In the South the paternalist ethos what?

The north american slave owners use to presente themselves as the benevolent guardians of their slaves, with a moral duty to protect, christianise, civilise them. They often compared their roles to that of fathers with children, an outlook known as paternalism. This is the paternalist ethos. This rethorical element helped defending slavery presenting it as a "positive good" in the mid 19th century.