't forget all the Southern segregationists who were also ardent New Dealers (and major progressive reformers in the years prior to the 1930s); racism is often thought of as being purely on the political right, but it's a little more complicated than that - just look at the PQ or Bloc here in Canada.
What's the story with PQ and Bloc?

On the nationalist/racist side of things, as well as economically/socially left-leaning.
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freepcrusher
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« Reply #15 on: January 11, 2021, 08:22:53 PM »

how though? I mean I have a hard time seeing Nashville being a slave hotspot.

Well, it was.  The City of Nashville even purchased 24 slaves for $12,000 in 1846.

To answer OP, slaveholding Whites in the South were planter aristocracy.  They were social elites who ruled the region's cultural and civic institutions:  universities, military colleges, theatres, etc.  Their agrarian culture was imitative of the slow, genteel pace of English estate life, which of course put them at odds with increasingly industrious and Germanic Yankees.  Describing this dynamic as "conservative" or "liberal" in a contemporary culture war sense is really missing the point. 

I guess a better question is - I feel their descendants would be more likely to be lefty now rather than the poor white masses. My guess is many of them married into yankee families and left the south or the few southern white liberals out there (that aren't carpetbaggers) are descended from them
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Unconditional Surrender Truman
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« Reply #16 on: January 12, 2021, 01:12:02 AM »

how though? I mean I have a hard time seeing Nashville being a slave hotspot.

Well, it was.  The City of Nashville even purchased 24 slaves for $12,000 in 1846.

To answer OP, slaveholding Whites in the South were planter aristocracy.  They were social elites who ruled the region's cultural and civic institutions:  universities, military colleges, theatres, etc.  Their agrarian culture was imitative of the slow, genteel pace of English estate life, which of course put them at odds with increasingly industrious and Germanic Yankees.  Describing this dynamic as "conservative" or "liberal" in a contemporary culture war sense is really missing the point. 

I guess a better question is - I feel their descendants would be more likely to be lefty now rather than the poor white masses. My guess is many of them married into yankee families and left the south or the few southern white liberals out there (that aren't carpetbaggers) are descended from them

Why do you think that?
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Intell
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« Reply #17 on: January 12, 2021, 07:43:01 AM »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vactqAELEbc This Chris Hayes podcast is interesting in this regard.

Absolutely not, high slave proportion ares had the highest proportion of lynchings, and the worst socio-economic outcomes for black people than low-slave areas. White Obama vote share in 2012 was much lower high-slave counties than low-slave counties. The whites that lived in these counties are also the ones that voted for the republican candidates the most, and for the furthest right candidates (David Duke), and were for sure the areas with the lowest white proportions in AL voting for interracial marriage.
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freepcrusher
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« Reply #18 on: January 12, 2021, 11:41:57 PM »

how though? I mean I have a hard time seeing Nashville being a slave hotspot.

Well, it was.  The City of Nashville even purchased 24 slaves for $12,000 in 1846.

To answer OP, slaveholding Whites in the South were planter aristocracy.  They were social elites who ruled the region's cultural and civic institutions:  universities, military colleges, theatres, etc.  Their agrarian culture was imitative of the slow, genteel pace of English estate life, which of course put them at odds with increasingly industrious and Germanic Yankees.  Describing this dynamic as "conservative" or "liberal" in a contemporary culture war sense is really missing the point.  

I guess a better question is - I feel their descendants would be more likely to be lefty now rather than the poor white masses. My guess is many of them married into yankee families and left the south or the few southern white liberals out there (that aren't carpetbaggers) are descended from them

Why do you think that?

because they would have been probably be more likely to be exposed to liberal institutions (OSS, CFR, Central Banking etc). Think someone like Lewis Powell, who probably was descended from slaveowners.
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freepcrusher
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« Reply #19 on: January 12, 2021, 11:43:12 PM »

how though? I mean I have a hard time seeing Nashville being a slave hotspot.

Well, it was.  The City of Nashville even purchased 24 slaves for $12,000 in 1846.

is the black population of Nashville "native" or was it AL or GA blacks who came over in mid-late 20th century?
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RINO Tom
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« Reply #20 on: January 13, 2021, 12:16:42 AM »

President Andrew Jackson and his supporters definitely fit this description of “liberal racists.” I feel like Jackson would agree with the modern progressive left on a decent amount of issues.
I disagree. Andrew Jackson was pretty much a right wing populist and would have loved having Donald Trump, Josh Hawley, Ron DeSantis, or Matt Gaetz as President.

Low IQ take.
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RINO Tom
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« Reply #21 on: January 13, 2021, 01:31:41 AM »

how though? I mean I have a hard time seeing Nashville being a slave hotspot.

Well, it was.  The City of Nashville even purchased 24 slaves for $12,000 in 1846.

To answer OP, slaveholding Whites in the South were planter aristocracy.  They were social elites who ruled the region's cultural and civic institutions:  universities, military colleges, theatres, etc.  Their agrarian culture was imitative of the slow, genteel pace of English estate life, which of course put them at odds with increasingly industrious and Germanic Yankees.  Describing this dynamic as "conservative" or "liberal" in a contemporary culture war sense is really missing the point.  

I guess a better question is - I feel their descendants would be more likely to be lefty now rather than the poor white masses. My guess is many of them married into yankee families and left the south or the few southern white liberals out there (that aren't carpetbaggers) are descended from them

Why do you think that?

because they would have been probably be more likely to be exposed to liberal institutions (OSS, CFR, Central Banking etc). Think someone like Lewis Powell, who probably was descended from slaveowners.

What about “Central Banking” is “liberal”?  Just curious.
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Unconditional Surrender Truman
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« Reply #22 on: January 13, 2021, 03:05:57 AM »
« Edited: January 13, 2021, 03:09:51 AM by Unconditional Surrender Truman »

how though? I mean I have a hard time seeing Nashville being a slave hotspot.

Well, it was.  The City of Nashville even purchased 24 slaves for $12,000 in 1846.

To answer OP, slaveholding Whites in the South were planter aristocracy.  They were social elites who ruled the region's cultural and civic institutions:  universities, military colleges, theatres, etc.  Their agrarian culture was imitative of the slow, genteel pace of English estate life, which of course put them at odds with increasingly industrious and Germanic Yankees.  Describing this dynamic as "conservative" or "liberal" in a contemporary culture war sense is really missing the point.  

I guess a better question is - I feel their descendants would be more likely to be lefty now rather than the poor white masses. My guess is many of them married into yankee families and left the south or the few southern white liberals out there (that aren't carpetbaggers) are descended from them

Why do you think that?

because they would have been probably be more likely to be exposed to liberal institutions (OSS, CFR, Central Banking etc). Think someone like Lewis Powell, who probably was descended from slaveowners.

There's a difference between "slaveowners" and the slaveholding elite. Lots of people were slaveowners. Lots of poorer farmers who didn't own slaves themselves rented them from those who did. The slaveholding elite was a distinct class that doesn't exist anymore —and if they did, I see no reason to believe they would be "liberals."

You seem to have assumed that upper class people are more "cultured" or educated than poor people, and therefore more likely to be liberals. I don't think that's a good assumption. But more to the point, I don't there is anything inherently liberal about those institutions you mentioned, unless by "liberal" you simply mean capitalist and internationalist —which I suppose is one definition.
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Chips
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« Reply #23 on: January 13, 2021, 06:32:32 AM »

President Andrew Jackson and his supporters definitely fit this description of “liberal racists.” I feel like Jackson would agree with the modern progressive left on a decent amount of issues.
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darklordoftech
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« Reply #24 on: January 13, 2021, 05:24:50 PM »

President Andrew Jackson and his supporters definitely fit this description of “liberal racists.” I feel like Jackson would agree with the modern progressive left on a decent amount of issues.
I could see Jackson and his supporters supporting debt cancellation, breaking up banks, and Glass-Steagall, but I don’t think the modern progressive left would care for Indian Removal or ignoring a SCOTUS ruling to achieve it.
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