same time in history. He contends that differences between North and South are more important than similarities and that the North's distinctiveness may be more important to consider than the South's.
In addition to the obvious fact of slavery, which produced two quite different social and economic structures, he looks at social factors, including education and the attitude of each region toward literacy, as well as marriage patterns and homicide rates. McPherson puts much greater weight than does Pessen on social patterns, rather than economic figures, and finds in them differences that, he contends, are important to the argument.
McPherson suggests that what is wrong with traditional historical views is not the idea that antebellum North and South were different, since they were, provably, but that the North, not the South, posed the real threat to the status quo. He writes, "The South thus shared a bond with the rest of humankind that other Americans did not share" ("Differences" 74). The North's ultimate victory, then, is the principal reason that the United States became such a unique nation among the world powers. The North's ideas, society, and structure were what was radical, distinct, and "modern" in the American experiment.
Part 2 Historians have examined and argued over the differences and similarities between the North and South before the start of the Civil War and whether such contrasts played a significant role in starting the conflict. In many ways, the North and South were divided by more than geographical borders and united by more than a common political system. Yet only four important distinctions appear to be relevant in contrasting the two regions and informing the commencement of the bloody battle that ultimately pitted the two sides against each other.
The first difference, and probably the most significant, was the fact that slavery was legal in the South and illegal in the North. This...