I do strongly agree with you, however I also think that the North is to blame for Southern isolationism and the suspicion that goes along with it. I mean the North wasn't exactly merciful after the South surrendered. They burnt almost all the Southern cities to the ground (ie. Shermans march to the sea). One could say that they were predominately responsible for the title given to the aftermath period of the Civil War: The Reconstruction. So whereas I agree there is a negative stigma that the North associates the South with. I don't entirely think its deserved. In terms of the South being down on Civil Rights, I think it all goes back to what I just said. Like it or not Slavery was what financed this nations economy and unfortunately the South became dependent on it. From an objective perspective, there was no one that we can point a finger at blame. It was simply just the way of the times. This is near impossible to understand in todays society, but for the sake of this argument we should try. So the South becomes dependent economically on Slavery and after the Civil War, The Emancipation Proclomation frees the slaves. This in addition to the devestation that the war left in its wake, cripples the South. They need a scapegoate. The newly free African Americans are the ones to take the brunt of the South's anger toward the North. That and it was inconceivable to them that African Americans could function on their own. See the Southern slaveholders and planatation owners dehumanized the slaves in order to supress their moral concience that what they were doing was wrong. I mean when an economy is built around an institution such as that, its hard to decide what to do. The moral thing to do such as freeing the slaves may not be such a good economic decision. If they would have freed the slaves during the 1860's or before, the economy would have collapsed and that would have meant a Great Depression like scenario, which I'm sure no one then or now would want to imagine (or live through again)

So at the end of the Civil War, many Southerners had talked themselves into viewing slaves as property and not human, therefore slaves acting on their own would not have seemed natural to the South. Plus the South would have been bitter at the North for the devestation it wrought and so would have probably not fully accepted their defeat. This attitude would have been imprinted into the mindset of the Southern culture and thus would have lasted many generations. It all boils down to the South being angry at the North for how they were treated after the war, the refusal to change along with the times and not being able wean themselves off of the self distorted viewpoint of slavery being beneficial that they had coerced themselves into thinking. So once again I say that yes the South is still suffering from the aftermath of the Civil War, but it is partially the North's fault that they are suffering and partially the fear of economic destabilization that would have occurred if they had freed the slaves any earlier.

Of course it has, the South has been on the losing side of many a political argument in our history...so-called "states' right", slavery, civil rights (heck, there was even a RECENT justice of the peace that refused to marry an inter-racial couple!), etc., etc.. I wish I could feel sorry for them down there, but the way that they vote against their own economic interests set them up to fail unfortunately. It's too bad...