Upper and Lower Carolina?

[Scarecrow]

Any major change if Upper Carolina and Lower Carolina had been used instead of North Carolina and South Carolina?:confused:

[Tom Veil]

Any major change if Upper Carolina and Lower Carolina had been used instead of North Carolina and South Carolina?:confused:

Depends. Do you mean Upper=North, with identical borders, or do you mean that the truly "Upper" and "Lower" areas in terms of elevation from sea level are separate states?

IIRC, the lower areas were where all the slaves were. Upper Carolina -- the Piedmont and especially the mountains -- were more like West Virginia, economically and politically, than the rest of the Carolinas. Until the 20th Century, when Raleigh/Durham became a big city, Upper Carolina would be a very tiny state. Still, having a state that could vote to abolish slavery at any moment, right in the middle of the Antebellum South, could provoke some serious shifts in the great debate in the 1850s about exactly why slavery was so important to preserve and exactly where the cultural lines laid.

[Straha]

so you have a map showing the division ovthe carolinas into upper and lower?

[The Mists Of Time]

Upper and Lower as in North and South on maps? Then I doubt it would have changed much if anything, though we would probably also have Upper Dakota and Lower Dakota instead of North Dakota and South Dakota. During The Civil War the people of North Carolina might have been happier being called Upper Carolina.

If you mean Upper and Lower as in Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt, that would be an interesting situation.

[David S Poepoe]

The main problem (or one of many) is the connotations connected with 'Upper' and 'Lower'. Is there a portion of Michigan that is refered to as 'LP'? Given human nature I don't really seeing anyone really applying such names to political bodies - tho one would use such terms for geographical groupings - such as the Great and Lesser Antilles.

[Imajin]

Upper and Lower were quite common in Europe, especially Germany... Upper Austria, Lower Austria (actually the larger of the two, and the one with Vienna), I believe Lusatia and Bavaria were also divided similarly, as was Silesia...

[Scarecrow]

Depends. Do you mean Upper=North, with identical borders, or do you mean that the truly "Upper" and "Lower" areas in terms of elevation from sea level are separate states?

IIRC, the lower areas were where all the slaves were. Upper Carolina -- the Piedmont and especially the mountains -- were more like West Virginia, economically and politically, than the rest of the Carolinas. Until the 20th Century, when Raleigh/Durham became a big city, Upper Carolina would be a very tiny state. Still, having a state that could vote to abolish slavery at any moment, right in the middle of the Antebellum South, could provoke some serious shifts in the great debate in the 1850s about exactly why slavery was so important to preserve and exactly where the cultural lines laid.
eh, I was being slack; a simple replacement of North for Upper and South for Lower:p

although your geographical idea is interesting...

[Johnnyreb]

Where villages and small towns are concerned, Upper usually means means further up the hill, just as Lower means lower down. For large areas of land, Upper usually means further up the river, and Lower lower down it (cf Austria, the river being the Danube)
I don't think either of these applied to Carolina, so everyone will be faintly unhappy with the name Upper Carolina. By the way, it had a perfectly adequate export trade pre-AWI, the business just wasn't as labour-intensive as South Carolina.
If Upper Carolina declares for the Union, then it will be invaded from all sides particularly from South Carolina. This will create such ill-feeling that after the ACW the State's name will probably be changed, to that of someone famous who came from North Carolina. Now, that would be....er...