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In some states close to half of all families had slaves. In the south as a whole around 1 family in every 5 held slaves, and these were the people who would have to root or die. The benefits of slavery were far more common that you are apparently willing to admit.

James Webb's 2004 book Born Fighting, pg 212:

"As John Hope Franklin points out in his landmark work From Slavery to Freedom, by 1860 Virginia was still the greatest slaveholding state, while regionwide less than 5% of the whites in the South owned slaves. Franklin goes on to say that, "Fully three-fourths of the white people of the South had neither slaves nor an immediate economic interest in the maintenance of slavery or the plantation system." Further, of the 385,000 who did own slaves, more than 200,000 had five slaves or less, and "fully 338,000 owners, or 88 percent of all the owners of slaves in 1860 held less than twenty slaves.""

So. We can take your "half of all families" which morphs into 20% of the whole, or James Webb's less than 5%.

You would rather call people marxist and go home.

Well, Mr N-S, there were indeed a couple of arguably marxist journalists who did like to paint the Civil War as the slaveowners against the forces of progress. And they were big fans of Mr Lincoln as well:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/11/07.htm

So. We can take your "half of all families" which morphs into 20% of the whole, or James Webb's less than 5%.

You do like simple answers, don't you? Anyone who disagrees is a Marxist, things like that? Webb's statistics are for slave holding states as a whole and include those 4 states that did not participate in the rebellion. If you look at the seven original rebelling states the percentage of families that owned slaves was around 37%. In some states like Mississippi and Alabama it was almost half. In the four states that joined the rebellion after Sumter about 25% of all families owned slaves. In all the rebellious states the percentage was about 31%. A much more reasonable figure than your 5%, and easier to understand why the south could rebel to protect slavery when so many people received benefit from it.

And even that 5% is misleading. In 1950 the percentage of people in this country who owned corporate stock equal to the value of a single prime slave, about $1000, was only 2%. Slavery in it's time was more common than stock ownership was 90 years later.

." Further, of the 385,000 who did own slaves, more than 200,000 had five slaves or less, and "fully 338,000 owners, or 88 percent of all the owners of slaves in 1860 held less than twenty slaves.""

I'm not sure what your point is here. If you're trying to say that most slave owners were not large plantation owners then I would agree with that. Slave ownership was very much a middle class institution for the southern white. Thomas Jackson, for example, was a college professor prior to the war. He owned as many as 9 slaves at one time. Most slaves weren't out laboring in the fields. They were cooks, maids, grooms, gardeners, and nannies. Household staff. But does that make their impact any less on the southern white family, does it?