Northern and Southern Attitudes

Throughout the passages from diaries, letters and newspaper accounts from Northerners and Southerners in Voices from the House Divided the subject of class and social order provides a consistent contrast between the two sides. Southern attitudes conform to a general view of the hierarchical nature of their society. But the Northern writers reflect the incredible fluidity of Union society where the assumption of equality is terribly important but is often just a convenient means of building up a different kind of hierarchy -- one based on merit among those who can prove themselves.

Mary Chestnut's remarks about the universal education in the North touch on the comparison of attitudes perfectly. She is given the letters of a dead Union soldier and notes that "one might shed a few tears" over some of his letters -- women being the same everywhere (17). But then she notes "what a comfort the spelling was" (17). They had been willing, she notes, to admit that universal schooling could have put the North ahead of the South in some ways. But the letters seem to demonstrate that this is not true -- "the spelling is comically bad" (17).

Underlying Chestnut's remarks, which are a casual part of her longer entry, is the nagging fear many Southerners had regarding the manifest ability of the North to progress economically and socially while the south stagnated in its adherence to the old order. Slavery, for the Southerners, was merely the name given (by Northerners) to those w

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oman we did not know, thank Heaven" (218). The Chestnuts are perfectly aware of the limits that have to be put on people's treatment of their slaves. They are even more acutely aware of the distinction between themselves and someone who does not have the sense to follow these unwritten rules. In another instance that would be comic if it were not tragic Mary Jones, in the middle of all their distress over having the house invaded repeatedly by ungentlemanly Union soldiers, is arguing with yet another soldier who wishes to search the house. She gives in but is horrified to see with them "an insolent little mulatto boy" and she calls to the leader and says "order that boy out of my house!" (231). There are limits to what she can stand. Both Jones and her daughter, Mary Mallard, are impressed by the fact that when they ask for officers to speak with various groups of soldiers keep asserting that no one tells them what to do. They are clearly acting illegally and resentful of the women and their own leaders. But Jones and Mallard seem to see their behavior as a reflection of the problems of democracy of the Union sort. The North, of course, also understands the problem with the South's adherence to an old social order. Dal

Category: History - N