Southern Culture Quotes
This is a very important quotation. In large part America's development to a great power was the result of American industry and enterprise. However, that characteristic among the Americans was rare in the South as de Tocqueville herein observes. This was one of the pernicious consequences of slavery. The Southern whites could live a very comfortable life without any ingenuity, innovation, hard work, passion or much effort of any kind. There was nothing that the South produced or created without slaves that anyone wanted or advanced the nation. Even after the Civil War and emancipation it took decades before the white Southerners began to adopt the enterprising behavior that the rest of America was known for and it would take until the 21st century for parts of the South the reach parity in this area with most of the rest of the nation.
This quotation shows two important historical facts about Southern Racism. The first is now great the social pressures were against any white who would try and alter the status quo. The second was that none the less there have always been whites in the South who, despite the great social penalties, did the right thing and not only improved the situation, but more important, made most Americans realize that Southerners were not all racists any more than all of any group had any negative behavior.
