So Julep let me borrow a book, The Southern Mind, and it's fascinating, and I love it, and I need to take notes so we can talk about it at the Classic. As is probably the case with most of you, my education regarding American history is slanted south of the Mason-Dixon Line. The first time I ever heard the North referred to as "we" I was an adult with a Specialist degree observing a high school US History class. I had to shake the cobwebs a little.
I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about the Civil War, though. I was all up in its business for a while, reading North and South, Love and War, all the historical fiction I could get my hands on, mostly so I could look more authentic at Old South. Admittedly, I never read a book about some pretty Yankee girl who came South for Reconstruction with her Carpetbagger husband. Who wants to know about that? (An aside, my great-aunt used to call her ex-daughter in-law's new husband a Carpetbagger. He was from New Albany.)
Anyway, this Southern Mind book tells me that as soon as Andrew Johnson gave the Southern States back their rights, they put slavery back in their constitutions. That's why Reconstruction took such a violent, nasty turn. Is that true? I have no reason to doubt the author, I just never, ever heard that. I've heard the ugly--the Klan, for example. Has history been hiding the Southern Constitutions from me all these years? Don't get me wrong; I don't care. I've made it a full half of my life this way. I'll pull through. Just curious...
No comments:
Post a Comment