Planting a Capitalist South: Masters, Merchants, and Manufacturers in the Southern Interior, 1790–1860 (review)

South Carolina is perhaps the most studied state when it comes to antebellum Southern history. Steven Hahn, Stephanie McCurry, William Freehling, Lacy K. Ford Jr., Rachel Klein, Manisha Sinha, Orville Vernon Burton, and Peter Coclanis are just a few of the historians who have focused their talents (and made their reputations) on the Palmetto State. Now, Tom Downey has joined this crowd with his Planting a Capitalist South. His work, while interesting and effective, does not quite rise to the level of those mentioned above.

Downey uses local history to examine a big topic—namely, the political economy of the old South. He studies the interaction of agrarian, commercial, and capitalist interests in the Edgefield and Barnwell regions. Located on the state line near Augusta, Georgia, they were adamantly proslavery and decidedly agrarian during the early nineteenth century. Cotton was king and most Southern whites believed that the staple crop was the surest guarantee of wealth and success. Locals were content with limited government activism when it came to influencing the economy, and Downey concludes that internal improvements put the individual's interest to use for the community.

The development of the town of Hamburg began to erode this synergy. The interests of urban merchants and planters diverged, particularly over credit. Merchants used credit to extend their business, while planters used it to keep inferiors indebted to them. Urban storeowners also became more directly connected to Charleston, the source of most of their products. They favored the presence of banks, much to the chagrin of planters. Fights over taxes further strained the relationship between town and country. Downey mentions, but misses the opportunity to discuss, the importance of steamboats to the region's economy.

Splits within the backcountry widened with the advent of railroads and manufacturing plants. Citizens at first welcomed the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company (SCC&RR) as the physical embodiment of progress. Planters aided construction by selling lumber, renting slaves, and ceding land to the railroad company. Trains carried cotton to the coast and increased the region's devotion to the staple. But many locals began to distrust the SCC&RR, which did not pay adequate dividends to stockholders and raised its freight and passenger rates. When the company built a bridge across the Savannah River to connect with Augusta, it diverted business from Hamburg. The railroad went from being a public servant to a private business.

A slow but steady infiltration of manufacturing splintered the political economy even more. William Gregg moved to the region and become a leading evangelist for Southern industrialization. His successful Graniteville Manufacturing Company employed women and teenage boys to work twelve-hour days. The company needed steady control of the Horse River and hence sparked a fight over water use that went to the state legislature. It was one more indication that the local economy had shifted further away from communal interests. Here, some reference to other manufacturing in the South, particularly in the work of Curtis Evans, would have been helpful.

By the time South Carolinians voted for secession the local political economy had changed to allow men of capital a place at the table. The region remained predominantly agricultural, however, as Downey carefully explains. Because he admits that manufacturing was negligible for the South as a whole, it remains unclear whether the experiences of Edgefield and Barnwell are applicable to the wider South. Perhaps the intrusion of capitalism laid the groundwork for economic change in the new South. These observations are not meant to suggest that Downey should have written a different book, but rather to raise questions about his book's wider application to the Southern political economy. Planting a Capitalist South is interesting and well researched. The author has found most of the available sources for Edgefield and Barnwell. He has a complete mastery of his subject and ably explains the uneven shift...