I’m not Southern but Southern values are historically understood are values that are originally associated with the Scotch-Irish (i.e., Ulster Scots) who settled in the South and Pennsylvania before the American Revolutionary War but have now spread as the values of many, though of course not all, Americans.
These values included a strong distrust of government and that religion (originally of the various American sects of Calvinist Christianity) and morality is important as a foundation for society and government.
I think Southern values are best summed up in a famous quote from Thomas Jefferson, who although not Scotch-Irish but a Southerner, is attributed as saying “That government is best which governs least.”
“Author (and U.S. Senator) Jim Webb puts forth a thesis in his book Born Fighting to suggest that the character traits he ascribes to the Scotch-Irish such as loyalty to kin, extreme mistrust of governmental authority and legal strictures, and a propensity to bear arms and to use them, helped shape the American identity. In the same year that Webb’s book was released, Barry A. Vann published his second book entitled Rediscovering the South’s Celtic Heritage. Like his earlier book, From Whence They Came (1998), Vann argues that these traits have left their imprint on the Upland South. In 2008, Vann followed up his earlier work with a book entitled In Search of Ulster Scots Land: The Birth and Geotheological Imagings of a Transatlantic People which professes how these traits may manifest themselves in conservative voting patterns and religious affiliation that characterizes the Bible Belt.”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch-Irish_Americans#Influence_on_American_culture_and_identity
