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Includes: The South, 1819--1848: A Critical Essay on Recent Worksby Edwin A. Miles, 1968This book is Volume V of A History of the South, a ten-volume series designed to present a thoroughly balanced history of all the complex aspects of the South's culture from 1607 to the present. Like its companion volumes, The Development of Southern Sectionalism was written by an outstanding student of Southern history.What caused the South's growing self-consciousness as a region? Professor Sydnor here deals with two major aspects of the problem. One is the internal development of the South. Sydnor's analysis of local and state governments provides the clue to the mainsprings of political action, and he studies the motives behind programs for economic and humanitarian reform, the trends in education, salve trading, the Indian removal, and westward expansion. The other more somber theme is the deterioration of the South's relationship to the nation: the loss of its position of political leadership, its attempts to invent political defenses for its minority position, and the gradual substitution of a sectional for a national patriotism. In this period were laid the foundations for the fateful conflict that was to follow. Sydnor's thoughtful study suggests fresh interpretations for the Missouri Compromise, the origins and significance of nullification; and his deep insight into the development of sectionalism during the 1820s makes this volume indispensable to an understanding of the South.
About the author
Charles S. Sydnor was professor of history at Duke University at the time of his death in 1954. He had previously served as professor of history at Hampden-Sydney College and the University of Mississippi and had also taught at Emory and Cornell Universities. A one-time president of the Southern Historical Association, he served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Southern History and the Southern Altantic Quarterly. He was the author of Slavery in Mississippi and A Gentleman of the Old Natchez Region: Benjamin L.C. Wailes. He also contributed twenty-three biographical sketches to the Dictionary of American Biography and numerous articles to historical journals. After his death the Sydnor Prize for the best book in the field of Southern history was established by the Southern Historical Association.
