The Political Legacy of American Slavery

Abstract

We show that contemporary differences in political attitudes across counties in the American South in part trace their origins to slavery's prevalence more than 150 years ago. Whites who currently live in Southern counties that had high shares of slaves in 1860 are more likely to identify as a Republican, oppose affirmative action, and express racial resentment and colder feelings toward blacks. These results cannot be explained by existing theories, including the theory of contemporary racial threat. To explain these results, we offer evidence for a new theory involving the historical persistence of political and racial attitudes. Following the Civil War, Southern whites faced political and economic incentives to reinforce existing racist norms and institutions to maintain control over the newly free African-American population. This amplified local differences in racially conservative political attitudes, which in turn have been passed down locally across generations. Our results challenge the interpretation of a vast literature on racial attitudes in the American South.

Retracted: A Legacy of Lynchings: Perceived Black Criminal Threat Among Whites

“…The figures show the influence of lynching on perceived black criminal threat across levels of disadvantage and, separately, levels of percent voting Republican. 3 One reviewer, citing Acharya et al (2016), suggested that slavery may account for some of the effect of lynchings. In ancillary analyses, we included a county-level variable to account for the proportion of the black population who, according to the 1860 U.S. Census, were slaves.…”

“…Finally, greater attention is needed to ways in which other historical conditions may be relevant in understanding the effects of lynchings, racial threat processes, and contemporary views whites hold toward blacks. Acharya et al (2016), for example, have argued for the potential role that slavery, and competition among whites and blacks, may play in influencing whites' racial resentment, political affiliation, and views about affirmative action (see also Wells 1970). Although they found no evidence that slavery effects arose through racial threat processes, the study aligns with studies of lynchings in pointing to the persistent influence of the past.…”

“…The Civil War marked a turning point in the history of the United States, one that drew attention to changing status of blacks. Passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, raised questions about whites' position in society (Acharya et al 2016;Alexander 2012;Davis 2006;Feagin 2013). In response, during the post-War upheaval, whites' animosity toward blacks escalated (Brundage 1993;Tolnay and Beck 1995).…”

“…In addition, this animus has shaped modern-day whites' views about 1 A related line of work examines how racial threat processes may influence support for programs that benefit blacks or contribute to negative views of blacks. Evidence that racial threat explains variation in such outcomes is mixed (see Acharya et al 2016). blacks and punitive sanctions, especially those that may serve to control or punish blacks.…”

Documenting the unauthorized: Political responses to unauthorized immigration

“…Finally, some scholars have found that voters in areas that were historically racist against Blacks are also more likely to vote for the Republicans, especially in the U.S. South. If historical legacy is correlated with modern opposition for immigrants, then voters' reactions could be reflecting historical prejudice rather than current response to unauthorized immigration (Acharya, Blackwell, & Sen, 2016;O'Connell, 2012;Reece & OConnell, 2016). The advantage of being able to use cross-sectional time-series data is that we are able to control for historical prejudice, as well as any other time-invariant correlates, through the inclusions of county fixed effects.…”