Southern Secession Research Articles

Libertarians in the Attic, or A Tale of Two Narratives

In the stacks of my university library, three books stand side by side, each catalogued by the Library of Congress at E468.9. In the middle is David W. Blight's Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory. Published by Harvard in 2001, Blight's work won a bevy of prizes and was placed immediately on innumerable graduate reading lists. Flanking Blight on one side is Tony Horwitz's riveting expos6 of contemporary Lost Cause culture, Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War. On the other is a book that many readers of Blight and Horwitz have never heard of, Charles Adams's When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession. Though Adams and Blight sit adjacent on the shelves, the gulf between them, both in viewpoint and in audience, is nearly bottomless. Contemplating that gulf provokes some disturbing thoughts. Race and Reunion told readers like you and me what a generation of scholarship had primed us to hear. Slavery brought on the Civil War. Once war started, the futility of fighting slaveholders without fighting slavery, added to genuine antislavery conviction and the self-liberating action of the slaves, brought Abraham Lincoln and the Union to an emancipationist policy by 1863. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural, speaking of a new birth of freedom and of the nation's penance for slavery, captured the essential meaning of the contest.

Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War (review)

Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War (review)

Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War

In late 1860 and early 1861, state-appointed commissioners traveled the length and breadth of the slave South carrying a fervent message in pursuit of a clear goal: to persuade the political leadership and the citizenry of the uncommitted slave states to join in the effort to destroy the Union and forge a new Southern nation. Directly refuting the neo-Confederate contention that slavery was neither the reason for secession nor the catalyst for the resulting onset of hostilities in 1861, Charles B. Dew finds in the commissioners' brutally candid rhetoric a stark white supremacist ideology that proves the contrary. The commissioners included in their speeches a constitutional justification for secession, to be sure, and they pointed to a number of political outrages committed by the North in the decades prior to Lincoln's election. But the core of their argument - the reason the right of secession had to be invoked and invoked immediately - did not turn on matters of constitutional interpretation or political principle. Over and over again, the commissioners returned to the same point: that Lincoln's election signaled an unequivocal commitment on the part of the North to destroy slavery and that emancipation would plunge the South into a racial nightmare. Dew's discovery and study of the highly illuminating public letters and speeches of these apostles of disunion - often relatively obscure men sent out to convert the unconverted to the secessionist cause - have led him to suggest that the arguments the commissioners presented provide us with the best evidence we have of the motives behind the secession of the lower South in 1860-61. Addressing topics still hotly debated among historians and the public at large more than a century after the Civil War, Dew challenges many current perceptions of the causes of the conflict. He offers a compelling and clearly substantiated argument that slavery and race were absolutely critical factors in the outbreak of war - indeed, that they were at the heart of our great national crisis.

Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War

Charles B. Dew intends this short, stimulating work as a contribution both to the specialized historiography of secession and to the continuing popular debate over Civil War causation. Dew begins with the question posed by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service about what “important issue” the war was fought over (correct answer: either “slavery” or “states rights”). He then reflects briefly on the conflict's contemporary reverberation, especially among southerners, for whom, as he notes with nice understatement, “the past . . . is far from dead.” The book's brevity—only eighty-one pages of narrative—will not satisfy all scholars; some may conclude that this gifted historian should have set his account of the secession commissioners within a fuller examination of Deep South disunionism or perhaps given us more insight into how the message they carried with them was variously received. But all readers will appreciate the perspicacity and eloquence with which Professor Dew has performed his allotted task. They may even feel relieved that such tasty revisionist fare can be digested with so little effort.

When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession

Using primary documents from both foreign and domestic observers, prominent scholar Charles Adams makes a powerful and convincing case that the Southern states were legitimately exercising their political rights as expressed in the Declaration of Independence when they seceded from the United States. Although conventional histories have taught generations of Americans that this was a war fought for lofty moral principles, Adams' eloquent history transcends simple Southern partisanship to show how the American Civil War was primarily a battle over competing commercial interests, opposing interpretations of constitutional rights, and what English novelist Charles Dickens described as a fiscal quarrel.

Politicization of the United States Military

IN A SEMINAL ARTICLE ON 'The Widening Gap Between the Military and Society,' Thomas E. Ricks of the Wall Street Journal asserted that: 'The military appears to be becoming politically less representative of society, with a long-term downward trend in the number of officers willing to identify themselves as liberals. Open identification with the Republican Party is becoming the norm.'(1) The Ricks thesis, introduced in his Atlantic Monthly article and developed more fully in a subsequent book, served as an important landmark in the most recent debates about a core issue in democratic governance: the relationship between the military and the society they are trained and pledged to defend. Ricks located sources of the civil-military gap in fundamental changes in the nature of American society, as fewer civilians have any military experience; in the security environment following the disintegration of the Soviet Union; and in the military itself.(2) Although Ricks's analysis ranged widely over many aspects of the relationship between the military and society, this article focuses on two questions: does systematic evidence sustain his assertions about the politicization of the United States military? Even if it does, is that finding of any real consequence? Partisanship involving military elites is not unknown in American history. During the early years of the republic, appointments to key positions in the military often reflected party loyalties.(3) Outstanding military careers served as springboards to the presidency for George Washington, Andrew Jackson, U.S. Grant, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Lesser military careers helped to elect William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor to the White House. Although their military exploits during the Civil War were less well known, three Republican candidates who had served as Union officers in that conflict - Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, and William McKinley - gained some electoral advantage in running against candidates of a party that was associated, fairly or not, with the southern secession. Finally, several generals ran unsuccessfully for the presidency while still in uniform. Whig Winfield Scott was trounced by Franklin Pierce in 1852; Democrat George B. McClellan lost to Abraham Lincoln during the wartime election of 1864; Leonard Wood narrowly lost the Republican nomination in 1920; and Douglas MacArthur did little to discourage the enthusiasm of his Republican backers in 1948 and, after his retirement, in 1952. These examples notwithstanding, the growth of military professionalism during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries established norms against partisan political activity by military officers. This aspect of professionalism is effectively summarized in an essay on military ethics by a retired colonel. 'The ideal of remaining above politics grew finally to embrace the notion that regulars should refrain from affiliating with particular political parties and even refrain from voting. The rationale was that the professional military must loyally serve the nation, regardless of whom political vicissitudes bring to the presidency or Congress, and that political involvement could be seen as compromising the impartiality of professional military advice.'(4) The examples of George C. Marshall and Dwight D. Eisenhower, two of a handful of World War II five star generals, are instructive. Marshall never even voted, and he let it be known that doing so would have run contrary to his conception of professionalism. Eisenhower was courted by leaders of both major political parties - President Harry Truman even offered to step aside if Eisenhower wanted the 1948 Democratic presidential nomination - and his preference for the Republican party was not known until he decided to seek the presidency in 1952. As suggested by this very sketchy overview, if the United States military is indeed becoming more politicized, that would represent a significant step back from professional norms against partisanship. …

Reviews of Books:Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War Charles B. Dew

Reviews of Books:Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War Charles B. Dew

Charles B. Dew. <italic>Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War</italic>. (A Nation Divided: New Studies in Civil War History.) Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. 2001. Pp. x, 124. $22.95

Charles B. Dew. <italic>Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War</italic>. (A Nation Divided: New Studies in Civil War History.) Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. 2001. Pp. x, 124. $22.95

Apostles of disunion: Southern secession commissioners and the causes of the Civil War

Apostles of disunion: Southern secession commissioners and the causes of the Civil War

The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina

The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum Carolina. By Manisha Sinha. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. Pp. xiii, 362. Maps. Cloth, $55.00; paper, $19.95.) Karl Marx understood movement for secession by slaveholding to be rejection of great principles of American Revolution, specifically those abstract principles exposed in Declaration of Independence, what he termed the first Declaration of Rights of Man(255). He had at least that much in common with George Fitzhugh, somewhat extravagant Virginian proslavery thinker who eagerly celebrated southern secession as solemn protest against doctrines of natural liberty, human equality and social contract as taught by Locke and American sages of 1776 (256). Manisha Sinha, in her important new study, The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum Carolina, not only supports Marx's and Fitzhugh's perspectives, but proves them. With deft use of manuscript correspondence, published materials, newspapers, and pamphlet debates, Sinha tells unified story of rise to potency of proslavery, antidemocratic planter politics in Carolina and resoundingly demonstrates that movement to secession in Carolina was led by slaveholding class united in their defense of racial slavery and their contempt for democratic principles. Sinha structures book around series of national political conflicts that simultaneously engendered and strengthened defensive, antidemocratic stance of Carolina's political leaders and eventually solidified politics of slavery and secession. Beginning with controversies over tariff and emergence of Calhoun and nullifiers as political force, Sinha gracefully captures place of proslavery thinking and antidemocratic thought in what has sometimes been merely understood as states' rights movement. The nullifiers clearly made slavery the center-piece of their political philosophy in way that even proslavery Jacksonians never would (50). Although in 1830s nullifiers had to contend with strong unionist movement throughout state, their own success in nullification convention and their effective prosecution of test oath of loyalty to Carolina succeeded in demoralizing and weakening their opponents. As sectional controversy over slavery increased with heightened power of abolitionist movement and abolition of slavery in West Indies, defensive power of proslavery separatist thought continued to gain influence. Sinha next turns to territorial crises of 1846-1850 and finds Carolina proslavery ideologues leading polarization of debate over place of slavery in American expansion. Here she shows clearly that increasing significance of proslavery thought to southern nationalism was bound to politics of slavery in Carolina and was shaped by increasing appearance of a link between perceived external and internal threats to slave society (81). The next important decade, from failed secession movement in 1850, to attempt by few Carolinian leaders to reopen African slave trade in mid-1850s, to final drama of secession in 1860, is ably presented as period characterized by rapid maturation and elaboration of proslavery, antidemocratic, secessionist thought. The Carolinian political elite effectively excluded, courted, convinced, or otherwise cajoled timid interests within their own political orbit to necessity of slavery and southern independence. By 1860, South Carolina's unique political heritage and long standing commitment to politics of slavery and separatism groomed state leaders to play historic role in coming of secession and Civil War (220). Sinha effectively proves truth of Edmund Ruffin's belief in 1860 that the people of S. …

One Hundred and Twenty-Five Years after Slaughterhouse: Where's the Beef?

You never know. Historical events intended for one purpose sometimes result in the unintended, and American history is far from immune to this tendency. Thus the Civil War—first considered by Lincoln as nothing more than an attempt to prevent Southern secession—ultimately went far beyond an effort to preserve the Union, far beyond ending African-American slavery, far beyond even ensuring continued western expansion. By 1866, the war had wrought changes in the relationship between the federal government and the states, the federal government and its people, as well as the states and their citizenry. Although they may well have been unintended and their extent unclear, these transformations doomed continuance of the Union as it had been—producing instead a new connection between the American people and their legal order that is still evolving.1 One manifestation of such change was the Fourteenth Amendment adopted by Congress in 1866. Ratified by the states as part of the Constitution in 1868, five years later the Supreme Court first considered its meaning and scope; and thereby hangs a story rich in irony.

A Mythic Land Apart: Reassessing Southerners and Their History.

Dedication Introduction and Acknowledgments The Immigrant Influence in the Colonial South: The Case of Philip Mazzei by Jason H. Silverman Moral Suasion Has Had Its Day: From Temperance to Prohibition in Antebellum Kentucky by Thomas H. Appleton, Jr. Medical Education in the South: The Case of Louisville, 1837-1919 by Dwayne Cox Compromiser or Conspirator?: Henry Clay and the Graves-Cilley Duel by Melba Porter Hay The Slave Insurrection Panic of 1860 and Southern Secession by Donald E. Reynolds Lessons in Generalship: Robert E. Lee's Military Legacy for the Twenty-First Century by Carol Reardon No negro is upon the program: Blacks and the Montgomery Race Conference of 1900 by John David Smith The Gavel and the Sword: Experiences Shaping the Life of John Sherman Cooper by Richard C. Smoot Hollywood and the Mythic Land Apart, 1988-1991 by Roger A. Fisher Bibliography of the Principal Writings of Charles Pierce Roland Index

One Hundred and Twenty-Five Years after Slaughterhouse: Where’s the Beef?

One Hundred and Twenty-Five Years after Slaughterhouse: Where’s the Beef? JONATHAN LURIE* You never know. Historical events intended for one purpose sometimes result in the unin­ tended, and American history is far from immune to this tendency. Thus the Civil War—first considered by Lincoln as nothing more than an attempt to prevent Southern secession—ulti­ mately went far beyond an effort to preserve the Union, far beyond ending African-American slavery, far beyond even ensuring continued western expansion. By 1866, the war had wrought changes in the relationship between the federal government and the states, the federal govern­ ment and its people, as well as the states and their citizenry. Although they may well have been unintended and their extent unclear, these transformations doomed continuance ofthe Union as it had been—producing instead a new connection between the American people and their legal order that is still evolving.1 One manifestation of such change was the Fourteenth Amendment adopted by Congress in 1866. Ratified by the states as part of the Constitution in 1868, five years later the Supreme Court first considered its meaning and scope; and thereby hangs a story rich in irony. I Intended to facilitate a changed relation­ ship between the former slave and white America, the new amendment was first pre­ sented to the Court on behalf of some white butchers arguing with otherwhite butchers over a Louisiana statute enacted in 1869. Moreover, their lawyer—a former Supreme Court Justice who had resigned his seat when his state (Ala­ bama) seceded—now called for a new level of federal supremacy and state subordination dia­ metrically opposed both to his own long-held views and past American history. Finally, the High Court, whose function was, and remains, the reconciliation oflaw with ongoing change, could not agree on the extent of constitutional alteration mandated by the amendment. 270 JOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY In this they were not alone. Uncertainty as to what the new provision meant, its applica­ tion and scope, characterized both congres­ sional debates and contemporarycommentary. In April 1873, by a 5-4 vote, the Court first interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment, and offered its own assessment—one that remains a “landmark” in American legal history. The majority opinion by Justice Samuel F. Miller sustained the Louisiana statute regulating slaughterhouses, and held that with the excep­ tion of the former slave, the new addition to the Constitution had not altered in any signifi­ cant fashion the traditional pattern of federal­ ism. Although at least two later members of his Court endorsed his analysis (as will be seen), more frequently his opinion has been rebutted, denounced, and condemned, almost (it would seem) from its announcement. Indeed, a cacophony of criticism has en­ veloped his decision for more than a century. A recent comment by Yale Law Professor Charles Black is typical. Miller’s opinion, he wrote, is “probably the worst holding, in its effect on human rights, ever uttered by the Supreme Court.”2 An impressive number of similar sentiments from a wide spectrum of scholars could be cited, and yet Miller’s deci­ sion has not been overruled. Moreover, it did not prevent his Court, sometimes with his con­ currence, from finding awesome breadth and depth in the Amendment—a process that ac­ celerated during the Warren Court era. Given such criticism for so long, why has the Court retained Slaughterhouse? Why this veneration for “stare decisis” in the face of sustained denunciation? We know that when it so desires, the Court can overrule itself, some­ times within a brief span of years. The Legal Tender Cases, Betts v. Brady, or Brown v. BoardofEducation come immediatelyto mind, and more recent examples could readily be cited. Perhaps one answer may simply be that the Justices, for whatever reason, do not wish to overrule the 1873 holding. And here again, we may ask why. A possible answer may be found in areexaminationofexactlywhatMiller’s majority believed it had decided. In trying to explain what the litigation meant to the Court in 1872-1873, some legal scholars have focused on several alleged flaws in Miller’s opinion. Writing in the context ofthe FourteenthAmendment that they now know...

For the Good, the True, and the Beautiful: Northern Children's Magazines and the Civil War

For the Good, the True, and the Beautiful: Northern Children's Magazines and the Civil War James Marten "What has been gained by all the fighting?" young William asks Uncle Rodman in a story from Our Young Folks in the summer of 1865. Uncle Rodman lays aside his newspaper, removes his spectacles, and solemnly tells William and his sister Susie, "I am very glad to hear you express a wish to know more about the conflict that is now closing. It has been the great event ofthis century, and you ought to have a clear general idea of its origin and results." Four years ago, "it was not to be expected that you should understand what so many grown people failed to appreciate. But you are older now, and the terrible meaning of the war is clearer to us all than it was then." The subsequent dialogue explains the folly of Southern secession and the righteousness of the Northern victory. Its certainty in the right of the Union cause, its emphasis on the evils of slavery and slaveholders, and the earnest romanticism of its patriotism reflect the attitudes developed in Civil War-era children's magazines.1 While the editors and writers ofchildren's magazines did take on war-related topics, they continued to utilize formats and embrace assumptions that had shaped children's literature for decades. Stories and articles promoted the principles ofhard work, obedience, generosity, humility, and piety; provided moral guidance and examples ofthe benefits offamily cohesion and the consequences of the absence of such order; and furnished mild adventure stories, innocent entertainment , and instruction. The values thus expressed were valuable anytime, ofcourse, but were absolutely necessary at times ofcrisis—especially during a war being fought to defend exactly those noble traits. Works offiction and nonfiction alike—"the incidental work of leading British and American authors, and the major work of some incidental writers of Victorian prose and poetry," in the words of John Morton Blum—stressed character and framed the world¦J. T. Trowbridge, "The Turning of the Leaf," Our Young Folks 1 (June 1 865): 399. Civil War History, Vol. XLI, No. 1 © 1995 by The Kent State University Press 58CIVIL WAR HISTORY in moral terms. E. Douglas Branch unsympathetically characterized the tone of much of prewar children's literature when he described the story-telling scenarios of Peter Parley (Samuel G. Goodrich) in his books on history, geography , and nature: "a kindly old gentleman, marvelously well-informed, talking to an inquisitive set of little prigs." Authors of stories and novels as well as schoolbooks for children combined a faith in virtue with the confidence in the American political and economic systems; patriotism and good deeds and hard work and unselfishness together would guarantee individual success and national honor.2 Much of the content of wartime children's periodicals reflected these antebellum concerns. Yet they also moved from the antebellum reluctance to discuss politics, military affairs, and race relations in order to rally children to the Union war effort. Anne Scott MacLeod has shown that the "relentless moralizing" in children 's literature between 1 820 and 1 860 tended to focus on self-improvement— especially temperance—and pacifism; the antislavery movement, on the other hand, was controversial. "Children's fiction was seldom chosen as a vehicle for the heavy burden of the national debate over slavery" because publishers simply could not afford to alienate important segments of the book-buying public. The dozens of best-selling books by Jacob Abbott "reflected little of that era's controversy or ferment for reform." When Abbott and others featured African Americans in their stories and novels, even the most sympathetic characters were burdened by stereotypes and by the condescension and patronizing attitudes ofclearly more intelligent white characters. Surprisingly, perhaps, literature distributed by the American Sunday School Union avoided the issue of slavery. Children's magazines, according to John B. Crume, "asked no more of their . . . readers than that they behave themselves."} The same caution applied to military subjects. As The Student and Schoolmate noted in August 1862, most Northerners had "only a few years 2John Morton Blum, ed.. Yesterday's Children: An Authology Compiledfrom the Pages ofOur Young Folks...

Stopping the killing: how civil wars end

Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Liberia, Somalia, Azerbaijan, El Salvador, Northern Ireland, Lebanon, Cambodia -- all provide bloody evidence that civil wars continue to have a powerful impact on the international scene. Because they tear at the very fabric of a society and pit countryman against countryman, civil wars are often the most brutal and difficult to extinguish -- witness the American Revolution. And yet, civil wars do inevitably end. England is no longer criss-crossed by warring armies representing York and Lancaster or King and Parliament. The French no longer kill one another over the divine right of kings. Argentines seem reconciled to living in a single state, rather than several. The ideologies of the Spanish Civil War now seem largely irrelevant. And the possibility of Southern secession is an issue long-buried in the American past. The question then begs itself: how do people who have been killing one another with considerable enthusiasm and success come together to form a common government? How can individuals and factions work together, politically and economically, with others who have killed their friends, parents, children and lovers? How are armed societies disarmed? What effect does a total military victory have on a lasting peace? In sum, how are civil societies constructed from civil violence and chaos? This is the central concern of Stopping the Killing. In this highly original and much needed volume, a distinguished group of experts on civil wars discuss both specific conflicts and broader theoretical issues. Individual chapters examine civil wars in Colombia, the Sudan, Yemen, America, Greece, and Nigeria, and analyze the causes of peace, the relationship between the battlefield and the negotiating table, and issues of settlement. An introduction and conclusion by the editor unify the volume. Contributors include: Jonathan Hartlyn (Univ. of North Carolina), Caroline Hartzell (Univ. of California, Davis), Jane E. Holl (U.S. Military Academy), John Iatrides (Southern Connecticut State University), James O'Connell (University of Bradford), Donald Rothchild (Univ. of California, Davis), Stephen John Stedman (Johns Hopkins Univ.), Robert Harrison Wagner (Univ. of Texas, Austin), Harvey Waterman (Rutgers Univ.), Manfred Wenner (Northern Illinois Univ.), and I. William Zartman (Johns Hopkins Univ.).

India: Liberalism Vs. Nationalism

India:Liberalism Vs. Nationalism Ashutosh Varshney (bio) Democracy and Discontent: India's Growing Crisis of Governability by Atul Kohli. Cambridge University Press, 1991. 420 pp. The Politics of India Since Independence by Paul Brass. Cambridge University Press, 1990. 357 pp. With the recent worldwide upsurge in nationalism, students of democracy must pay particular attention to the difficulties posed by religious and ethnic conflict. This is especially true with respect to India, where tensions between Hindus and Muslims caused the most agonizing event in twentieth-century Indian history: the partition of 1947, which displaced millions of people and killed tens of thousands of others, In the past decade, conflicting nationalisms have erupted anew with a fervor unmatched since 1947, challenging the integrity of India as a nation-state. Conflicting nationalisms threaten political liberalism by creating what may be called a liberal paradox: Individuals and groups are free to organize in a liberal democracy, but can they be free to organize for something as radical as secession? If people in a secessionist part of the country are not allowed to secede in spite of their wishes, a fundamental tenet of liberalism is clearly violated—namely, that people have the right to choose their rulers. On the other hand, if secession is allowed, the principle that people are free to choose their government begins to undermine liberal democracy itself. At this point, liberalism and the right to self-determination raise deeply emotional questions: What takes precedence—a nation or a democracy? And what good is a liberal polity if it cannot even protect its own borders? Since human beings are not [End Page 147] only self-interested individuals (as liberal political theory assumes) but also people emotionally anchored in cultural or territorial communities, nationalism defines the limits of liberalism. In circumstances of rising nationalist ferment and conflict, liberalism has a limited capacity for dealing with emotions like loyalty, fear, and anxiety. Liberal democracy has the best prospects when a relatively strong and stable nation-state has already been constructed or is beyond dispute. The stability of American democracy owes much to the Union victory over Southern secession in the Civil War of the 1860s. Sri Lanka, a shining example of Third World democracy through the 1960s, lost its luster when a confrontation between Tamil and Sinhala nationalisms tore the island apart in the 1980s. Democratic theorists have long been aware of the problem but have not discussed it fully. In his 1970 essay on "Transitions to Democracy," Dankwart Rustow described "national unity" as a prerequisite for democracy. "In order that rulers and policies may freely change," he wrote, "the boundaries must endure, the composition of the citizenry be continuous." In his latest work, Democracy and Its Critics, Robert Dahl also recognizes the tension between liberalism and nationalism: Because subcultural conflicts threaten personal and group identities and ways of life, because such threats evoke deep and powerful emotions, and because the sacrifice of identities and ways of life cannot readily be settled by negotiation, disputes involving different subcultures often turn into violent, nonnegotiable conflicts. In a country where conflicts are persistently violent and nonnegotiable, polyarchy is unlikely to exist (p.255). With democracies and nationalism flourishing again, democratic theorists will have to analyze this paradox more fully in the future. The effects of the liberal paradox are clearly demonstrated in India, which is both a democracy and a multiethnic, multireligious state. It now faces a religiously inspired secessionist movement in Punjab, an ethnic and religious insurrection in Jammu and Kashmir, and an ethnic rebellion in Assam, as well as a rising Hindu nationalism in the heartland that represents a backlash against these separatist movements. Compared to the Third World as a whole, the longevity of India's democracy despite all these problems is striking. Yet compared to the period under Jawaharlal Nehru (1947-64), the decline of India's democracy is equally remarkable. The first comparison is across countries, and is still a source of pride for Indians; the second comparison is across time, and it is a cause for concern. Both Atul Kohli and Paul Brass address the decline of India's democracy. The "ungovernability" of India's democracy is the central question...

The Planned Capital: A Universal Planning Phenomenon in the Deep South

The Planned Capital A Universal Planning Phenomenon in the Deep South MICHAEL FAZIO Mississippi State University The planned capital, and more generally the multiple capital, were universal planning phenomena in the Deep South states in the decades following the Revolutionary War (Figure 1).1 In all, 26 capital sites were occupied in ten mid-Atlantic and Deep South states between 1779 and 1868. Obviously, 16 of these locations have been abandoned as seats of state government. The virgin capital sites in the six contiguous Deep South states were Columbia (1785) in South Carolina, Raleigh (1788) in North Carolina, both Louisville (1786) and Milledgeville (1803) in Georgia, Cahawba (1818) in Alabama, Jackson (1821) in Mississippi, and Tallahassee (1823) in Florida.2 Of these seven legislatively planned capital sites, four remain the seats of state government today. This paper considers the reasons for the prevalence of the planned capital in the Deep South, and it examines the innovative forms and amenities of the grid planning schemes which resulted. Why were southern capitals so often planned by legislative action for completely undeveloped sites? The answer involves demographics, politics, and economics. As settlers pushed westward, population redistribution dictated new centrally located and easily accessible capital sites. Removing capitals from the Tidewater areas also reflected the rising economic and political power of upland farmers and merchants. Concomitantly, this power shift further debased the political currency of eastern planters in such established centers as Williamsburg, Charleston, and Savannah. Once planned~ the new capitals provided a means for upland landholders, merchants, and professionals to act as land speculators. Using land as collateral, they could collectively finance city development, and they could individually speculate on increasing urban real estate values. The planned capital was more popular in the Deep South than in any other region. In the Southwest and Far West, only Austin, Texas, and Prescott, Arizona, were developed by legislative action for virgin sites.3 In the Midwest, Columbus (1816) in Ohio and Indianapolis (1821) in Indiana were legislatively planned; west of the Mississippi River, legislatively planned capitals included Jefferson City (1820) in Missouri, Iowa City 1 This question is dealt with briefly in Daniel J. Boorstin, The Americans: The National Experience, (New York: Random House, 1965), 93-95. 2 Dates given are those for enabling legislation. 3 For Prescott, see John Reps, Cities of the American West: A History ofFrontier American Planning, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 621-26, and for Austin, see Reps, 135-39. ARRIS 1: 29-49. 1989 29 30 ARRIS 1. 1989 (1846) in Iowa, and Lincoln (1867) in Nebraska.4 While it is difficult to generalize about the comparative contexts in the various sections of the country over the long period of state formation, the fact that planned capitals were so concentrated in only two regions is certainly striking. Planned capital development would seem to reflect a willingness to de-emphasize individual initiative and laissez-faire capitalism in favor of communal effort and the centrally controlled marketplace. This condition had interesting cross-regional implications. The period of intense planned capital development witnessed extremely complex sectional alliances. In general, farmers of the South and West and northern laborers and immigrants were pitted against the New England merchant class. In the early years of the nineteenth century, it was the New England states, not those of the South, which flirted with the dissolution of the Union. Talk of southern secession came much later, in the 1850s, when the West shifted its alliance and joined the states of the Northeast. In the decades following the Revolutionary War, the southern seaboard states often advocated a strong central government in order to encourage trade with the West Indies and Europe and to carry out internal improvements such as roads and canals. Given this political climate, the South's capital planning efforts, carried out by means of centralized policy making, are not so surprising. Given the early commonality of political attitudes in the South and West, the widespread appearance of planned capitals in both sections may reflect their similar attitudes towards social and economic development. By the mid 1820s, the powerful southern planter class universally opposed tariffs, which it viewed as a subsidy for the North; internal...

Mary Boykin Chesnut: A Biography (review)

BOOK REVIEWS373 Studies of relatively minor figures such as Kargé and Krzyzanowski alone will not suffice to relate the immigrant story during America's middle period, but they are an essential foundation for an accurate understanding of the whole. Weaknesses aside, both works are good contributions to our knowledge of the foreign-born experience and should be of interest to Civil War and immigrant scholars and local historians alike. Earl J. Hess Purdue University Mary Boykin Chesnut: A Biography. By Elisabeth Muhlenfeld. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981. Pp. xv, 271. $20.00.) She penned the most quoted journal in American history; and while A Diary from Dixie is cited in practically every scholarly volume on the southern Confederacy, diarist Mary Boykin Chesnut herself has long been a figure shrouded in obscurity. No longer does such neglect exist. Elisabeth Muhlenfeld, a doctoral graduate of the University of South Carolina, has produced so solid a study that it is not only the first but in all likelihood the final biography of Mrs. Chesnut. Mary Miller was born in 1823 amid the kind of South Carolina aristocracy that Hollywood exploits. Much of her education came at an exclusive French finishing school in Charleston. At seventeen she became the wife of a highly cultured, highly capable attorney, James Chesnut, Jr. Not only was he formal and stiff; he was unusually tall and thus towered over his wife, who was barely five feet in height. Chesnut was a conservative voice in both the antebellum South and the U.S. Senate. He and his wife had a comfortable marriage. Together they were an engaging couple who were mainstays in high society affairs. Southern secession in 1860-61 altered their lives to the extent that Richmond rather than Washington became Mrs. Chesnut's center of activity. She "regarded herself as superior to most people she knew" (p. 102), but she also had the ability to move easily in the upper echelons of Confederate life. Muhlenfeld presents this picture of Mrs. Chesnut in 1861: "Although she was neither young nor beautiful at thirty-eight, her charm, her intelligence, the irreverent delight she took in all the foibles of mankind had always drawn people to her, and she enjoyed a reputation wherever she went as a brilliant conversationalist, a woman of 'literary' leanings, a lady whose drawing room was likely to hold attractive and important people" (p. 4). Her wartime activities live in the diary that she maintained. It is a revealing document. It could be very snippy—as, for example, Mrs. Chesnut's observation that army commander Braxton Bragg "always stops to quarrel with his generals." On the other hand, she candidly confessed that on her first visit to Chimborazo Hospital she fainted at the sight of such mass suffering. In its original form the diary was crypti- 374CIVIL WAR HISTORY cally written, packed with names and brief phrases written hastily between social engagements. In the postwar years, living comfortably but not lavishly in South Carolina, Mrs. Chesnut began transforming the journal into book form. She never completed the task. Ill health, a shrinking family, and a deepening loneliness hampered her final years. It would remain for others to finish what she began. This biography gives equal and deserved attention to Mrs. Chesnut and her diary. The biography is exhaustively researched; the narrative is written in a chatty style that the South Carolina diarist would have loved. Any reputable Civil War library has at least one edition oíA Diary from Dixie in its collection. The Muhlenfeld study is a natural and necessary companion volume. James I. Robertson, Jr. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University COMMUNICATIONS To the Editor of Civil War History: During the past few years, problems impacting on Civil War historic sites have seemed to multiply rapidly. Or perhaps, thedesecration of the objectionable observation tower at the Gettysburg battlefield just brought the problem to the forefront of our attention. Our organization has been deeply involved in these recent years in combating these threats to our Civil War heritage. We assisted in the project that blocked the theme park on the boundaries of Manassas National Battlefield Park, and carried that project onward to the...

Southern Moderates and Secession: Senator Robert M. T. Hunter's Call for Union

Journal Article Southern Moderates and Secession: Senator Robert M. T. Hunter's Call for Union Get access William S. Hitchcock William S. Hitchcock University of Arizona Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 59, Issue 4, March 1973, Pages 871–884, https://doi.org/10.2307/1918366 Published: 01 March 1973

The Irish Nationalists and Southern Secession

The Irish Nationalists and Southern Secession