Statesmen of the Old South, or From Radicalism to Conservative Revolt . By William E. Dodd , Ph. D., Professor of American History in the University of Chicago. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1911. Pp., 235.)
The substance of these studies of Jefferson, Calhoun, and Davis was originally presented, the author tells us, in the form of popular lectures. The sub-title indicates the general trend of the book. Jefferson, the idealist, the organizer of a political party which refused to adopt his political philosophy, except in part, was succeeded by Calhoun, the nationalist, who was forced by circumstances into a particularist attitude; and Calhoun, in turn, was succeeded by Jefferson Davis, who was identified by earliest environment with the cotton planting and slavery interests of the lower South. These interests were now on the defensive, and therefore gathered about them all the forces of social and constitutional conservatism, just as the great corporate interests of our own day have done.
The author constantly keeps in view the influence of the West, of the frontier, of which in a sense all three men were products, and his comments on this influence are always illuminating. We cannot always agree with his conclusions, as, for instance, those on the nature of the development of pro-slavery sentiment during the twenty years following Jefferson's retirement from the presidency. It would seem, in this case, that Professor Dodd does not sufficiently appreciate the powerful economic forces that impelled the South to the extension of cotton planting and its accompaniment, negro slavery. The author points out that the breakdown of the early alliance between the South and West, due partly to Clay's “American system,” partly to Jackson's dickering for eastern support after his break with Calhoun, was what first forced the South into a particularist attitude. Calhoun's rupture with Jackson he regards as a fatal thing both for the great South Carolinian and for the South; for it drove Calhoun, who in the nullification episode had been striving to hold his state in check, back upon the necessity of consolidating the South upon the proslavery basis. Professor Dodd believes that “the injustice and bad faith of a personal and despotic party leader” (Jackson) was responsible for Calhoun's particularistic attitude, and that had the latter's ambition to become president been gratified, secession and civil war might not have come. A similar fatality overtook Jefferson Davis, who, though a secessionist in 1850, had changed his views and remained a nationalist until Mississippi seceded; for his imperialistic scheme of a southern railroad to the Pacific and the acquisition of Cuba, Panama, and a route to the Orient was blocked by Douglas in the interest of the northwestern railways; the Kansas bill followed, reopening the slavery question, divorcing the two wings of the Democratic party and hastening the revolt of the South in 1860-61.
Though not entirely immune from criticism, these brief and sympathetic studies sum up in a clear and attractive fashion the principal forces which carried the South and the Democratic party along its course from radical leadership in 1800 to conservative reaction in 1860.
Chas. W. Ramsdell .
How to cite:
Ramsdell, Charles W., "Statesmen of the Old South, or From Radicalism to Conservative Revolt", Volume 016, Number 3, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, Page 332 - 333. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v016/n3/review_48.html
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