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MAKING BRICKS WITHOUT STRAW: War, Disruption, and Sacrifice

Gregory A. Wills

in Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1859-2009

This chapter focuses on the fate of the Baptist seminary with the onset of the Civil War. The seminary barely escaped extinction during its first thirty years. The Civil War caused its suspension and ... More

This chapter focuses on the fate of the Baptist seminary with the onset of the Civil War. The seminary barely escaped extinction during its first thirty years. The Civil War caused its suspension and annihilated its endowment. In the economic destitution of the Reconstruction South, Baptists had little ability to raise a new endowment. The seminary relocated to Kentucky in 1877 with promises of a new endowment, but securing the pledges and their payment was thwarted by a business panic and economic depression, and by opponents within the denomination who launched powerful attacks against the school.Less

Conclusion: Southern Moderates and the Second Redemption

Anders Walker

in The Ghost of Jim Crow: How Southern Moderates Used Brown v Board of Education to Stall the Civil Rights Movement

This chapter focuses on how moderates like Collins, Coleman, and Hodges publicly rejected extremism while simultaneously undermining black constitutional claims. All three governors used popular ... More

This chapter focuses on how moderates like Collins, Coleman, and Hodges publicly rejected extremism while simultaneously undermining black constitutional claims. All three governors used popular anxiety over integration to expand their executive influence over the state legislative process. All three also used popular anxiety over Brown to centralize, and perhaps even modernize, certain aspects of their states' governmental structure. The chapter also touches on the civil rights movement and the constitutional struggle between black activists and white moderates.Less

African Americans, Slavery, and Thrift from the Revolution to the Civil War

Patrick Rael

in Thrift and Thriving in America: Capitalism and Moral Order from the Puritans to the Present

This chapter traces the role that notions of thrift played in the history of race in pre-Civil War America. In particular, it highlights how white Americans reserved “the virtues of thrift— ... More

This chapter traces the role that notions of thrift played in the history of race in pre-Civil War America. In particular, it highlights how white Americans reserved “the virtues of thrift— industriousness, discipline, and self-control” for themselves, while ascribing to blacks “thrift's antitheses—laziness, improvidence, and profligacy.” In this way, the moral economy of thrift was used to justify the institution of slavery. At the same time, the national discourse of thrift was fragmenting, as the North and South developed competing conceptions of thrift, which reflected the contrasting needs of their economies. The northern states emphasized the bourgeois work ethic, industrialization, and urban life. The southern states stressed a conception rooted in an agricultural and slave-based economy. Northern thrift contributed to the creation of an economy much more diversified and powerful than that of the South, an advantage that proved decisive in the Civil War.Less

Empires of Righteousness: Native Americans, Enslaved Africans, and Indians

Peter J. Marshall

in Remaking the British Atlantic: The United States and the British Empire after American Independence

How they treated indigenous peoples was a matter for recrimination between Britons and Americans. During the war Native Americans generally sided with the British as did escaped slaves, some of whom ... More

How they treated indigenous peoples was a matter for recrimination between Britons and Americans. During the war Native Americans generally sided with the British as did escaped slaves, some of whom the British shipped as free people to their colonies. After the war, American land hunger led to Indian wars and dispossession, whereas the British in Canada posed less of a threat to Native peoples. Trading in slaves was condemned widely on both sides of the Atlantic, but the British continued to export huge numbers of Africans, some going to the southernmost American states, where slavery flourished as it did in the British West Indies. Americans denounced British rule in India as rooted in oppression. Many British people had once thought so too, but after the war British opinion increasingly claimed that their Indian empire was based on benevolence.Less

Slaveholders and Slaves, State's Rights and Revolution

Shearer Davis Bowman

in At the Precipice: Americans North and South during the Secession Crisis

This chapter focuses on Mississippi and how one historian has described it as “the most southern of southern states—a prototype where is mixed all the peculiar forces and tensions that have made the ... More

This chapter focuses on Mississippi and how one historian has described it as “the most southern of southern states—a prototype where is mixed all the peculiar forces and tensions that have made the American South unique in the nation.” During the 1850s, the state's cotton production surpassed that of Alabama, transforming the Magnolia State into the statistical heartland of the Cotton Kingdom. By 1840, after the presidential administration of Andrew Jackson had effected the final dispossession and “removal” to western Indian Territory of the Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes, Mississippi had joined South Carolina as one of two states where African American slaves constituted a majority of the population. Although Mississippi followed South Carolina's December 1860 lead and became the second slave state to quit the Union, its state convention did not achieve the secessionist unanimity of South Carolina's.Less

The Challenge of Great Britain

Peter J. Marshall

in Remaking the British Atlantic: The United States and the British Empire after American Independence

The impact of the war varied in severity throughout America, generally leaving the bitterest legacy in the south. After the war Britain was widely conceived still to be hostile to America, trying to ... More

The impact of the war varied in severity throughout America, generally leaving the bitterest legacy in the south. After the war Britain was widely conceived still to be hostile to America, trying to curb her maritime commerce, to detach the new western settlements and even to subvert American morals by exporting luxury goods. Americans resented the slighting way in which their society and institutions were generally portrayed in the British press. Assessments of Britain varied from those like Thomas Jefferson, who saw her as irredeemably corrupted and bent on the overthrow of American republicanism, to Alexander Hamilton, for whom the power of the British state and Britain’s recent economic development were models for America to emulate.Less

Introduction: The South as a Political Region

Matthew T. Corrigan

in Race, Religion, and Economic Change in the Republican South: A Study of a Southern City

This introductory chapter sets out the purpose of the book, which is to contribute to the discussion about two central questions: Does it matter that the Republicans are now in control? And, to ... More

This introductory chapter sets out the purpose of the book, which is to contribute to the discussion about two central questions: Does it matter that the Republicans are now in control? And, to update a question about Democrats posed by Key 50 years ago, is the new political South led by the Republican Party rising to the challenge of providing a political system to meet the region's problems and opportunities? These questions are important because while many political observers have dissected the electoral rise of Republicans in the South, they have not examined the potential consequences of that rise. This study looks at all three factors from two perspectives: firstly, an examination of attitudes of the entire South; and, secondly, an intensive case study of Jacksonville, Florida, as an example of a Southern city whose politics have been transformed by race, religion, and economics. The chapter then considers whether the change in the political structure of the South have addressed the issue of racial separation in the region's politics; the connection between religion/morality and politics among Southern voters; and economic change in the South.Less

Colorblindness in a Color-Conscious Era: 1877–1920

Jonathan Bean

in Race and Liberty in America: The Essential Reader

Racial issues still existed even after Federal troops left the U.S. South and reconstruction had ended. Southern states passed laws forcing the separation of races in schools, on streetcars, and ... More

Racial issues still existed even after Federal troops left the U.S. South and reconstruction had ended. Southern states passed laws forcing the separation of races in schools, on streetcars, and elsewhere in society. Classical liberals found themselves on the defensive—battling immigration restriction, fighting white racism in the South, defending nonwhites in overseas territories, and offering individual property rights as a solution to the “Indian problem.” Progressives and nativist conservatives advocated immigration restriction in a nation known for its open borders.Less

Transatlantic Protestants

Peter J. Marshall

in Remaking the British Atlantic: The United States and the British Empire after American Independence

During the colonial period British Protestant denominations had established themselves in America. Right up to the Revolution most American Protestants kept close links with their colleagues in ... More

During the colonial period British Protestant denominations had established themselves in America. Right up to the Revolution most American Protestants kept close links with their colleagues in Britain, seeking financial and political support from them. Denominations were split by the war, although the established churches of England, outside the American south, and of Scotland tended to favour the British side and many Dissenters adhered to the American cause. Some American denominations were strengthened by the war while others lost ground. Independence brought about significant changes in relations between British and American Protestants. American denominations now generally ran their affairs without much reference to Britain, sometimes obtaining formal recognition of their autonomy. At the same time evangelical revivals were challenging denominations' authority and tending towards their fragmentation or the emergence of wholly new religious movements.Less

Southern Baptist Clergy, the Christian Right, and Political Activism in the South

James L. Guth

in Politics and Religion in the White South

This chapter examines the so-called “deeply conservative” ideology of Southern Baptists. It evaluates this ideology by analyzing 2000 elections in the Southern states in the U.S. from 1945 to 2000. ... More

This chapter examines the so-called “deeply conservative” ideology of Southern Baptists. It evaluates this ideology by analyzing 2000 elections in the Southern states in the U.S. from 1945 to 2000. The findings indicate that even during the era of Southern progressivism, the Social Gospel made relatively few inroads among Southern Baptist ministers and while the civil rights movement influenced the Established Church in the South it did not resonate with the bulk of white clergy and laity.Less

Presumed Enslaved: Free People of Color and the Law in the Southern States

Emily West

in Family or Freedom: People of Color in the Antebellum South

Chapter one sets the context by detailing the various laws and restrictions imposed upon Southern free people of color over the course of the antebellum era, and particularly the 1850s, when moves to ... More

Chapter one sets the context by detailing the various laws and restrictions imposed upon Southern free people of color over the course of the antebellum era, and particularly the 1850s, when moves to expel or enslave free blacks reached a crescendo. “Voluntary” enslavement legislation and debates therefore represented the culmination of a pro-slavery rhetoric which assumed slavery was a positive good. Such legislation also facilitated the shift towards an “idealized” biracial South of black slaves and free white people. The chapter contextualizes the ever-more restrictive legislation towards free people of color enacted prior to the 1850s. It then considers those laws debated and passed during this decade and the early 1860s, and suggest broader implications of their severity. Comparing and contrasting legislative action across the South, despite somewhat imbalanced surviving evidence and different degrees of legislation against free blacks, reveals the motivations behind expulsion and enslavement laws. Moreover, while the coming of war meant some laws were never enacted or enforced, debates over expulsion and enslavement offer a stark reminder of the direction in which the American South was travelling - towards the enslavement of all free people of color.Less

Political Exclusion and the Limits of Militant Democracy

Alexander S. Kirshner

in A Theory of Militant Democracy: The Ethics of Combatting Political Extremism

This chapter addresses the question of whether there is a recognizably democratic course of action when only a policy of extended political exclusion might keep antidemocrats from sabotaging others' ... More

This chapter addresses the question of whether there is a recognizably democratic course of action when only a policy of extended political exclusion might keep antidemocrats from sabotaging others' rights and crippling representative institutions. It explores the example of America's Reconstruction. In the aftermath of the Civil War, the members of the Reconstruction Congress feared that if Southerners were allowed to participate fully, they would undermine the foundations of legitimate government in the United States. Accordingly, the Congress established military governments throughout the South and excluded Southern representatives from the legislature. Applying the self-limiting model, the chapter illustrates why Congress' policy of conditioning restrictive measures on Southerners' acceptance of the rules of the democratic game successfully alleviated some, though not all, of the normative challenges posed by Southern antidemocrats. It also argues that a more extreme response to Southern intransigence would have been self-defeating.Less

Mr. Clay's Compromise

in The Constitution in Congress: Descent into the Maelstrom, 1829-1861

Southern politicians openly threatened secession on the floor of Congress, and the Mississippi legislature had called for a convention of Southern states to meet in Nashville to discuss ways of ... More

Southern politicians openly threatened secession on the floor of Congress, and the Mississippi legislature had called for a convention of Southern states to meet in Nashville to discuss ways of protecting Southern rights. Alarmed at increasing intransigence on both sides and convinced that the President's plan would only make matters worse, Henry Clay stepped forward for the third time with a comprehensive plan to save the Union. Some Southerners pressed the extension of the Missouri Compromise, which the Nashville Convention said was the “minimum condition” for sectional peace. Clay's initial proposal had been to bribe Texas to relinquish what he called its plausible, but unfounded, claim by assuming the debts incurred by the former Republic in its struggle for independence. The Committee of Thirteen modified the proposed boundary somewhat to the advantage of Texas and substituted a money grant for the assumption of debts, but basically it endorsed Clay's proposal.Less

Institutions and the Struggle over Creditworthiness in the nineteenth-Century united States

Simone Polillo

in Conservatives Versus Wildcats: A Sociology of Financial Conflict

This chapter discusses the case of the United States in the 19th century, as part of a more general investigation of how the boundaries that define creditworthiness are delineated in democratic ... More

This chapter discusses the case of the United States in the 19th century, as part of a more general investigation of how the boundaries that define creditworthiness are delineated in democratic regimes. At the time, the creditworthiness of U.S. citizens was assessed and conceptualized on an individual basis, but this was a political construction, deriving from the nature of the polity, which was decentralized. As a consequence of political decentralization, and specifically fiscal decentralization, bankers strived to gain the support of local political authorities to construct boundaries around the allocation of credit which could be attached to sound banking. In the states of the North, where state governments were democratic, this dynamic was very different than in the states of the South, where relationships between banks and state authorities, relationships grounded in the slave economy, were more exclusionary.Less

Owning Up to Citizenship

Sharon D. Kennedy-Nolle

in Writing Reconstruction: Race, Gender, and Citizenship in the Postwar South

This introductory chapter briefly describes how Reconstruction writers explored the new constitutional guarantee of citizenship for the freedpeople living in the Southern United States. It analyzes ... More

This introductory chapter briefly describes how Reconstruction writers explored the new constitutional guarantee of citizenship for the freedpeople living in the Southern United States. It analyzes the ways in which they produced work that advocated political and social change. These works played an important role in affecting the course of the Reconstruction, by influencing public opinion and by giving voice to the aspirations of millions of freedpeople. The writers—Constance Fenimore Woolson, Albion Tourgée, George Washington Cable, Octave Thanet, activist students from the historically black Storer College—created distinctive visions from the bitterness and hope of the created districts which were made by the Union after the Civil War. The chapter also discusses the ways in which this literature influenced and was influenced by military districting and its aftermath.Less