ABSTRACT
This chapter concentrates on the impact of slavery on the structure and character of Southern white society. Much of the recent work on the lives of the slaves themselves has focused on the two environments within which they dwelt—one controlled by the master, backed by all the weight and power of white society, and the other provided by the interior life of the slave community. Similarly, most Southern whites lived in two environments—one shaped by contact with the institution of slavery and the presence of black slaves, the other by the social, economic, and political relationships within the white community. The larger slave owners were leaders in their own communities, and they or their lawyer-spokesmen occupied a disproportionately high share of elective offices and other positions of power and influence. Throughout the antebellum era the overwhelming majority of the landowners and voters perceived a profound kinship between their interests and those of the planters.
