Honor and the American South: The Culture that Doomed the Confederacy
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The culture of honor in the American South was a major influence on the social and moral direction of the Confederacy. However, the southern brand of honor in early America changed from how cultural honor had been represented historically. Cultural practices specific to the South, many of them rooted in racism and violence, resulted in moral failings that marked southern lifestyle during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Southerners equated honor with what they considered to be good and noble in the world, yet their practices of the culture of honor were anything but. The commitment to those cultural practices resulted in a failed secession from the Union that would have long-lasting ramifications on southern culture in the years that followed. Southern white men who controlled the levers of power maintained that honor meant proudly upholding views about race and slavery that were central to their decision-making in politics, religion, and southern society at large. By examining speeches, media coverage, and writings of prominent leaders of the South between the antebellum era and Reconstruction, it becomes apparent that southerner whites were tied to a sense of self that was outwardly racist and evoked a sense of nationalism toward a southern state. The culture of honor in the South represented a worldview that ultimately hindered the South’s ability wage war and retarded progress during Reconstruction.