Tag: postbellum South

5,170 words

Four years ago I reread Gone with the Wind (1936), the bestselling novel about the Civil War and Reconstruction South.

I hadn’t intended to, but I did. I’d loathed it in my teens, and deeply regretted the time I’d wasted reading the 1,000-plus page tome — Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, and famous four-hour motion picture adaptation (which I also disliked) notwithstanding.

This strong aversion had nothing to do with race, which was not on my radar screen, or ideology, or North versus South, or slavery, or anything of that nature. (more…)

2,365 words

After the Civil War, the American South was in ruins. Beyond the poverty, oppression, and the rapid demise of the old regime, however, the inheritors of the former Confederacy found themselves without defense in the national court of moral opinion. They were a defeated people who had drawn arms against a tolerant and progressive government in order to cling to outmoded ways of life, including (most offensively to some) the ancient practice of slavery.

Those who pined for the South’s days of greatness needed a champion. During the postbellum period, Thomas Nelson Page was one such champion. (more…)

4,517 words

Richard Weaver
The Southern Tradition at Bay: A History of Postbellum Thought
New Rochelle, New York: Arlington House, 1968

Richard Weaver’s The Southern Tradition at Bay has grown in both poignancy and meaning since its posthumous publishing in 1968. Originally Weaver’s 1943 doctoral dissertation at Louisiana State University, this work offers a survey of the most important postbellum literature produced by Southern writers until 1910 and ties it together with a philosopher’s breadth of vision. (more…)

Edward Williams Clay, America, 1841.

2,701 words

Thomas Nelson Page
The Negro: The Southerner’s Problem
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1904

After the Civil War, the defeated South needed a champion. It needed someone who could articulate the rationale behind the lost Southern cause in such a way that would allow for the reincorporation of the former Confederacy back into the Union without alienating its former enemies. (more…)

4,734 words

Shortly after the Civil War, the American South found itself in ruins. Much has been written about the devastation of the war and the indignities and strife which followed during Reconstruction. Beyond the poverty and oppression and the rapid demise of the old regime with its “outdated” culture of honor, loyalty, and heroism, the inheritors of the former Confederacy found themselves without defense in the national and international courts of moral opinion. (more…)