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The Political Legacy of American Slavery

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The Political Legacy of American Slavery The Political Legacy of American Slavery Avidit Acharya, Stanford University Matthew Blackwell, Harvard University Maya Sen, Harvard University 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 re- sentment and colder feelings toward blacks. We show that these results cannot be explained by existing theories, in- cluding the theory of contemporary racial threat. To explain the results, we offer evidence for a new theory involving the historical persistence of political 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 freed African American population. This amplified local differences in racially conservative political attitudes, which in turn have been passed down locally across generations. or the first 250 years of American history, white land- the American South. Drawing on a sample of more than owners, predominantly from the South, enslaved mil- 40,000 Southern whites and historical census records, we Flions of individuals of African descent. This “peculiar show that whites who currently live in counties that had institution,” as it was sometimes called, defined the social, high concentrations of slaves in 1860 are today on average economic, and political landscape of the American South more conservative and express colder feelings toward Af- throughout this period. Slavery was so crucial to the South rican Americans than whites who live elsewhere in the that one Georgia newspaper editor wrote, “Negro slavery is South. That is, the larger the number of slaves per capita in the South, and the South is negro slavery” (cited in Faust his or her county of residence in 1860, the greater the 1988, 60). Yet, despite slavery’s prominence in shaping Amer- probability that a white Southerner today will identify as a ican history, and despite volumes written by economists and Republican, oppose affirmative action, and express attitudes historians on its consequences, political scientists have largely indicating some level of “racial resentment.” We show that overlooked how American slavery and the events following these differences are robust to accounting for a variety of its abolition could continue to influence the South’s con- factors, including geography and mid-nineteenth-century temporary politics. Given recent findings on the long-term economic and social conditions. These results strengthen consequences of past events and institutions (Acemoglu, when we instrument for the prevalence of slavery using García-Jimeno, and Robinson 2012; Dell 2010; Nunn and geographic variation in cotton-growing conditions. Wantchekon 2011; Voigtländer and Voth 2012), it would be We consider several explanations for our results rooted surprising if such a fundamental aspect of American history in contemporary forces and find each to be inconsistent had no persistent impact on American politics. with the empirical evidence. For example, we consider the In this paper, we show that the local prevalence of possibility that whites are simply more racially conservative slavery—an institution that was abolished 150 years ago— when exposed to larger black populations—the central has a detectable effect on present-day political attitudes in finding of the literature on racial threat (Blalock 1967; Avidit Acharya ([email protected]) is an assistant professor at Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305; web: http://stanford.edu/~avidit. Matthew Blackwell ([email protected]) is an assistant professor at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138; web: http://www.mattblackwell.org. Maya Sen ([email protected]) is an assistant professor at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138; web: http://scholar.harvard.edu/msen. Data and supporting materials necessary to reproduce the numerical results in the paper are available in the JOP Dataverse (https://dataverse.harvard.edu /dataverse/jop). An online appendix with supplementary material is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/686631. The Journal of Politics, volume 78, number 3. Published online May 19, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/686631 q 2016 by the Southern Political Science Association. All rights reserved. 0022-3816/2016/7803-0001$10.00 621 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.052 on June 15, 2016 06:28:11 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 622 / The Political Legacy of American Slavery Avidit Acharya, Matthew Blackwell, and Maya Sen Blumer 1958; Key 1949). However, when we estimate the are driven exclusively by contemporaneous forces—making direct effect of slavery on contemporary attitudes (Acharya, our position quite distinct from much of the existing public Blackwell, and Sen, forthcoming), we find that contempo- opinion literature. rary shares of the black population explain little of slavery’s The paper proceeds as follows. First, we motivate our effects. We also test various other explanations, including hypothesis that historical persistence—and not just con- the possibility that slavery’s effects are driven exclusively by temporary factors—shape modern-day political attitudes. twentieth-century population shifts or income inequality We discuss our data in the next section and present our between African Americans and whites. We find no evi- core results linking the prevalence of slavery in 1860 and dence that these contemporary factors and theories of pop- contemporary attitudes in the following section, with ad- ulation sorting fully account for our results. Introducing ditional robustness checks presented in the appendix, avail- individual-level and contextual covariates commonly used in able online. We then consider and provide evidence against the public opinion literature also does not explain away our several competing theories rooted in contemporary factors, finding. including the theory of racial threat. In the following section, To explain our results, we instead propose a theory of we provide evidence for our theory of the historical persis- the historical persistence of political attitudes. The evidence tence of political attitudes, paying close attention to post- suggests that regional differences in contemporary white at- bellum political and economic incentives as the driving mech- titudes in part trace their origins to the late slave period and anism. We conclude by discussing the broader implications the time period after its collapse, with prior work suggest- of our research for scholarship in American political behavior. ing that the fall of slavery was a cataclysmic event that un- ’ dermined Southern whites political and economic power. EXPLAINING REGIONAL DIFFERENCES IN For example, Du Bois (1935), Foner (2011), and Key (1949), SOUTHERN POLITICAL AND RACIAL ATTITUDES among others, have argued that the sudden enfranchisement We orient our analysis toward the Southern “Black Belt” of blacks was politically threatening to whites, who for cen- (or the “Cotton Belt”), the hook-shaped swath of land that turies had enjoyed exclusive political power. In addition, the was the primary locus of antebellum slavery (fig. 1). Scholars emancipation of Southern slaves undermined whites’ eco- have noted that Black Belt whites were particularly promi- nomic power by abruptly increasing black wages, raising la- nent in Southern politics and have been more conservative bor costs, and threatening the viability of the Southern plan- than whites elsewhere in the South. As V. O. Key wrote, it tation economy (Alston and Ferrie 1993; Ransom and Sutch is “the whites of the black belts who have the deepest and 2001). Taken in tandem with massive preexisting racial hos- most immediate concern about the maintenance of white tility throughout the South, these political and economic supremacy,” and “if the politics of the South revolves around changes gave Southern Black Belt elites an incentive to fur- any single theme, it is that of the role of the black belts” (Key ther promote existing anti-black sentiment in their local com- 1949, 5–6). Furthermore, the Black Belt has had an enormous munities by encouraging violence toward blacks and racist influence on national politics. Members of Congress from attitudes and policies (Roithmayr 2010). This amplified the these areas held influential positions, effectively exercising differences in white racial hostility between former slave- veto power during the development of the welfare state in holding areas and non-slaveholding areas and intensified the 1920s and 1930s (Katznelson, Geiger, and Kryder 1993). racially conservative political attitudes within the Black Belt. Given these facts, our motivating question is this: Why are These have been passed down locally, one generation to the whites who currently live in the Black Belt more conserva- next. tive than whites living elsewhere in the South, particularly We provide empirical support for this mechanism by on race-related issues? We consider two broad classes of showing that areas of the South that were the earliest to explanations: (i) the historical persistence of attitudes orig- eliminate the political and economic incentives for anti-black inating in slavery and (ii) contemporary factors, including
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