[rdb3]

Many southern whites were worse off economically than most Black slaves. Before you seize on that and laugh, think about it. The South was the last place any white person would go to find economic opportunity. In 1860, out of a Southern population of 9,000,000 people, 4,000,000 were slaves. Most work of any significance was done by slaves and there was no way to take a job and make a start to work your way up. Unless you had enough money to buy land and fifty slaves, you were at an economic dead end and would starve before finding any opportunity in the Old South. Slavery was economically disastrous to white people. The only opportunity for a white person born without inherited position was to head North.

Wait a second! You mean to tell me that the statement, "[t]he North was jealous of Southern prosperity..." is either a myth or propaganda?

Wow!

[RLK]

Wait a second! You mean to tell me that the statement, "[t]he North was jealous of Southern prosperity..." is either a myth or propaganda?

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Most people think I am pure German because of my temperament and last name. And I look at mayself as a high tech displaced Amishman. In fact, my Mother was Southern Scotch-Irish and that side of the family can be traced at least to the 1700s. My great grandfather or granduncle owned a sizable proportion of the state of Alabama. It was said one could ride for two and one half days without leaving his land. There was probably only room for 20 men like him in the state. He was a virtual King. When he died his estate was still worth

millions even after the civil war. My old cantankerous grand-aunt refused to claim the estate so it reverted to the state of Alabama as unclaimed property..

Historians and vacationers go down there and see those plantation houses and slave quarters and believe that's what the South was. That's what the South was for about one or two percent of the population. The average southerner had very little. It's just a fact.