Looking at Bob’s posting of chapter 7 and 13 filing rates, I couldn’t help but notice the correlation between high chapter 13 filing rates and states in which slavery was legal until 1863 (the “South” broadly speaking). The 11 jurisdictions with the highest rate of chapter 13 filings (and all of those with over half the filings being 13s) were slave states. The top 9 (and but for Lincoln imposing martial law in Maryland, the top 11) states were all part of the Confederacy. With a few of exceptions, all former slave states were in the top 15.
What are we to make of this this correlation?