The principal denominational affiliations of the Southern people, white and black, are with the various Baptist or Methodist bodies, with a strong Presbyterian influence.

In eleven of the Southern States the Baptists are by far the largest denomination, though the Methodists lead in two.

These two denominations taken together are in a large majority in every State except Delaware, Maryland, and Louisiana.
Presbyterians and Episcopalians are well distributed throughout the whole section and have exercised an influence altogether out of proportion to their numbers.

Presbyterianism came in with the great Scotch-Irish migration of the eighteenth century, and though many of the blood have gone over to other denominations, the influence of the Shorter Catechism still persists.

In the older States attempts were made to establish the Anglican Church in the colonial era, and the governing classes were naturally affiliated with it.
Both these organizations had to give way to the great wave of religious enthusiasm which swept the section early in the nineteenth century.
Baptist and Methodist missionaries, many of them unlettered but vigorous and powerful, went into the remotest districts and swept the population into their communions.