The South and the Politics of Slavery, 1828-1856 (review)

BOOK REVIEWS175 The South and the Politics of Shvery, 1828-1856. By William J. Cooper, Jr. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978. Pp. xviii, 401. $22.50.) This work is a welcome and useful synthesis of the formal political history of the South from the rise to the disintegration of the second party system. It is essentially an older kind of narrative political history and is limited to the eleven slave states that later constituted the Confederacy. Above all it provides a solid and persuasive narration of political campaigns from 1836 to 1852 together with a meticulous consideration of the opinion of political leadership, the formulation of party strategy, and the content of campaign rhetoric. Based upon a mastery of the secondary literature and extensive research in private manuscripts and newspapers, it is cognizant of but eschews newer interpretive methodologies and concerns. According to the author's major interpretive point, it was "the politics of slavery" that dominated and determined the course of Southern political development during these decades. To put it simply, each political party in the South endorsed the principles of political democracy and then attempted to win popular support by insistingthat it alone could be relied upon the protect the crucial interests ofthe slave South. The origins and success ofthis proslavery appeal are attributed to Southern insecurity, dignity, and pride as well as to the fact that slavery was "the bedrock of southern society"(p.59). The common campaign tactic was to stress one's own proslavery credentials while questioning the loyalty of one's opponents. The result was a dialectic of repeated debate which constantly intensified Southern concern with the slavery issue and carried each political party further and further along in its proslavery commitments and demands. This process was clearly underway by the elections of 1836, and all other issues and events were thereafter subordinate to "the politics of slavery." Ultimately the South was solidified along extreme proslavery lines and the possibility of continued party unity on a national level was thoroughly eroded. The stage was thus set for the disintegration of the party system and the secession crisis. The most impressive accomplishment of this volume is its successful synthesis of three decades of political intricacy in eleven states. The author does an excellent job of explaining in sometimes tedious detail the evolution of Southern politics—the issues, the problems, the formulation of strategy, the campaign tactics, the national setting, the impact of events, the influence of individual leaders, the role of minor parties, and the shifting fortunes of Democrats and Whigs. While most of the national outline is familiar, the Southern details are not, and original assessments are made on a variety of interpretive specifics. Fresh insight is offered, for example, on the role of Calhoun and on the 176CIVIL WAR HISTORY overwhelming importance of President Tyler's policies in hardening die proslavery stance of the South. Altogether this volume convincingly clarifies die manner in which the white South moved toward a united and wholehearted political defense of slavery long before the political crisis of the 1850's and the emergence of Northern Republicanism. Less successful than the political narrative, however, is an overall interpretive framework that is rather ambivalent and eclectic. Cooper identifies his "politics of slavery" with "four major forces in antebellum soutiiern politics: the institution of slavery, southern parties and politicians, the southern political structure, and die values of southern white society"(p.xi). Although he then offers some effective analysis of the interaction of these factors, he does not succeed well in achieving a full or satisfying synthesis. Instead he seems torn between slavery as symbol and slavery as reality, between politics as cause and politics as effect, between Craven and Genovese. While slavery is the bedrock, proslavery rhetoric is considered a political weapon, and political and psychological motives are pronounced paramount in explaining the political process (pp. 59, 65, 105). Expressing fundamental disagreement with economic interpretations, Cooper ignores the question of whether or not slavery itselfshould beviewed as an economic institution The related question of race is also neglected, and somewhat surprisingly, in view ofhis own emphasis upon the sectional dispute over die territories, he too readily dismisses...