After the war they were punished via Reconstruction. Their once beautiful cities were devastated and have STILL not regained their former glory. The education and property value disparity between the North and South is a result of this. So basically 75% ( a generous figure ) of non slave owning Southerners had their life and future destroyed for 200 years because of the Civil War, and are still mocked as retards and white trash to this day.
This is the part of the Civil War revisionism that bugs me, the South gets shit on by people trying to make it all black and white good guy bad guy. The South was not entirely made up of slave masters. (((Hollywood))) and the (((History Textbooks))) do not go into depth about Reconstruction. They also paint Southerners as idiots. The southern accent is used as a comedy crutch for a reason. This is to divide us and forever hate the South for slavery.