New Perspectives on Race and Slavery in America: Essays in Honor of Kenneth M. Stampp eds. by Robert H. Abzug, Stephen E. Maizlish (review)

ShorterBook Reviews 437 history,sociology, English and education. Caughey's points are well-taken. An anthropologyof the mainstream, he contends, will be read by the natives whose livesit seeks to interpret; accordingly, such an anthropology must be substantial andsocially revealing, not merely a record of ethnographic trivia. Another of his challenges is more political: the mainstream is a "seriously flawed system" (235),and it is therefore the duty of the anthropologist, as citizen and scholar, to inquirecritically and act purposefully. For anthropologists, this volume is a useful reminder of the potential-and the peril--0f moving towards the mainstream. For other Americanist scholars, the volumeillustrates that anthropology can be relevant to their concerns and that thereare many untapped possibilities for constructive interdisciplinary dialogue. Frank Manning Department of Anthropology University of Western Ontario RobertH. Abzug and Stephen E. Maizlish, eds. New Perspectives on Race and Slaveryin America: Essays in Honor of Kenneth M. Stampp. Lexington: UniversityPress of Kentucky, 1986. x. + 206 pp. KennethM. Stampp is best known for his revisionist works on slavery, and on the CivilWar and Reconstruction eras. But his most lasting contribution to the field of American history is his service as teacher and mentor. Many of his students rank amongthe top scholars in the United States, occupying choice posts at the nation's bestresearch universities. With this collection of essays, ranging in topic from the originsof slavery in Virginia to desegregation in South Carolina, ten of Stampp's ,tudents honor their teacher. Whatever the accomplishments of its authors-which are formidable-Race andSlavery is oddly disappointing. Some of the essays demonstrate little new researchor thinking. Indeed several, including Leon Litwack's on "The Ordeal of BlackFreedom" are taken largely from previously published material. William W. Freehling writes once more on the Vesey conspiracy of 1822, offering much thesame interpetation he gave in his book on the Nullification controversy. He ~uccessfullyrefutes Richard Wade's claim that the judges who investigated the Veseyaffair falsified testimony in an effort to verify the existence of a plot. But thisis insufficient to demonstrate the authenticity of the alleged conspiracy. Joel Williamson's contribution on the lack of purpose, meaning, or "soul" in Southern society since Emancipation is beautifully written, even touching, but it 1 ' more a personal vision than history. Robe1i McColley attempts to demonstrate that seventeenth-century Virginia planters prefen-ed African slave laborers to whiteindentured servants, whom they replaced as rapidly as the growing supply 438 Shorter BookReviews of slaves allowed. However, his account ignores substantial evidence, marshalled by such scholars as Russell Menard, that suggests Chesapeake plantersturned 10 slavery slowly, and only after the flow of immigrant white servants hadslowed considerably. Essays by William E. Gienapp on ''The Republican Partyandthe Slave Power," Stephen E. Maizlish on the politics of race in the northern Democratic Party, Arthur Zilversmit on Grant's handling of the freedmen,and John G. Sproat on the relatively peaceful desegregation of South Carolina are often thought-provoking, if not always convincing. More interesting is James Oakes' essay on the original creation of a southern aristocracy after the Civil War, and itsprojection back in time, as myth,byearly twentieth-century southern Progressives. Men such as U.B. Phillips, according!~ Oakes, made their own society's political and racial hierarchies legitimate by seeking their roots in antebellum times. Unfortunately, the essay does notstand well on its own, but requires the reader's acceptance of Oakes' previously published work on slaveholders. Nevertheless, it remains one of the book's highlights. Perhaps the best essay is that by Reid Mitchell, in which he addressesthe question of why so many non-slaveholders continued to support the planters' cause after the war was cl.earlylost. Mitchell finds his answer in the life anddeath experience of war, which "created loyalty in the soldier to those who suffered by his side, whether officers or common soldiers" (99). Such loyalty persisted during post-war politics in the Democratic Party. Ironically, Mitchell pointsout, leaders of the Farmer's AIIiance appealed, albeit with limited success, tothe common experience of Union and Confederate veterans in its effort to winsupport for its fight with eastern commercial interests. On the whole, Race and Slavery does not accurately reflect the talentsofits...