Stephens 1

Kayla Stephens
Hist 442
Final Paper
Southern Honor: To Attain and Fight For
For Southern gentlemen who attended colleges in the South
before the Civil War, these college students were more concerned
about their image in society and attaining and protecting their honor
than they were about achieving a valuable education. However,
academic goals were still important to these young men but it was
honor that motivated them to attain academic achievements.1 The
students entered college with the objective to serve their country and
maintain their principles in a virtuous, confident, and competent
way.2 Along with that, the students believed it was their civil duty to
protect their honor and their property. The Civil War was the greatest
test of the South and young southern college students in defending the
Souths ethics, land, and most important, its honor.3

1 Robert F. Pace, Halls of Honor (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2004), p. 11.
2 Timothy J. Williams, Intellectual Manhood (masters thesis,
University of North Carolina, 2010), pg. 5.
3 Robert F. Pace, Halls of Honor (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2004), p.
116.

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School was one of the main venues these students had to find their
identities and how to learn how to protect their honor. Of all of the
challenges that young antebellum college students had to face in their
quest for manhood, honor and prestige, the college environment was
one of the toughest venues to attain that respect. In Robert Paces
book, Halls of Honor, he writes, (The students) education was their
path to leadership, fame, and fortune.4 Southern honor was
synonymous with hierarchy and privilege.5 The only way for these
students to shoot up the ladder of reputation was to put on their
masks of southern gentlemen as they interacted with their peers and
the world around them.6 When these students considered manhood
and becoming men they were discussing the action of leaving the
comforts of home and creating their own identity for themselves.7
In Bertram Wyatt-Browns book, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior
in the Old South, Brown writes, Honor resides in the individual as his
understanding of who he is and where he belongs in the ordered ranks
4 Robert F. Pace, Halls of Honor (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2004), p. 14.
5 Bertram Wyatt, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old
South (NY: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 4.
6 Robert F. Pace, Halls of Honor (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2004), p. 11.
7 Timothy J. Williams, Intellectual Manhood (masters thesis,
University of North Carolina, 2010), pg. 4.

Stephens 3
of society.8 This honor was not easily attained and it was threatened
many times by the professors, the curricula, and the actual teaching
methods that were considered by the students to be threats to their
honor.9 These students counteracted these threats in many different
ways. Some students responded by getting serious about their studies
and studying harder while other students reeked havoc on their
professors and around their school.10

These young men did not trust

the faculty and they hated the teaching methods used, which included
memorization and recitation, and they sometimes cheated and avoided
work completely as a way to rebel against their professors.11 Pace
explains, Cheating, disruptions in the classroom, challenges to the
professor, and even studying hard all represented the panoply of
responses used by students to cope with the potential humiliation
represented by the faculty, the curriculum, and the teaching methods.
Southern honor did not cause these reactions, but it did weigh heavily

8 Bertram Wyatt, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old

South (NY: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 14.
9 Robert F. Pace, Halls of Honor (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2004), p. 11.
10 Robert F. Pace, Halls of Honor (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2004), p.
11.
11 Timothy J. Williams, Intellectual Manhood (masters thesis,
University of North Carolina, 2010), pg. 6.

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in the background. Despite the imperfect nature of southern higher
education, however, students did learn, and when they graduated they
took with them their pride.12
The code of honor, instead of social status, had more impact on
how the students treated the faculty members.13 Pace describes it as
so, Men of lower social status (which is how the students viewed their
professors) did not have the power to challenge a southern
gentlemens honor. Therefore, students developed a dual relationship
with their professors. They respected faculty erudition and the
knowledge they could impart and saw them as fellow gentlemen, but
they also resented the potential unmasking that faculty power
represented.14 Dr. Cooper, who was a Professor at the South Carolina
College, wrote to Thomas Jefferson that he did not understand the
youth of the South and that if someone of authority questioned them
or accused them of being wrong, it was not their words being
considered wrong but thar their honor was being questioned.15
12 Robert F. Pace, Halls of Honor (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2004), p.
28.
13 Robert F. Pace, Halls of Honor (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2004), p.
16.
14 Robert F. Pace, Halls of Honor (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2004), p.
17.
15 Edwin Green, A History of the University of South Carolina
(Columbia: The State Company, 1916), p.257.

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Because these students believed that their teachers could threaten
their honor shows that the students considered their teachers to be
social equals with them, not their superiors.16 Due to these young
mens egoism and individuality, higher learning was sometimes very
difficult to achieve, if not impossible.17
The academic curriculum that included ancient languages, science,
math, rhetoric, and ethics, showed that knowledge and respectable
qualities defined mens honor and prominence.18 As a result, these
students leaned more towards intellectualism, high-class values, and
cherished their national and regional identities.19 In a session for the
Philanthropic and Dialectic Societies in 1832 at the University of North
Carolina in Chapil-Hill, William Gaston speaks to his peers about
coming out of being a youth and taking the responsibility given to
them by God to become highly respected men of the South. Gaston

16 Robert F. Pace, Halls of Honor (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2004), p.

17.
17 Timothy J. Williams, Intellectual Manhood (masters thesis,
University of North Carolina, 2010), pg. 5.
18 Timothy J. Williams, Intellectual Manhood (masters thesis,
University of North Carolina, 2010), pg. 5.
19 Timothy J. Williams, Intellectual Manhood (masters thesis,
University of North Carolina, 2010), pg. 5.

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proclaims, The end which an ingenuous youth naturally proposes to
himself is, a faithful and honorable discharge of the duties of life. His
objects are to realize the fond hopes of his parents and friends, to
acquire the affection and esteem of those around him, to become the
dispenser of good to his fellow-men, and thus to fulfill the purposes for
which it has pleased God to place him in this world of trial and
discipline.20 Gaston warns his peers that when entering the world of
honor and true adulthood, trial and discipline cannot be avoided.
The characteristics of honor were meant to prevent unjustified violence
and chaos; however, it sometimes was the exact culprit of that
hostility.21
Pace reveals how these young students dealt with conflicts of honor,
Although outlawed, duels often settled conflicts of honor in southern
society. On a college campus, therefore, an adolescent fistfight could
soon escalate into mortal combat. The volatility of student interactions
created an atmosphere in which students had to guard their behavior
with the knowledge that their actions might produce deadly results.
Occasionally, however, students forgot this truism of southern life,

20 William Gaston, Mr. Gastons Address, 1832, Address delivered

before the Philanthropic and Dialectic Societies. Chapil-Hill, North
Carolina, June 20, 1832.
21 Bertram Wyatt, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old
South (NY: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 61.

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resulting in direct conflict with their peers.22 Although these rivalries
of honor resulted in violence, the hostility of these duals represented
the comradery of trust between two southern gentlemen, protecting
each other as brothers, when someone from outside the southern
realm attacked the honor of a comrad.23 This is relevant to the
brotherhood between southern gentlemen when fighting in the Civil
War.
This hostility that included oppression and violence was learned from
the slave system that encompassed these students environments in
the South.24 Robert Pace writes in his book, Halls of Honor, Violence
against slaves played a role in the college environment, and was part
of the education received by southern college students.25 Students
became aware that white mans honor and black mans slavery
were impossible to differentiate.26 Students cared little about freedom
22 Robert F. Pace, Halls of Honor (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2004), p.
92.
23 Bertram Wyatt, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old
South (NY: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 39.
24 Robert F. Pace, Halls of Honor (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2004), p.
48.
25 Robert F. Pace, Halls of Honor (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2004), p.
50.
26 Bertram Wyatt, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old
South (NY: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 16.

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of thought or progress but were more interested in the model of
slaveholding.27 This allowed for students to maintain their reputations
as gentlemen and helped them to stand up for their belief in slavery
and the ethics that went along with the institution.28 However,
opposing forces were encroaching upon the beliefs in the institution of
slavery and to white southerners, this was an attack on their honor.
Wyatt-Brown writes, It was the treat of honor lost, no less than
slavery, that led them to succession and war.29 Southerners believed
that it was the governments duty to protect the property of men, to
which honor was sustainable.30 The start of the Civil War brought
confusion, division, and ultimately resolve to college students in the
antebellum South.31 In Edwin Greens book on the History of South

27 Timothy J. Williams, Intellectual Manhood (masters thesis,

University of North Carolina, 2010), pg. 5.

28 Timothy J. Williams, Intellectual Manhood (masters thesis,

University of North Carolina, 2010), pg. 5.
29 Bertram Wyatt, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old
South (NY: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 5.
30 Bertram Wyatt, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old
South (NY: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 72.
31 Robert F. Pace, Halls of Honor (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2004), p.
98.

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Carolina, Green writes that, The discussion on the issue of succession
brought to the students the conviction that victory for the South was
certain.32 Succession impacted these young college students in a big
way. Many Southern colleges shut down due to all of the students
leaving to join the Confederacy and fight on the battlefields.33 On
February 11, 1861, South Carolina College was put on hold after 9
oclock in order to allow the students of the college to demonstrate
their pride and honor in the formation of the Southern Confederacy.34
The main reason for the sweep of Southern pride was not for keeping
the sacredness of the institution of slavery but to maintain the honor
and tradition of the South.
Robert Pace describes the importance of literary societies to college
life, Literary societies played a major role in the lives of college
students. The main focus of these societies was for student debate,
but in reality they involved much more than this. In the literary
society, a student could learn leadership skills and organizational
relationships. Each campus had at least a pair of these societies, so

32 Edwin Green, A History of the University of South Carolina

(Columbia: The State Company, 1916), pg. 68.
33 Robert F. Pace, Halls of Honor (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2004), p.
102.
34 Edwin Green, A History of the University of South Carolina
(Columbia: The State Company, 1916), pg. 70.

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students learned the value of loyalty to their group, and competition
against their rivals. Finally, it was in the literary society that students
best learned to create their own sense of honor within the academic
setting of the college or university. This honor, at times, put them at
odds with the faculty and administrators of the institution, but it
prepared them for their futures as southern gentlemen.35 Not all
southern college students were supportive of the succession from the
Union and literary societies were great for students to voice their
opinions to their peers. William Gaston, as mentioned before, argued
that, Disguise the truth as we may, and throw the blame where will, it
is slavery which, more than any other cause, keeps us back in the
career of improvement. It stifles industry and represses enterprise it
is fatal to economy and providence it discourages skill impairs our
strength as a community, and poisons morals at the fountainhead.
How this evil is to be encountered, how subdued, is indeed a difficult
and delicate enquiry, which this is not the time to examine, nor the
occasion to discuss. I felt, however, that I could not discharge my
duty, without referring to this subject, as one which ought to engage
the prudence moderation and firmness of those who, sooner or later,
must act decisively upon it.36 Even though some felt that slavery was
35 Robert F. Pace, Halls of Honor (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2004), p.
68.
36 William Gaston, Mr. Gastons Address, 1832, Address delivered
before the Philanthropic and Dialectic Societies. Chapil-Hill, North
Carolina, June 20, 1832.

Stephens 11
hindering the South instead of improving it, the threat to honor was
more of a disgrace than the threat of removing the institution of
slavery from the South.
Religion played a big factor in the discussion over slavery. Honor
coincided with the keeping of Christianity and what the Bible had to
say about the institution of slavery. In Thornton Stringfellows essay, A
Brief Examination of Scripture Testimony on the Institution of Slavery,
he discusses the evidence in the Bible that supports slavery and how it
would be dishonorable to go against was God himself has deemed ok.
He writes, Now, my dear sir, if, from the evidence contained in the
Bible to prove slavery a lawful relation among Gods people under
every dispensation, the assertion is still made, in the very face of this
evidence, that slavery has ever been the greatest sin everywhere,
and under all circumstances can you, or can any sane man bring
himself to believe, that the mind capable of such decision, is not
capable of trampling the Word of God under foot upon any subject?37
Therefore, Stringfellows argument is that if one disagreed with slavery,
he was disagreeing with God, which therefore made him dishonorable
and untrustworthy.

37 Thornton Stringfellow, A Brief Examination of Scripture Testimony

on the Institution of Slavery, Religious Herald (Chapil-Hill: UNC Press,
1850.)

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For the students who were still at South Carolina College during the
Civil War, life went on. The South valued education and with money
being scarce in the South, South Carolina College was concerned about
how they were going to maintain educational materials, such as books,
to keep education moving. The Educational Association of the
Confederate States of America met in Columbia, SC to address the
needs of the school, in particular, the supplying of textbooks to help
promote the progress of education in the Confederate States.38 The
committee discusses, The Educational Association of the Confederate
States of America, assembled at Columbia, SC., being ardently
attached to the rights, interests and honor of each State and the
Confederate States, and profoundly sympathizing with the country in
its righteous efforts to maintain its independence, would remind all the
teachers and friends of education in the Confederacy, that the war in
which we are engaged requires for its successful prosecution active
and competent laborers in all those departments which, under God,
constitute the wealth and strength of a nation; not the least important
of which is the school-room.39 Jefferson Davis writes a letter to the
38 Educational Association of the Confederate States of America,
Proceedings of the Convention of the Teachers of the Confederate
States (Columbia, 1863).
39 Educational Association of the Confederate States of America,
Proceedings of the Convention of the Teachers of the Confederate
States (Columbia, 1863).

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committee apologizing for his inability to attend the meeting but
encourages the committee to keep on promoting education in the
South and developing the young minds of the Confederate States.40
This example displays that even in the middle of the Civil War
education was still held valuable, despite the limited resources.
Education was an aspect of southern honor, and if a young person was
not defending his honor through serving in the Confederacy, then one
must educate himself to help maintain his honor.
Pace rights in his book, In the Souths attempt to defend its identity as
a nation, it failed. But according to the code of honor to which
southerners adhered, honor had been defended. Even though the
Confederacy fell it had met an honorable end.41 When honor is
attacked, it must be defended and to retreat would have meant
shame.42 The Civil War transformed honors role and the Souths
identity that would later impact how students transcended into
adulthood. Southern college students leading up to the Civil War faced

40 Educational Association of the Confederate States of America,

Proceedings of the Convention of the Teachers of the Confederate
States (Columbia, 1863).
41 Robert F. Pace, Halls of Honor (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2004), p.
116.
42 Bertram Wyatt, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old
South (NY: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 75.

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many tests and trails. When a young man attained his honor the next
step was for him to maintain and protect that honor. Honor defined a
Southern mans reputation and when it was fully achieved, a southern
gentleman would go to any links to preserve and defend that honor.
The Civil War was the real test of honor for these young southern
college students, and even though the war was lost, Southern honor
was still maintained in the simple act of defending ones beliefs and
pride in his Southern nationality.