I doubt it. Read _Albion's Seed_, or _Bound Away: Virginia and the Westward Movement_. The South originates with Virginia, with Jamestown in particular, and thu

I doubt it. Read _Albion's Seed_, or _Bound Away: Virginia and the Westward Movement_. The South originates with Virginia, with Jamestown in particular, and thus with the west country of England; it always was a very quasi-medieval, quasi-feudal, aristocratic society. Southerners embraced Scott because they saw their values in him; they didn't change their values because they liked his books. (One surprising but evidently true thesis of _Albion's Seed_ and _Bound Away_: slavery came first, economic uses for slavery came later. In the Southern aristocrat's estimation, you couldn't be a gentleman without having peasants to tug their forelocks to you -- and free indentured servants proved impossible to keep on the plantation.)