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lukescalone's review against another edition
4.0
Although published some 70 years ago, this book was remarkably illuminating for me. To put the whole text in perspective, one must first turn to the last chapter. I'm having trouble finding historical population data, but as a reference point, in 1910 southerners made up around one-third of the United States population. I would imagine that free Southerners made up a significantly smaller proportion of the US population before the American Civil War. Yet, between 1788 and 1860 (72 years), 50 of those years saw a Southerner hold the presidency, 60 years saw a Southern Chief Justice for the Supreme Court. Moreover, 20 out of 35 (57%) of all Supreme Court justices, 56 of 119 (47%) of all Cabinet Members, 13 of 23 Speakers of the House (57%), and more than half of all diplomats were Southeners. Then, with the exception of Andrew Johnson, there was not a single Southern president between 1860 and 1912. Southerners were further diminished in all other branches of government. What happened here?
Clearly, the answer is the Civil War. This is something that we already knew, but I didn't realize the numbers were quite so stark. After 1912, Southerners came to once again take important federal positions, there was a flourishing in Southern cultural output (especially literature), and Southern concerns once more played a role in national life. Woodward starts his narrative by arguing that the South has been taken seriously by historians as an independent region from the foundation of the nation to the end of reconstruction in 1877, but was afterwards seen as a region that differed little from the rest of the nation (with the exception of occasional mentions of the intractability of racial issues and the position of poor whites). Woodward pushes back against these perspectives and argues that the South was a world in itself.
One of the most notable things, for me, about Woodward's narrative is the slow transition that the South saw in shifting from Reconstruction to the era of Jim Crow. I had assumed that this happened over night, but as late as 1878, prominent Southern legislators argued that the disenfranchisement of Southern blacks would be a political impossibility short of a veritable revolution. Yet, by 1910, all Southern states had come to disenfranchise African Americans once again. While lynchings were widespread around the country in the decade 1890-1899, the numbers dropped considerably between 1900-1909. This drop happened in the South as well, but much more slowly, to the point where lynch law became wholly associated with the South.
Another point that stuck out to me was the way that the Whigs became vindicated in the South under Reconstruction. While most Southerners were hostile to National Republicans (and later Whigs) like John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay, it was those Democrats with whiggish attitudes that ultimately "redeemed" the South in the eyes of the North, allowing the end of Reconstruction to occur. While the election of 1877 was a corrupt bargain, Conservative Democrats would have little success if not for the role of former Whigs. In fact, the bulk of Democratic lawmakers in the post-Reconstruction South were Whig Party members before the collapse of the Second Party System. While maybe unimportant to others, this is absolutely fascinating to me.
Other topics that Woodward discusses are the emergence of the Populist Party and agrarian radicalism, Northern investment and the poverty of Southerners, the power of white supremacy as a point of unity for Southerners (without which the construction of Southern single-party states would have been impossible), Southern migration to the West (especially Arkansas and Texas), and the slow pace of industrialization. This is all really important but the two points I mentioned earlier are what really stood out to me.
As a narrative history, it's really difficult to digest all of this in one sitting, but it's a really useful work to make sense of the gradual transition of the South from Reconstruction to the era of Jim Crow, while also setting the stage for the political battles that engulfed the South during the 1950s and 1960s (which happened after this text was published) and the emergence of what we today call the "Sunbelt." I disagree heavily with Woodward's later politics, but this is a really important work of scholarship.
Clearly, the answer is the Civil War. This is something that we already knew, but I didn't realize the numbers were quite so stark. After 1912, Southerners came to once again take important federal positions, there was a flourishing in Southern cultural output (especially literature), and Southern concerns once more played a role in national life. Woodward starts his narrative by arguing that the South has been taken seriously by historians as an independent region from the foundation of the nation to the end of reconstruction in 1877, but was afterwards seen as a region that differed little from the rest of the nation (with the exception of occasional mentions of the intractability of racial issues and the position of poor whites). Woodward pushes back against these perspectives and argues that the South was a world in itself.
One of the most notable things, for me, about Woodward's narrative is the slow transition that the South saw in shifting from Reconstruction to the era of Jim Crow. I had assumed that this happened over night, but as late as 1878, prominent Southern legislators argued that the disenfranchisement of Southern blacks would be a political impossibility short of a veritable revolution. Yet, by 1910, all Southern states had come to disenfranchise African Americans once again. While lynchings were widespread around the country in the decade 1890-1899, the numbers dropped considerably between 1900-1909. This drop happened in the South as well, but much more slowly, to the point where lynch law became wholly associated with the South.
Another point that stuck out to me was the way that the Whigs became vindicated in the South under Reconstruction. While most Southerners were hostile to National Republicans (and later Whigs) like John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay, it was those Democrats with whiggish attitudes that ultimately "redeemed" the South in the eyes of the North, allowing the end of Reconstruction to occur. While the election of 1877 was a corrupt bargain, Conservative Democrats would have little success if not for the role of former Whigs. In fact, the bulk of Democratic lawmakers in the post-Reconstruction South were Whig Party members before the collapse of the Second Party System. While maybe unimportant to others, this is absolutely fascinating to me.
Other topics that Woodward discusses are the emergence of the Populist Party and agrarian radicalism, Northern investment and the poverty of Southerners, the power of white supremacy as a point of unity for Southerners (without which the construction of Southern single-party states would have been impossible), Southern migration to the West (especially Arkansas and Texas), and the slow pace of industrialization. This is all really important but the two points I mentioned earlier are what really stood out to me.
As a narrative history, it's really difficult to digest all of this in one sitting, but it's a really useful work to make sense of the gradual transition of the South from Reconstruction to the era of Jim Crow, while also setting the stage for the political battles that engulfed the South during the 1950s and 1960s (which happened after this text was published) and the emergence of what we today call the "Sunbelt." I disagree heavily with Woodward's later politics, but this is a really important work of scholarship.
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