# Is the American South really more militaristic than the North? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 1, 2004, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-american-south-really-more-militaristic-than-the-north/231879 "2004-03-01T07:28:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-american-south-really-more-militaristic-than-the-north/231879/21 "2004-03-01T23:53:20Z")
Oh, BTW–Southerners are pretty good soldiers, if my history is correct. You cannot say that about the “warriors” of the Middle East, Their record against Israel alone show that clearly. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-american-south-really-more-militaristic-than-the-north/231879/22 "2004-03-02T04:51:15Z")
> [@](#): > > Ummm…except for the fact that the South has been politically dominant in US politics throughout the 20th & into the 21st Centuries. Given that Southern politicians are basically calling the shots, your analogy breaks down. We’re talking about a cultural thread that goes back at least a century-and-a-half. From abolition to gay marriage, Northern liberals are going to take over and destroy our way of life. And being the dominant political force never stopped anyone from playing the victim; the Christian martyr complex undoubtedly factors in as well. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Broken\_Column](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9bd4f/32.png) [@The\_Broken\_Column](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Broken_Column)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-american-south-really-more-militaristic-than-the-north/231879/23 "2004-03-03T01:03:03Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > The era that began with the New Deal and probably ended with the retirement of Sam Nunn (Senator from Georgia and chairman of the Armed Services Committee). > > In the Midwest, perhaps, but not the Northeast. (And if you look at Lind’s article, he is comparing the South with the Northeast). > > When was the last time a Northeastern militia (in the original sense of the word)was called into service? Be specific. My guess would be the War of 1812, if then. > > (For that matter, when was a Midwestern militia called into service? I honestly don’t know the answer to this, but I am curious.) > > Well, your theories are…interesting. Well, I’m surprised your off-hand knoweldge of History is pretty small, but then, mine being so big I find most people to lack in one area or another. I figured that was the era he was talking about, but it seems unimportant considering its modernity. The issue though is Militias. I know what I was talking about when I said Militias. I was talking about All the North…not just Midwest. Some very noteable militias during the civil war (49 years after 1812) were the New York, Rhode Island, Massachussettes, and Maine Militias. That’s 4 States from the North East, two being very powerful. I’d hardly say that the South has a greater militia history than does the North, and considering the South’s independent nature bringing up the militias seems to be more of a set back to what he is arguing than a support. For you see, why should a South entrenched in its own history and military prowess (it whooped the North’s ass that’s for sure), be so patriotic to their oppressors? (Washington DC.) For a while after the Civil War there was much distrust between the two…if you ever heard the song “I’m a Good Ol’ Rebel” you’d realize just how deep the hatred goes when it included such lines as: “I hates the Constitution this Great Republic Too, I hates the Freedman’s Bureau (still exists today) and Uniforms of Blue.” “300,000 are dead in Southern Dust, we got 300,000 before they conquered us. They died of Southern Fever and Southern Steel and Shot, I wish we got 3 million instead of what we got.” “I hates the Mighty Eagle in all his brags and fuss, them lying thieving Yankees I hates them Wuss and Wuss.” So as you can see, the idea that Southern Military heritage would insite patriotism is a bit of a stretch. That is, if the idea that patriotism stands for military service…I don’t see why anyone would join the military however if they hated the country they were serving for, so I feel that the factors are a bit different and that of course that hatred has subsided with each passing generation. Well anyways keeping directly on target, I do think that the fast paced and material oriented northern states is what causes a fall in Recruits. I am taking a guess but I bet the number of Soldiers from LA is or any metropolis is just as small. Most Soldiers I would be willing to bet come from more rurally located regions and this is due to the fact that rural people are used to hard work and have the time to think about things “beyond” their world. City-folk are really bogged down with internationalism and travelling and education and business and all sorts of things that not only remove your want to join the military, but also make you a bit of a Coward. At least in the sense of, who do you think is more willing to fight? Someone who has a home a farm…something they feel worth fighting for and dying to protect? Or someone who has a bunch of Sega’s and Computer games and Stereos things that you can’t protect, only use and enjoy while alive. Anyways, in conclusion. The last Militias were called into Service for any major engagement (besides currently in Iraq), during the Civil War. Before the Civil War the Union Army stood at 17,000 men. When the South Seceeded the Union Army had 1 General left who had any combat experience, and about 8,000 Men. That General’s name was Robert E. Lee. When Virginia Seceeded Lee said, “I can not fight against my country.” Resigned, and joined the Virginian Army. So Abraham Lincoln issued the first Executive Order in the history of this Nation. It was legal because half of Congress just walked out there-by making them an incapable legislative body. His first Executive Order very plainly read. I hereby call all Militias of the States of the Union into service of the Federal Government. That boosted the 8,000 man Army to 70,000 over night. Good stuff…the Civil War was an incredible time period. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Broken\_Column](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9bd4f/32.png) [@The\_Broken\_Column](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Broken_Column)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-american-south-really-more-militaristic-than-the-north/231879/24 "2004-03-03T01:05:15Z")
Oh further emphasis that the North had a militia heritage as much as the South…in the North you did not join the “Federal Army”. There was no “Federal Recruiting Station” to go to. You joined your State’s milita and became a “Union” soldier and fought for the Union Army. We didn’t have a Standing Army as we do today until after WW2. It’s inconceivable now it seems, to think of America without an Army, but until 1940 America’s military numbered at most about 100,000 Men. To put that into perspective, America’s military currently numbers about 1.5 million. Including the National Guards which today are more extensions of Fedearl control than they are State Militias. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-american-south-really-more-militaristic-than-the-north/231879/25 "2004-03-03T01:26:15Z")
My point (as **Captain Amazing** inferred), was that the South had a more or less continuous history of militia call-ups and voluntary service from the founding of the nation on up through the Civil War. Not so in the Northeast. Another point to ponder: in 1831, de Tocqueville noticed that a difference in temperament had already developed between the Northeasterner and the Southerner: > [@](#): > > I should express the difference in this way. What distinguishes the North is its enterprising spirit, what distinguishes the South is _l’esprit aristocratique_ [spirit of chivalry?]. The manners of the inhabitant of the South are frank, open; he is excitable, irritable even, exceedingly touchy of his honour. The New Englander is cold and calculating, patient. While you are with the Southerner you are welcome, he shares with you all the pleasures of his house. The Northerner, after having received you, begins to wonder whether he couldn’t do some business with you. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Broken\_Column](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9bd4f/32.png) [@The\_Broken\_Column](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Broken_Column)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-american-south-really-more-militaristic-than-the-north/231879/26 "2004-03-03T01:29:20Z")
Ok that point was lost in translation but also moot. At best only the western Southern States had such a continuous call up just as the western northern states did. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-american-south-really-more-militaristic-than-the-north/231879/27 "2004-03-03T03:18:36Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > I think you hit it right on the head by questioning if Lind were placing too much importance on the legacy of the prerevolutionary “hearthland cultures”. Where did the “Scots-Irish hillbillies” come from after all? They came from the North and they weren’t just Ulster Scots but also Catholic Irish, Germans, regular Scots ( particularly after the '45 ), Welsh, English, Huguenots, Swedes, and Swiss. They came not west from the Southern coast but south along the Great Valley from the backwoods of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, often after just a brief stay. They pushed not just south but also west over the Alleghenies into what today is western PA, Ohio, and beyond. Then there is religion. They came Catholic and Protestant, New Light and Old, with the various pietistic faiths thrown in for good measure. It’s hard to argue that the difference comes from differing backwoods cultures since they were the same ( or at least the same bewildering mix of religious and cultural groups.) Well, this idea certainly isn’t original with Lind. To my knowledge, he first discussed it in print in his book _Vietnam: The Necessary War_ (New York: The Free Press, 1999). In Chapter 4, “The Fall of Washington,” he discusses the different attitudes towards the war among different ethnic groups (e.g., Jews were mostly and most vocally against the war, Catholics for the most part for it), and, more importantly in his view, among different regions. Lind makes the point, citing statistics in support, that Southerners have been more supportive than Northerners of **every** American conflict abroad since the War of 1812, with the sole exception of the Spanish-American War, “when – for the first and only time in U.S. history – intervention abroad was the project of northeastern elites.” Why is this? Lind rejects the “quasi-Marxist” explanation, proposed by some historians, that these sectional divisions are due to “different regional economic strategies” of the North and South (e.g., the South protecting overseas markets for cotton exports). Instead, he attributes it to differences in regional cultures: > [@](#): > > The real reason for the persistence of sectionalism in U.S. foreign policy can be found in the ethnoregional theory of American politics, which has been developed by the historians David Hackett Fischer, Daniel Elazar, D.W. Meinig, Kevin Phillips, and others. The ethnoregional theory holds that in the United States powerful ethnic and regional subcultures are more important and enduring than political parties and ideologies. The labels “Democrat” and “Republican” differ in their meaning from generation to generation; regional subcultures such as those of New England and the Tidewater South change much more slowly. > > The greatest insight of ethnoregional theorists is that immigrants in the United States do not assimilate to a uniform American national culture; rather, they assimilate to one of a small number of preexisting regional cultures. The historian Wilbur Zelinsky has defined a thesis he calls the Doctrine of Effective First Settlement that holds: “Whenever an empty territory undergoes settlement, or an earlier population is dislodged by invaders, the specific characteristics of the first group able to affect a viable, self-perpetuating society are of crucial significance for the later social and cultural geography of the area, no matter how tiny the initial band of settlers may have been.” . . . > > Historians differ on the question of how many of these enduring regional cultures there are in the United States. Most agree on three: a Yankee culture that spread westward overland from New England; a Quaker culture operating in Pennsylvania; and a Cavalier culture originating in the coastal South. Most, but not all, identify a fourth regional culture, that of the Scots-Irish Highland South from Appalachia to the Ozarks and Texas. In his magisterial _Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America_ (1989), David Hackett Fischer argues persuasively that these four “hearth cultures” originated in different regions of early modern Britain and were transplanted to North America by four waves of immigrants. In the first wave (1629-40), Puritans from the eastern counties of England settled New England. The second wave (1642-75) brought anti-Puritan, royalist Cavaliers from the south of England to Virginia. Quakers from the North Midlands of England colonized Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley after emigrating during the third wave (1675-1715). The fourth and final major Anglo-American migration, which lasted from 1717 to 1775, transplanted so-called Scots-Irish from northern England, lowland Scotland, and the north of Ireland (Ulster). > > In addition to having distinctive folkways and dialects of English, these four groups of British-American immigrants had their own unique variants of a common individualistic and liberal British political culture. Fischer describes the New England Puritan ideal as “ordered freedom,” the Quaker ideal as “reciprocal freedom,” the Scots-Irish ideal as “natural freedom,” and the coastal southern ideal as “hegemonic freedom” (deference to traditional elites). Another historian, Daniel J. Elazar, calls the New England tradition the “moralistic” culture, the midatlantic region the “individualistic” culture, and the coastal southern tradition the “traditional” culture. . . . > > The ethnoregional theory provides the answer to the mystery of American sectional differences with respect to war. Regional disagreements about war are part of a larger pattern of regional disagreement about the legitimacy of all forms of violence. “Historians of Southern mores are agreed that violence as an aspect of Southern life clearly distinguished the region from the rest of the country,” writes historian Bertram Wyatt-Brown. Of the southerner, Alexis de Tocqueville observed that “the energy which his [northern] neighbor devotes to gain turns with him to a passionate love of field sports and military exercises; he delights in violent bodily exertion, he is familiar with the use of arms, and is accustomed from a very early age to expose his life in single combat.” Southern states lead the nation not only in military academies but in homicide rates and death penalty laws and in low penalties for domestic violence. Northern states have the lowest homicide rates and the greatest number of statutes requiring a citizen to retreat before attacking an assailant or intruder in hishome. > > These regional differences reflect the difference in moral systems between the post-Calvinist Puritanism of Greater New England, which shuns violence as a means for resolving disputes, and the cultures of honor of the Scots-Irish Highland South and the Anglo-American Tidewater South. The two southern cultures are quite different, but compared to Greater New Englanders, both Highland and Tidewater southerners look with greater approval on violent retaliation for insults. But southerners are not indiscriminately violent. The difference between northern and southern homicide rates is accounted for almost entirely by violent responses of southerners to personal offenses: arguments, insults to women, lovers’ quarrels, and disputes within the family. The researchers Richard E. Nisbet and Dov Cohen discovered that, at the same university, white southern students were more likely to respond aggressively than white northern students to the same set of insults and provocations. The same researchers have pointed out the similarities between the culture of honor of white southerners and that of inner-city black Americans, most of whom are descendants of southern migrants. Which brings us to the question with which I concluded the OP: Assuming all this is true – and the evidence seems to be pretty compelling – **what can we do about it?** I submit, and I challenge any Doper on this board to contradict me, that this attitude of American southerners towards war, militarism, violence and “honor” is a **very bad thing.** It is bad for the South; and, so long as the South has the political influence in D.C. that its population warrants, it is bad for the whole country; and, since in our time the United States is the most important and powerful country on earth, it is bad for the whole world. But how is it possible to train or educate the people of an entire multistate region out of dysfunctional cultural values and attitudes that have persisted for two centuries and more? ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-american-south-really-more-militaristic-than-the-north/231879/28 "2004-03-03T04:43:13Z")
I tend to see the main divisions of revolutionary culture as basically trifold: Eastern/Yankee, Southern/Planter ( who weren’t, despite their delusions of grandeur, descended from Cavaliers ), and Western/backwoods. Though I live in Penna and tend to read more history from here I just don’t see the Quakers as a major component. Perhaps it is the religious angle, they and the Puritans were both Dissentors. Or perhaps this is because my focus is more political than cultural and the Friends withdrew from politics just as the revolutionary period was beginning in the mid 1750s. If I were looking for a fourth major cultural group I wouldn’t call it “Quaker” as it would need to include New Yorkers who had more in common with the inhabitants of Penna and Jersey than with New England. But then I’m no professional historian. Clearly there are cultural differences between North and South. My point is that it is hard to imagine that the differences today are due to the cultures their original white colonists brought with them since the same mix of peoples coming from the same places settled in western PA and Ohio as settled in western Virginia and the western Carolinas. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-american-south-really-more-militaristic-than-the-north/231879/29 "2004-03-03T05:18:57Z")
> [@The\_Broken\_Column](#): > > The last Militias were called into Service for any major engagement (besides currently in Iraq), during the Civil War. > > Before the Civil War the Union Army stood at 17,000 men. When the South Seceeded the Union Army had 1 General left who had any combat experience, and about 8,000 Men. That General’s name was Robert E. Lee. > > When Virginia Seceeded Lee said, “I can not fight against my country.” Resigned, and joined the Virginian Army. > > So Abraham Lincoln issued the first Executive Order in the history of this Nation. A few nitpicks. First, if, when you’re talking about militias, you count the National Guard (and I think you do, because you’re mentioning service in Iraq), the Guard saw service in the Spanish-American war (unofficially), World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Desert Storm, Haiti, and Bosnia. The name of the general who had combat experience when South Carolina seceeded was Winfield Scott. Robert E. Lee was a colonel when SC seceeded. In addition to Scott, Don Carlos Buell, who had seen service in both the Seminole War and Mexican War was adjutant general of the Department of the Pacific, which usually comes with the military rank of General, although I don’t know if it did in his case. Virginia’s secession referendum was on May 23, 1861, and the secession ordinance was passed by the legislature on April 17, 1861, after the presidential proclamation calling up the militia, which was on April 15, 1861. In fact, the proclamation was one of the reasons Virginia seceeded. And actually, the proclamation said: > [@](#): > > WHEREAS, The laws of the United States have been and are opposed in several States by combinations too powerful to be suppressed in the ordinary way, I therefore call for the militia of the several States of the Union, to the aggregate number of 75,000, to suppress said combination and execute the laws. I appeal to all loyal citizens to facilitate and aid this effort, and maintain the laws and integrity of the National Union and the perpetuity of popular government, and redress wrongs long endured. The first service assigned will probably be to repossess the forts, places and property which have been seized from the Union. The utmost care will be taken, consistent with the object, to avoid devastation, destruction or interference of peaceful citizens in any part of the country; and I hereby command the persons composing the aforesaid combinations to disperse within twenty days from this date. I hereby convene both Houses of Congress for the 4th of July next, to determine upon such measures as the public safety and interest may demand. Also, Lincoln wasn’t the first President to issue an executive order. Washington was (although they didn’t have the name “executive order” at the time). Washington issued an order to the people who held office under the Articles of Confederation on June 8, 1789, asking for full reports on what they had been doing and what active issues still existed. On October 3, 1789, he declared Nov. 26, 1789 a day of Thanksgiving. Washington was even the first to issue an order to call out the militia, on August 7, 1794, when he ordered the militias to crush the Whiskey Rebellion. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-american-south-really-more-militaristic-than-the-north/231879/30 "2004-03-03T15:52:50Z")
> [@](#): > > The researchers Richard E. Nisbet and Dov Cohen discovered that, at the same university, white southern students were more likely to respond aggressively than white northern students to the same set of insults and provocations. The same researchers have pointed out the similarities between the culture of honor of white southerners and that of inner-city black Americans, most of whom are descendants of southern migrants. I was going to raise these exact points, based on my own observations. Interesting to see this phenomenon has been the subject of academic study. I grew up in the rural South. I attended a college which drew from a national base, and where I was exposed for the first time to Northerners in any great number. (I’m sure the same was true for many of my Southern classmates at the school. And _vice-versa_ for the Northerners.) I lived in an all-male dorm. A continuing source of conflict during my freshman year (until everyone got acclimated to one another) was the differing perception of personal insults. Verbal insults (even harsh verbal insults) seemed almost a form of male bonding among Northeasterners, even among those who didn’t know each other well. But those same verbal insults, directed at a Southerner, might be misinterpreted as an invitation to combat. Where I grew up (and in the time I grew up) verbal insults were not to be calmly endured (except playful ones among very close friends). If you were insulted, you fought; and if you didn’t fight, you were a coward. Simple as that. And I also agree with the observation that the same dynamic can be seen in black subculture, where a personal insult (except among very close friends) can quickly lead to a fight. > [@Captain Amazing](#): > > I submit, and I challenge any Doper on this board to contradict me, that this attitude of American southerners towards war, militarism, violence and “honor” is a **very bad thing**. It is bad for the South; and, so long as the South has the political influence in D.C. that its population warrants, it is bad for the whole country; and, since in our time the United States is the most important and powerful country on earth, it is bad for the whole world. But how is it possible to train or educate the people of an entire multistate region out of dysfunctional cultural values and attitudes that have persisted for two centuries and more? You are probably right. Southern “touchiness” may be a bad thing when projected onto the international stage. (Though maybe having a martial subculture to tap into when needed might _not_ be such a bad thing?) Can a deeply-ingrained subculture of “honor” and violent retribution be changed? Well, I don’t know how. It would be a helluva project. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Broken\_Column](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9bd4f/32.png) [@The\_Broken\_Column](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Broken_Column)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-american-south-really-more-militaristic-than-the-north/231879/31 "2004-03-03T16:07:44Z")
Yeah I bungled the General Lee part but I was right in the message conveyed. "The old warrior General Winfield Scott asked Colonel Robert E. Lee to take command of the United States Army to put down the rebellion. Lee, however, offered his services to the newly elected President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis. Mr. Davis accepted them and Lee was made a general in CSA service. At first General Lee was more or less advisor to President Davis and the Secretary of War." Also, after the Civil War the Militias lost a lot of power, by the Spanish American War most fighting was carried out by a “Standing Army”. The point was it would not be until WW2 however that the idea of a Militia was utterly destroyed. I vaguely draw hints to the Guard in Iraq being an example of the Militia though technically it is. Also, I realize that the short order I gave was a paraphrase, I should not have to actually point that out as anyone can look it up, however compared to the 1000 page Executive Orders today, that one paragraphed order is small. And no, the first Executive Order was by Lincoln. The difference between George Washington and Lincoln is that Washington could have been overturned by a Congress, Lincoln was the only remaining elected official who had Constitutional Authority at the time he issued his Executive Order. It was such a precedent that he cried for signing it. I doubt George Washington cried when he put down the Whiskey Rebellion. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-american-south-really-more-militaristic-than-the-north/231879/32 "2004-03-03T17:21:53Z")
> [@The\_Broken\_Column](#): > > Lee, however, offered his services to the newly elected President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis… > > And no, the first Executive Order was by Lincoln. The difference between George Washington and Lincoln is that Washington could have been overturned by a Congress, Lincoln was the only remaining elected official who had Constitutional Authority at the time he issued his Executive Order. Lee actually offered his services to Governor Letcher of Virginia, and he was made a Major General in Virginia’s army on April 23, 1871. He didn’t become a General in the CSA until May 14, 1861. And Lincoln wasn’t the only remaining elected official with constitutional authority, even on a federal level. There was Congress, which, admittedly was in recess at the time. (Part of Lincoln’s order called Congress into session) There was also an unelected constitutional authority, the Supreme Court, which got involved in habas issues in ex parte Merryman. Lincoln ignored the court’s decision in that case, but the court was still around. But in the case of this order, calling up the militia was within Lincoln’s constitutional power…From Article II, section 2 > [@](#): > > The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States and since, as I mentioned, Washington had done it, Lincoln had precedence. If Lincoln was crying when he issued the order, it was from the strain of knowing he would have to order the army against fellow Americans, not because he was claiming expanded powers. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-american-south-really-more-militaristic-than-the-north/231879/33 "2004-03-03T17:23:43Z")
That’s April 23, 1861, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-american-south-really-more-militaristic-than-the-north/231879/34 "2004-03-10T07:52:42Z")
Executive Orders have been issued by every President, but many of the early ones were never published as official documents since they were sometimes simple orders to government agencies. Numbering didn’t begin until the 1900’s, but they decided to begin the numbers with _I think_ the Emancipation Proclaimation. I see a lot of stereotyping in these posts, but I don’t think that it is unfair to say that a large number of service personnel come from the South. I suspect that this is as true of women as it is of men and doesn’t reflect the South’s historical enchantment with glory and honor in battle. There is a _little_ of that to it, I think. There are connections made between serving God and serving one’s country. But there is also the practical matter of getting training and a paycheck and of being independent.It seems to be a sort of self-perpetuating common choice to consider. What I _don’t_ see in the South as much as some might think is the aggressiveness and mean-spiritedness of the over-controlling, weapons-crazed, blood junkies. You know the type. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-american-south-really-more-militaristic-than-the-north/231879.md?page=1)