It thus became vital to the peace of the planters' minds that the frustrations of the "crackers," "sandhillers," or "poor white trash" be diminished or placated at all costs. This involved, first and foremost, keeping the bogeyman of race ever before the nonslaveholders' eyes, for whatever hatreds the poor whites nursed against the planters, they nursed still greater ones against blacks.

— Allen C. Guelzo Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War and Reconstruction (2012)

More quotes by Allen C. Guelzo

Gettysburg: The Last Invasion (2013)

Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War and Reconstruction (2012)

Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War and Reconstruction (2012)

The Bicentennial Lincolns (2010)

Free Speech and Its Present Crisis (2018)

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Allen C. Guelzo (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.