Southern poverty: a long lasting legacy of Reconstruction

[Andersonh1]

Did the South pay financially for the war? Absolutely they did, and as I've said a number of times, my grandparents and great-grandparents grew up in this poor South that is described here. It took nearly a century for the Southern states to truly recover from the war, and it's only really been during and slightly before my lifetime that the region has begun to prosper financially.

Consider:

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/economic-reconstruction/

Contrary to popular belief Southern poverty has been a longer-lasting Civil War legacy than has segregation. Prior to the war the South had a bimodal wealth distribution with concentrations at the poles. The classic planters with fifty or more slaves had prosperous estates but they represented less than 1% of Southern families. Partly because 1860 slave property values represented half of Southern wealth, seven of the ten states with the highest per capita wealth joined the Confederacy.

But since 70% of Confederate families did not own slaves, the South’s per capita income was 28% below the nation’s average. A century later eight of the ten states with the lowest per capita incomes were former Rebel states. The depths of post Civil War Southern poverty and its duration were far greater, longer, and more multiracial than is commonly supposed. It took eighty-five years until 1950 for the South’s per capita income to regain the below average percentile ranking it held in 1860.

The war had destroyed two-thirds of Southern railroads and livestock. Excluding the total loss in the value of slaves resulting from emancipation, assessed real property values in 1870 were less than half of those in 1860. About 300,000 white Southern males in the prime of adulthood died during the war and perhaps another 200,000 were incapacitated, representing almost 20% of the region’s approximate 2.8 million white males of all ages.

--------------------------

By 1870, Southern bank capital totaled only $17 million, compared to $61 million in 1860. National policies largely ignored post-war Southern poverty until President Franklin Roosevelt commissioned a report in 1938, seventy-three years after the war had ended.

The study disclosed that the South remained America’s poorest region. Its 1937 per capita income of $300 was only half of the $600 for the rest of the country. Shortly after the Great Depression began, the president of General Motors voluntarily cut his annual salary from $500,000 to $340,000. His $160,000 cut was more than all the income taxes paid by two million Mississippi residents that year.

During the last year of the prosperous Roaring 1920s, Southern farmers earned an average of $190, which was only about one-third of the $530 average for other American farmers. As a result, there was often little money left for food and clothing and none for otherwise common articles such as books and radios.

--------------------------

Poverty bred poor health. Ailments such a pellagra, rickets and hookworm that were almost unknown in other parts of the country plagued the South for almost a century after the Civil War. All could have been prevented by cheap dietary changes, better sanitation and the use of shoes. So short was the life expectancy in South Carolina that half of state’s population was under age twenty as late as 1930.

Of three million farm homes surveyed in 1930 only 6% had piped-in water. More than half were unpainted. Only about one-third had screens.

Post-war politics and federal economic policies contributed to the South’s long delayed economic recovery. Among such factors were property confiscations, Republican Party self-interest, discriminatory federal budgets, protective tariffs, Union veteran pensions, banking regulations, discriminatory freight rates, lax monopoly regulation, absentee ownership and the requirement that America’s poorest states pay for the public education of ex-slaves even though emancipation was a national—not regional—policy.​

 

[Andersonh1]

Did the South pay reparations? The article makes the case that they did, even if the payments were not labeled as such. In addition, private companies also charged higher rates in the South as a form of protectionism.

During Reconstruction former Confederates were required to pay their share of federal taxes for sizable budget items that if paid by an independent defeated foe would have been reparations. Although reparations are a common form of a victor’s compensation, nobody should assume that the Southern states escaped equivalent penalties merely because they were readmitted to the Union.

The above table summarizes federal tax revenues and spending for a quarter century following the Civil War. More than half of federal tax revenues were applied to three items:

(1) Interest on the federal debt.
(2) Budget surpluses used to retire the federal debt.
(3) Union veterans’ pensions.

Although compelled to pay their share of the taxes required to fund all those items, former Confederates derived no benefit from any of them.

The budget surpluses repaid the federal war debts, which had jumped 40-fold from $65 million at the start of the Civil War to $2.7 billion at the end. Southerners did not hold any of the bonds. Some were held by national banks, which bought them for monetary reserves as mandated by the 1863 National Banking Act, but many Northern civilians also owned the bonds.

Bond policies also penalized Southerners another way. Specifically, an 1869 law required that they be redeemed in gold even though Northern investors bought them during the War with paper money, which traded at a fluctuating discount to gold. Since the bonds and interest had to be paid in gold, the value of paper money required to make such payments was larger than the face amount of the bonds and their associated interest coupons. The difference was an extra cost to the taxpayer but a bonus to the Northern bondholder.

-------------------------

Protective tariffs harmed the South’s export economy. Even as late as the 1930s, the region sold 60% of its cotton overseas. But foreign buyers could not pay for Southern cotton unless they could generate exchange credits by selling manufactured goods to Americans, which protective tariffs restricted. By one estimate the post Civil War tariffs imposed an implicit 11% tax on agricultural exports. As Cornell professor Richard Bensel puts it, “[the tariff] redistributed [wealth] from the periphery to the [Northern industrial regions] in the form of higher prices for manufactured goods and from the periphery to the national treasury in the form of customs duties.”

--------------------------

While some federal spending not specified in the preceding table did benefit the South, they were few, tiny, or funded by the Southerners themselves. From 1865 – 1873 the federal government spent $103 million on public works, but less than 10% went to the former Confederate states.

--------------------------

Northern railroads steadily increased their ownership of Southern operators for decades after the war due to a Southern capital shortage. Once under Northern control, the railroads quickly began using discriminatory freight rates to block Southern competition to principal Northern shippers such as steel makers.

When asked in 1890 why shipping rates into the North for Southern iron products was higher, one Pennsylvania Railroad agent replied, “It was done at the request of the Pennsylvania iron men.” Yet due to its wealth and industrial concentration, the region north of the Ohio and Potomac rivers was a key market. All domestic manufactures needed to access it if they were to compete on a national scale. As a means of impeding competition from Southern and Western manufactures the discriminatory rates were as effective as protective tariffs, which were constitutionally prohibited between states.

Interstate railroad freight practices were not subject to federal review until the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was formed in 1887. Almost from the beginning, however, the ICC sanctioned discriminatory regional rates. No careful study was made until 1939 when rates for the same service in the South were found to be 40% higher than in the North on fourteen selected items. The differentials were so discriminatory that remote Northern manufactures could ship finished goods into the South at lower cost than Southern makers of the same items could distribute them within their own region.​

 

[pool boy]

There is no doubt that had something like a Marshall Plan in Europe or McArthur Plan in Japan been applied to the post-war South the region and the country would have been much better off because of it.

 

[Kirk's Raider's]

There is no doubt that had something like a Marshall Plan in Europe or McArthur Plan in Japan been applied to the post-war South the region and the country would have been much better off because of it.

How exactly would the federal government that already had borrowed massive amounts of money suddenly have money for a Marshall type plan?
There was no income tax or sales tax.
Also in the 20 th Century to the present Southern states receive far more money from the federal government then they pay in tax revenue.
The Southern states always lagged in education and even to this day they have to import skilled workers from other states. This is a major reason why the modern Democratic Party hopes to turn certain Southern states "blue" in the 2020 elections.
Also why should the federal government have enacted a " Marshall type plan? It's not the fault of Northeners or loyal Unionists that the secessionists chose war.
If Southerners had a problem with poverty that's to bad.
That's why many Southerners post ACW immigrated to other countries or just moved to other states.
Kirk's Raider's

 

[Kirk's Raider's]

If one Google's " how much states receive in federal revenue vs how much they pay many articles pop up.
One is from Business Insider June 14 2019
"11 states pay more money then the take in.
The fallowing states receive in billion dollars more federal government revenue then they pay in tax's in other words they are subsidized by the federal government.
1.Ark 12.7
2. FL 62.43
3.GA 22.8
4. Louisiana 21.2
5.MS 23.5
6.NC 31.2
7.SC 24.4
8.TN 21.2
9.TX 36.5
10 VA 64
Only Al out of the eleven original Confederate States payed more then they receive in federal taxes at-169 million dollars.
The border states are heavily subsidised
1.Ky 26.6
2. Mo 21.1
3. Wv 14.5
These federal subsidies have been going on for years. Yes many other states are subsidized as well.
Point being we can't cry to much for any so called economic damage that the Confederate States brought on themselves.
Kirk's Raider's

 

[Bee]

“Poor Whites Have Been Written out of History for a Very Political Reason”

Poor and working-class whites have almost always been left out of our country’s narrative because in many ways acknowledging their existence is a denial of the American dream, a festering wound in the heart of American exceptionalism. Poor whites in the South have been written out of history for a very political reason: the idea of a “solid white South,” wherein all classes of whites vote the same way and have the same interests, allows the propagation of the Confederate “Lost Cause” narrative, as well as the incorrect (but persistent) notion that all whites are elevated by racism.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/08/...en-out-of-history-for-a-very-political-reason

 

[rittmeister]

There is no doubt that had something like a Marshall Plan in Europe or McArthur Plan in Japan been applied to the post-war South the region and the country would have been much better off because of it.

nobody (on the paying site) would have accepted such an idea in 1865 - not making the ex confederate states pay for the war was a novelty - just compare your wars with mexico and spain.

 

[pool boy]

“Poor Whites Have Been Written out of History for a Very Political Reason”

Poor and working-class whites have almost always been left out of our country’s narrative because in many ways acknowledging their existence is a denial of the American dream, a festering wound in the heart of American exceptionalism. Poor whites in the South have been written out of history for a very political reason: the idea of a “solid white South,” wherein all classes of whites vote the same way and have the same interests, allows the propagation of the Confederate “Lost Cause” narrative, as well as the incorrect (but persistent) notion that all whites are elevated by racism.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/08/...en-out-of-history-for-a-very-political-reason

I wonder how many poor Southern whites the author ever met.

 

[pool boy]

How exactly would the federal government that already had borrowed massive amounts of money suddenly have money for a Marshall type plan?
There was no income tax or sales tax.

I’m not smart enough to figure that out but I do know there was a better way than the way it went down. IMHO the North didn’t figure it needed the South after the CW so it’s resources were used and abused, until the 20th century World Wars broke out and more cannon fodder was needed to preserve the Republic.

Also in the 20 th Century to the present Southern states receive far more money from the federal government then they pay in tax revenue.
The Southern states always lagged in education and even to this day they have to import skilled workers from other states. This is a major reason why the modern Democratic Party hopes to turn certain Southern states "blue" in the 2020 elections.

Yes, Southern states do receive more tax dollars than they return. Much of that is demographically based.

And it is true, Northern workers are moving South because they need a better paycheck, not because they are being imported. Yes, they are mostly bringing with them the same politics that screwed up the businesses where they came from. Brilliant!

That's why many Southerners post ACW immigrated to other countries or just moved to other states.
Kirk's Raider's

Many did migrate West, very few to other countries. Same with Northerners. “Go West young man” certainly had its appeal.

 

[Bee]

I wonder how many poor Southern whites the author ever met.

Lol

(Only on these forums do I see questions/comments like this)

 

[5fish]

Red states are robbing the blue states...

If you look only at the first measure—how much the federal government spends per person in each state compared with the amount its citizens pay in federal income taxes—other states stand out, particularly South Carolina: The Palmetto State receives $7.87 back from Washington for every $1 its citizens pay in federal tax. This bar chart, made from WalletHub's data, reveals the sharp discrepancies among states on that measure.

Link: https://www.theatlantic.com/busines...tates-are-givers-and-which-are-takers/361668/

 

[rittmeister]

Did the South pay financially for the war? Absolutely they did, and as I've said a number of times, my grandparents and great-grandparents grew up in this poor South that is described here. It took nearly a century for the Southern states to truly recover from the war, and it's only really been during and slightly before my lifetime that the region has begun to prosper financially.

Consider:

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/economic-reconstruction/

Contrary to popular belief Southern poverty has been a longer-lasting Civil War legacy than has segregation. Prior to the war the South had a bimodal wealth distribution with concentrations at the poles. The classic planters with fifty or more slaves had prosperous estates but they represented less than 1% of Southern families. Partly because 1860 slave property values represented half of Southern wealth, seven of the ten states with the highest per capita wealth joined the Confederacy.

But since 70% of Confederate families did not own slaves, the South’s per capita income was 28% below the nation’s average. A century later eight of the ten states with the lowest per capita incomes were former Rebel states. The depths of post Civil War Southern poverty and its duration were far greater, longer, and more multiracial than is commonly supposed. It took eighty-five years until 1950 for the South’s per capita income to regain the below average percentile ranking it held in 1860.

The war had destroyed two-thirds of Southern railroads and livestock. Excluding the total loss in the value of slaves resulting from emancipation, assessed real property values in 1870 were less than half of those in 1860. About 300,000 white Southern males in the prime of adulthood died during the war and perhaps another 200,000 were incapacitated, representing almost 20% of the region’s approximate 2.8 million white males of all ages.

--------------------------

By 1870, Southern bank capital totaled only $17 million, compared to $61 million in 1860. National policies largely ignored post-war Southern poverty until President Franklin Roosevelt commissioned a report in 1938, seventy-three years after the war had ended.

The study disclosed that the South remained America’s poorest region. Its 1937 per capita income of $300 was only half of the $600 for the rest of the country. Shortly after the Great Depression began, the president of General Motors voluntarily cut his annual salary from $500,000 to $340,000. His $160,000 cut was more than all the income taxes paid by two million Mississippi residents that year.

During the last year of the prosperous Roaring 1920s, Southern farmers earned an average of $190, which was only about one-third of the $530 average for other American farmers. As a result, there was often little money left for food and clothing and none for otherwise common articles such as books and radios.

--------------------------

Poverty bred poor health. Ailments such a pellagra, rickets and hookworm that were almost unknown in other parts of the country plagued the South for almost a century after the Civil War. All could have been prevented by cheap dietary changes, better sanitation and the use of shoes. So short was the life expectancy in South Carolina that half of state’s population was under age twenty as late as 1930.

Of three million farm homes surveyed in 1930 only 6% had piped-in water. More than half were unpainted. Only about one-third had screens.

Post-war politics and federal economic policies contributed to the South’s long delayed economic recovery. Among such factors were property confiscations, Republican Party self-interest, discriminatory federal budgets, protective tariffs, Union veteran pensions, banking regulations, discriminatory freight rates, lax monopoly regulation, absentee ownership and the requirement that America’s poorest states pay for the public education of ex-slaves even though emancipation was a national—not regional—policy.​

is that what the southern poverty law center is all about?

 

[Kirk's Raider's]

I’m not smart enough to figure that out but I do know there was a better way than the way it went down. IMHO the North didn’t figure it needed the South after the CW so it’s resources were used and abused, until the 20th century World Wars broke out and more cannon fodder was needed to preserve the Republic.



Yes, Southern states do receive more tax dollars than they return. Much of that is demographically based.

And it is true, Northern workers are moving South because they need a better paycheck, not because they are being imported. Yes, they are mostly bringing with them the same politics that screwed up the businesses where they came from. Brilliant!



Many did migrate West, very few to other countries. Same with Northerners. “Go West young man” certainly had its appeal.

Actually quite a few ex Confederate's immigrated post ACW especially to Brazil which had legal slavery until 1888. Just look up the "Confederados" of Brazil.
Kirk's Raider's

 

[Kirk's Raider's]

I’m not smart enough to figure that out but I do know there was a better way than the way it went down. IMHO the North didn’t figure it needed the South after the CW so it’s resources were used and abused, until the 20th century World Wars broke out and more cannon fodder was needed to preserve the Republic.



Yes, Southern states do receive more tax dollars than they return. Much of that is demographically based.

And it is true, Northern workers are moving South because they need a better paycheck, not because they are being imported. Yes, they are mostly bringing with them the same politics that screwed up the businesses where they came from. Brilliant!



Many did migrate West, very few to other countries. Same with Northerners. “Go West young man” certainly had its appeal.

Northern workers are being imported because Southern states grant massive subsidies and lower taxes to out of state and foreign corporations to relocate to the South.
Kirk's Raider's

 

[Viper21]

I wonder how many poor Southern whites the author ever met.

Hard to say. Her opinions are pretty mainstream among today's progressives.

"From the antebellum period to today, Southern white elites are terrified of poor whites and black workers joining hands — because they know it's an existential threat to their power"

Replace Southern White, with Liberal, & remove "poor" & "workers". Then you have a quote I could agree 100% with.

There are a great many folks who profit from stoking racial divisions in our country. If the word racist was removed from their vocabulary, a couple media outlets' word count would drop in half....

Plenty of people act like racists, & nut jobs, only exist in one ideology, & ignore those with ideology similar to theirs. The truth is, those are extreme views, & are a very small minority of our population.

Yet, lots of progressives would have you believe, racism & bigotry is a mainstream ideal, & a huge problem everywhere.

The only demographic it's acceptable to discriminate against today.... Straight, White, Males. Bonus points, if they are Christian.

 

[pool boy]

Lol

(Only on these forums do I see questions/comments like this)

Lol

 

[pool boy]

Actually quite a few ex Confederate's immigrated post ACW especially to Brazil which had legal slavery until 1888. Just look up the "Confederados" of Brazil.
Kirk's Raider's

How many? Out of a white population of what? 5,000,000? Don’t make the rare event common.

 

[pool boy]

Northern workers are being imported because Southern states grant massive subsidies and lower taxes to out of state and foreign corporations to relocate to the South.
Kirk's Raider's

You can look at it the other way too. Industry is fleeing high tax burden, high regulatory burdened state like California are losing business not only to the South but to neighboring states as well. Very few of these organizations are being offered tax incentives, only the largest. The rest are moving without outside help because they’ve had enough of the bs where they are.

 

[pool boy]

Hard to say. Her opinions are pretty mainstream among today's progressives.

"From the antebellum period to today, Southern white elites are terrified of poor whites and black workers joining hands — because they know it's an existential threat to their power"

Replace Southern White, with Liberal, & remove "poor" & "workers". Then you have a quote I could agree 100% with.

There are a great many folks who profit from stoking racial divisions in our country. If the word racist was removed from their vocabulary, a couple media outlets' word count would drop in half....

Plenty of people act like racists, & nut jobs, only exist in one ideology, & ignore those with ideology similar to theirs. The truth is, those are extreme views, & are a very small minority of our population.

Yet, lots of progressives would have you believe, racism & bigotry is a mainstream ideal, & a huge problem everywhere.

The only demographic it's acceptable to discriminate against today.... Straight, White, Males. Bonus points, if they are Christian.

The author doesn’t what she’s talking about. Let’s talk real world vs fantasy. In the 1930’s the populist Democrat Huey Long of Louisiana was one the most powerful politicians in the country. Sen. Long had his eyes on the presidency and would have certainly given FDR a run for his money had he not been assassinated. The Kingfish was a Populist to the core, his motto “a chicken in every pot, and his base constituency was the poor, white Southerner. He was also a virulent racist as were most of his ilk like Theo. Bilbo of Mississippi in the 1920’s -30’s South.

What the author doesn’t understand is that the more educated and enlightened white Southerners were the leaders in trying to lead the region out of the dark ages of racial conflict, not the other way around. Their fear of poor whites and blacks uniting against them that she imagines them is pure invention and has no basis in fact at all.

 

[pool boy]

is that what the southern poverty law center is all about?

No, the SPLC has been exposed as a Morris Dees scam, a vehicle where he collected hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions that he never had to account for. And the ultimate irony is that the organization was rife with internal racial and gender discrimination under his close watch. Dees was fired from the SPLC earlier this year.