The bulk of slave owners would have been, ideed, counted in the census.  However, many poor whites who farmed "on the shares" were Scots-Irish who detested the idea of being included in the war, in any census, and certainly did not have the means to own slaves.  The majority of my ancestors were deserters who left the Confederate Army in 1864 or earlier to return home to farm.  Their society was so closed off from the rest of the country that my grandfather still spoke with a clipped brogue instead of a southern drawl.
 
My five-greats grandfather, Benjamin Cleveland (see his Wikipedia entry) WAS a wealthy North Carolina slave owner prior to the Revolutionary War.  After the war he moved to South Carolina after selling his estate and slaves.  He regarded them as no more than another farm implement and even wrote in his diary that attempts to baptize them into the Presbyterian church would be fruitless as they obviously had no souls!
 
One of his house slaves was named "Anna".  She's my daughter's namesake.

________________________________

From: Cerebral Palsy List on behalf of ken barber
Sent: Thu 4/10/2008 6:55 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: I'm wondering about the dividing line...



  no i did not catch deri, but, i would like to see
it. it is diametrically opposed to a book i read
several years ago.
   also the ecconomy of the time i do not think would
support that many rich people in any of those states.
the coinage of the era would point to much less
wealth.
    
--- Deri James <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> On Thursday 10 April 2008 18:34:25 ken barber wrote:
> > deri's percentages shows a extraordinary number of
> > rich people in the souther states. i find it
> > questionable that in the 1850-1860's time frame
> that
> > they were that many rich people.: i think in one
> state
> > nearly 49 % of a state being rich? i do not know
> his
> > sources but those per cents are very questionable.
> and
> > when i say rich i mean rich. you had to be very
> > wealthy to own a slave. i find the term own a
> slave to
> > be offensive just to use it, but, i know not how
> to
> > convey it differently.
>
> Ken,
>
> The sources for the percentages I quoted was in the
> post (did you read the
> article? It was by a History professor with 46
> bibliographical references at
> the end).
>
> If you read the article you'll probably see the
> figures seem to come from
> James D. B. De Bow who was superintendent of the
> 1850 national census and was
> quoted in "The Interest in Slavery of the Southern
> Non-Slaveholder. 1860
> Association. Tract No. 5 (Charleston, 1860), 3-4."
>
> Cheers
>
> Deri
>
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