Southern United States

Southern United States, also known as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South, is a region in southeastern United States, generally though not exclusively considered to be south of the Mason–Dixon Line, the Ohio River, and the 36°30′ parallel, and east of the 97th meridian.

History

The region was historically set apart from other sections of the country by a complex of factors: a long growing season, its staple crop patterns, the plantation system, and black agricultural labor. Southern nationalists may state that the white settlers there had somewhat different genetics from other white settlers, influencing various differences.

Deep South

The term "Deep South" is defined in a variety of ways:

• Most definitions include the states of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina.
• The seven states that seceded from the United States before the firing on Fort Sumter and the start of the American Civil War, and originally formed the Confederate States of America. In order of secession they are: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. Due to the migration patterns of the last half-century, large areas of Florida and Texas are often no longer included under the term. However, there are certain parts of these states, such as East Texas, and the Florida Panhandle, that retain cultural characteristics of the Deep South. Some scholars apply the term 'Deep South' to the trans-Appalachian states of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.

For most of the 19th century and 20th century, the Deep South overwhelmingly supported the Democratic Party, viewing the rival Republican Party as a Northern organization responsible for the American Civil War, which devastated the economy of the Old South. However, since the 1964 presidential election along with the Civil Rights Movement, the Deep South has tended to vote for the Republican candidate in presidential elections, except in the 1976 election when Georgia native Jimmy Carter received the Democratic nomination. Since the 1990s there has been a continued shift toward Republican candidates in most political venues; another Georgian, Republican Newt Gingrich, was elected Speaker of the House in 1995. Presidential elections in which the region diverged noticeably from the Upper South occurred in 1928, 1948, 1964 and 1968, and, to a lesser extent, in 1952 and 1956. Mike Huckabee did well in the Deep South in 2008 Republican primaries (losing only South Carolina and Mississippi), but he was unsuccessful in clinching the nomination. Barack Obama did well in the Deep South during the 2008 Democratic Primaries, winning there against rival Hillary Clinton.

See also

• American Civil War
• Civil Rights Movement
• Confederate revisionism
• Reconstruction era
• Slavery
• Southern nationalism
• Confederate States of America

External links

Encyclopedias

• Encyclopedia Britannica: The South
• Encyclopedia.com: The South