@Mango Hill ,
The book,
The Militant South, by John Hope Franklin, might help shed light on your question.
From the
Preface of the book comes the following paragraph:
"...While considerable attention has been given to the social, cultural, and psychological conditions of the South before 1861, certain aspects are yet incomplete. In the ante-bellum period, large numbers of observers, including Southerners, made more than passing references to those phases of Southern life and culture that suggested a penchant for militancy which at times assumed excessive proportions. The persistence of the rural environment, the Indian danger, the fear of slaves, an old-world concept of honor, an increasing sensitivity, and an arrogant self-satisfaction with things as they were contributed. Reflected in the culture and conduct of Southerners, it militated against a calm, deliberate approach to their problems. Several years ago, the late Wilber J. Cash, a distinguished Southern journalist, observed that the ante-bellum Southerner
"did not think; he felt." Feeling or groping his way toward a solution of his increasingly complex problems, the Southerner not infrequently reached militantly, indeed violently..."
An interesting concept.
Sincerely,
Unionblue