The end of slavery and the Old South

I just finished Bruce Levine's book, The Fall of the House of Dixie: The Civil War and the Social Revolution that Transformed the South. Most of what I've read on the Civil War, while not ignoring the southern perspective, is typically written through northern eyes. I therefore found two things particularly interesting in Levine's book:

• Southern opinion was actually quite diverse on the question of succession and the war. The inevitability of succession was by no means shared by all southern whites, and there were several southern-based groups that actively fought against the Confederacy throughout the war. In fact, Robert E. Lee and other Confederate officers were forced to dispatch regiments from the regular army to help with home defense. 
• While most southern (and northern, for that matter) whites shared a common belief in white supremacy, only a select few at the top of the social hierarchy owned most of the slaves. This means that many of the soldiers fighting for the Confederacy were non-slave holders, and as the war dragged on many of these poorer folks developed a deep resentment for the planter elite. They began to wonder why they should fight such a destructive war to preserve an institution that they never had, nor likely ever would, benefit from.

Levine, in his BookTV lecture (you can also check out an NPR interview here), cites a recent national survey in which 50% of Americans polled "deny that slavery was the main cause of the U.S. Civil War." This view is even more prevalent among those below 30 years of age (nearly 3 out of 5). One of the key points of the book, and most of the contemporary sources appear quite clear on this, is that slavery was in fact a major, if not the major, impetus for the war. Other motivating factors, like the defense of state's rights or the maintenance of southern honor, while certainly important to some individuals, were largely concocted by elite slave owners to inspire the non-slave holding majority to participate, or drudged up years later to justify the war in a postbellum society hostile to slavery.

Although I didn't plan it this way, the North Carolina Museum of History is currently exhibiting an original copy of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which Lincoln issued in September of 1862 and warned the Confederacy of the Union's intention to grant freedom to slaves within areas still in active rebellion. My wife and I stopped by the exhibit yesterday, and two pages of the proclamation (they never have all seven on display at once), written in the hand of one of  Lincoln's secretaries (I would guess either John Hay or John Nicolay, although I have not been able to confirm this), are on display. The museum will also be showing North Carolina's original copy of the 13th Amendment that abolished slavery in the United States:

References:

Levine, B (2013). The fall of the house of Dixie: The Civil War and the social revolution the transformed the South. Random House, New York.