The notion of the South as a “family affair” is the key to Southern loyalties. Both the Southernism and the Southerness of the South reflect the “clan-virtues” (and their defects) of the old frontier and rural folkways – folkways that were first of all American and then Southern. But in so far as these folkways have had a longer and stronger hold on them, Southerners are prone to look upon themselves as Southerners and then as citizens of the United States, this is most definitely the case in Western North Carolina.
“You can get a Southerner out of the South, but you can’t get the South out of a Southerner”- Old Saying
In a society which measured wealth in terms of land, primary emphasis was placed on personal qualities and personal relationships. These together with family connections, continue to dominate Southern business and politics. Hence, too, personal religion and the ethical code of honor.
Of all personal ties family ties are the strongest. The Southerner looking back on his childhood sees it as all “entangles with the past,” with the loves, the loyalties, the heartaches and the simple good time of a big family. As the children of the Old South scattered over the region, the home place and home folks still served as a symbol if not a bond of unity. Someone is always keeping the home place, someone is always there, and no matter how seldom or unexpectedly we may come in, we know someone will rise to give our welcome. This feeling of homewardness and at-home-ness gives a comforting sense of security and stability in time as well as place, a living sense of the long continuity of human life, an awareness of the past as living in the present and almost as real as the present. And the identification of the individual with a long line of kinfolks and their achievements gives a sense of personal participation in the history and tradition.
Along with the satisfaction of personal participation goes the responsibility of noblesse oblige, the obligation of carrying on a tradition of techniques and attitudes handed down from the fathers to the sons.