Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Virginia was, is, and will always be a southern state. People moving in does not change that fact. This type of argument is silly.
Sometimes people move in and stay. Then they are part of the culture and have an effect on the state.
Maryland was completely transformed as a state in the past half century, changing it's identity drastically. Couldn't the same thing happen to Virginia? If Virginia suburbs kept spreading, transplants kept moving in, and suburbanite culture exterminated traditional culture, would it still be a southern state? Proponents of Maryland being northern usually cite population - over half the population lives in "northerny" areas. NoVA already makes up 1/3 of Virginia's population and keeps on growing. If NoVA extends to take over 1/2 of VA's population, would VA still be southern and always so?
Washington DC is the foundation of southern culture.
DC wasn't even around until a while after the Revolution - and not much of an important cultural city until more recently than that. How on earth is it a foundation of southern culture, which traces itself back to the colonial days?
Sometimes people move in and stay. Then they are part of the culture and have an effect on the state.
Maryland was completely transformed as a state in the past half century, changing it's identity drastically. Couldn't the same thing happen to Virginia? If Virginia suburbs kept spreading, transplants kept moving in, and suburbanite culture exterminated traditional culture, would it still be a southern state? Proponents of Maryland being northern usually cite population - over half the population lives in "northerny" areas. NoVA already makes up 1/3 of Virginia's population and keeps on growing. If NoVA extends to take over 1/2 of VA's population, would VA still be southern and always so?
"Southern" indicates both geography and culture. Geography doesn't change but culture can. So I'd say instead of kicking certain states out of the South due to certain cultural influences, our definition of what it means to be Southern has to evolve. Because if we keep giving all these states the boot, at some point--even if it's 250 years in the future--there won't even be a South left because expanding cultural influences are inevitable.
"Southern" indicates both geography and culture. Geography doesn't change but culture can. So I'd say instead of kicking certain states out of the South due to certain cultural influences, our definition of what it means to be Southern has to evolve. Because if we keep giving all these states the boot, at some point--even if it's 250 years in the future--there won't even be a South left because expanding cultural influences are inevitable.
Well, Maryland is generally accepted on this website to have been booted from the south due to aforementioned cultural change. In climate and geography it is in the upper south, so I wonder if you would call Maryland southern then?
Well, Maryland is generally accepted on this website to have been booted from the south due to aforementioned cultural change. In climate and geography it is in the upper south, so I wonder if you would call Maryland southern then?
Maryland was changing when the civil war started. The slave population was also going down.
Missouri also changed after the civil war. Especially the last 50 or so years Missouri has lost even more southerness. Heck up until the mid 60s I've usually seen Missouri regarded as a border state, or upper south in a number of news articles. Around that time that stopped and the term Midwest was used to describe Missouri mostly.
Present day missouri overall is much more southern and conservative than Maryland is. here in Missouri about 25 percent of the state is still Dixie, and another quarter still a mix of southern and midwest culture like southern Indiana is. Maryland has some places on the eastern shore that or still southern but that's about it.
Also many historians state that if the lawmakers were not jailed, that likely they would have not seceeded due to not having enough pro secession lawmakers. Missouri on the other hand our governor and Lt governor were pro confederate, and most of the MO state house and senate members were pro secession. They did meet in Neosho and voted to seceede, but they were ran out of jefferson city, and also the debate if there were enough House members present to make the vote legit. Senate journal later found showed the Senate side had enough present for a qorum. However there is all sorts of legalities surrounding the "neosho convention" and who was the legit government at the time is still debated too because the constitutional convention wasn't given authority to depose the lawmakers. I don't want to get into that though, it's too complex.
Especially the last 50 or so years Missouri has lost even more southerness.
That's exactly what happened in MD too, and especially the last 20 years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DesertFoxFan
here in Missouri about 25 percent of the state is still Dixie
Same in Maryland, perhaps even a bit more.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DesertFoxFan
Heck up until the mid 60s I've usually seen Missouri regarded as a border state, or upper south
Maryland was still regarded as a Southern state then and is regarded mostly as a border or Mid-Atlantic state now.
Point being, Maryland didn't stop being southern right after the civil war, and I would argue that it is a just as southern as Missouri today. It's a very common misconception that southern culture in MD is next to nonexistent, and an even more common misconception that Maryland hasn't been southern for a long time. Missouri isn't any more southern than Maryland, St. Louis even felt less southern than Baltimore to me. Of course both states in the present day are mostly not southern.
That's exactly what happened in MD too, and especially the last 20 years.
Same in Maryland, perhaps even a bit more.
Maryland was still regarded as a Southern state then and is regarded mostly as a border or Mid-Atlantic state now.
Point being, Maryland didn't stop being southern right after the civil war, and I would argue that it is a just as southern as Missouri today. It's a very common misconception that southern culture in MD is next to nonexistent, and an even more common misconception that Maryland hasn't been southern for a long time. Missouri isn't any more southern than Maryland, St. Louis even felt less southern than Baltimore to me. Of course both states in the present day are mostly not southern.
if I recall the 1964 civil rights act all of MD congressmen voted for the act. While In Missouri the ones that represented districts in southern MO voted against it, and one of them in the little dixie area of western MO voted against it while the urban ones of Stl, KC voted for it. Our senators both voted for it, but I recall Senator Long took some arm twisting to cast a vote for it.
Maryland has been liberal for awhile now while Missouri never became a liberal state. Democraphically southern baptist don't dominate any of the counties in MD except for Western MD methodist are the majority in some counties. Outside of KC, Stl and the river communities southern baptist dominate the rest of the areas.
Also civil war time MD did not get admitted into the Confederate congress, MO and KY did. If the union army had not invaded Missouri so quickly, we likely would officially been called a confederate state today. Our lawmakers either would have went around the convetion and voted us out, or pressure would have been put on the convention to go back and vote yes. A history book I had in school last year talked about MO some, and even said the fast action by the Union army saved Missouri for the Union, and other books, ect even say Missouri was almost lost.
The Battle of Pea Ridge in 1862 however is usually labled as the best chance Sterling Price had of securing Missouri for the Confederacy as a victory there would have opened the flood gates for the Confederacy to get into the state. "Prices Raid" of 1864 was also intended to retake Missouri but capturing St. Louis, and if not that to take Jefferson City and reinstall the original pro confederate government, but the union had too many men, and Sterling Price's army was nearly demolished when they retreated the state.
So it would be interesting if Missouri was labled an offical Confederate State by the Lincoln admin if that would have changed what MO is called today if it would be considered southern by more people then. I think IMO it would, but we'd see a few more Confederate memorials in the state. Also it would have changed reconstruction on the Federal level as well.
Okay, but that's just the civil war, not culture. Maryland used to be undeniably southern in culture despite whatever leaning it had in the civil war. Every history book I have left over from my college history classes makes the claim that Maryland would have seceded if not for the governor stalling things until the union army came in, and despite Kentucky being accepted into the CSA Kentucky was more loyal to the union than the notably disloyal Maryland was. You also have to remember that Maryland is a much older place than Missouri.
Maryland was founded as a catholic colony, there's no surprise it has a Catholic majority- but Catholicism is sparse in comparison to states further north, and there isn't a Baptist or Methodist shortage.
Being conservative is as much a Midwestern thing as a Southern thing, so that really doesn't say much at all.
Maryland never really "became liberal". Maryland was blue to the civil rights act, but unlike other southern states at the time didn't turn red afterwards. Maryland is notable even today because the vast majority of citizens call themselves conservatives, yet the vast majority vote democrat for governor and president. A study showed that for Maryland to be as blue as the data claims, even the Republicans in the state must usually vote for the democratic candidate. Other than the heavily transplanted DC suburbs, you won't find hardly any liberals in MD; the democrats elsewhere, like in Baltimore, tend to be conservative.
Whatever the religious makeup or civil war loyalties of the state, the fact remains that until the 60's and often later, Maryland was regarded as being southern. Now, it's been booted from the south.
The point is that if a state that was fully upper southern in culture got booted due to immigration and cultural change, I think it's ridiculous to make the claim that Virginia or any other state "will be southern no matter how many people move in or how much it changes". Clearly culture isn't static and Virginia is perfectly capable of losing it's southerness. If one makes a claim that a completely northernized Virginia should still be called southern, then in the modern day logically one would include Maryland in the south too, by that definition.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
