Two Paths to the New South: The Virginia Debt Controversy, 1870-1883, and: Tennessee at the Crossroads: The State Debt Controversy, 1870-1883 (review)

BOOK REVIEWS281 equate nationalism with advocacy of emigration and then to assert that even the schemes of the American Colonization Society were "radical" (p. Ill), while die opponents of voluntary emigration were moderates in part because they wanted blacks to stay in die United States and fight (p. 138). The Peases argued convincingly five years ago that Garnet was basically a pragmatist who could change his position as circumstances required. Stuckey almost simultaneously emphasized that Garnet's ideas eventually were accepted by blacks who initially opposed them. Schor makes the same arguments, widiout acknowledging his predecessors, but he adds few new insights into Garnet's life. He does not explain what Garnet's strong religious beliefs had to do widi his various activities or discuss the role of Garnet's family in his public life. In fact, die only hints in this biography that Garnet even had- a family are casual references (on p. 198 and in a footnote for that page) to his daughter and his second wife. Schor does make some interesting observations. He contends that Garnet and Charles Ray were more easily able to innovate than were veteran abolitionists like Douglass and Charles Remond because die younger men were not trained by Garrison. He probably is correct that Garnet was an "intellectual catalyst" for Douglass, that the prolonged public rivalries between Garnet and Douglass helped change blacks' views about ways to achieve abolition and civil rights, and that Garnet helped legitimize physical resistance and voluntary emigration. But it does not necessarily follow that Garnet was the "mentor" of his peers (p. xi). Neither do diese observations redeem what is essentially a poorly written chronicle of the public utterances of a man who still deserves not only greater recognition but also a good biography. Douglas Gamble Stanford University Two Paths to the New South: The Virginw Debt Controversy, 18701883 . By James Tice Moore. (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1974. Pp. xiii, 167. $12.95.) Tennessee at the Crossroads: The State Debt Controversy, 18701883 . By Robert B. Jones. (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1977. Pp. xii, 192. $10.95.) The status of state bonded indebtedness and overall credit rating in the international financial market became critical issues in the politics and economics of the post-war Soudi. Burdened with debts incurred by ante-bellum and Reconstruction governments and faced with wartime destruction, a contracted tax base, and eco- 282CIVIL WAR HISTORY nomic depression in the 1870's, most Southern states were forced to scale down or repudiate their obligations to their bondholders. The studies under review shed considerable light on the often bewildering world of finance in the two states where the debt dispute was most disruptive. Moore offers a polished and provocative, if somewhat brief, study of the kaleidoscopic interplay of regions, ideologies, and personalities involved in the Virginia debt dispute. Faced with a valid debt of $45 million and obsessed with maintaining the state's credit, the conservative regime funded the old debt widi new 6 per cent bonds in 1871. Even when it became apparent that the act had shackled the impoverished state "into a grinding cycle of deficit spending" (p. 16), the Funders continued to insist that repudiation "would violate the basic principles of Christian ethics and economic orthodoxy" (p. 18). If not backward-looking, these "men against their time" certainly represented traditional elitist values and, despite their lip service to New Soudi notions, Moore argues that the Funders had fundamental misgivings about the proposed new order and little love for the example set by the industrial Northeast. Moore's suggestive treatment of the Funders forms a backdrop for his focus on the Readjusters. Initially a "disorganized and ineffectual group of malcontents" (p. 45), the original (and more conservative ) Readjuster theorists from Eastern Virginia joined ambitious , "aggressively democratic" insurgents from the Valley and Southwest to demand a downward revision of the debt. Wim the addition of progressive business and professional men from Tidewater and fall line cities, blacks, and Republicans, the "enigmatic" William Mahone forged die powerful coalition that promised Virginia an alternate path to the New South. When viewed in the context of Gilded Age politics, Moore argues that Mahone emerges as...