Misplaced Pages

Southern Agrarians

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

Defunct

#516483

121-396: Newspapers Journals TV channels Websites Other Economics Gun rights Identity politics Nativist Religion Watchdog groups Youth/student groups Miscellaneous Other The Southern Agrarians were twelve American Southerners who wrote an agrarian literary manifesto in 1930. They and their essay collection, I’ll Take My Stand: The South and

242-626: A Black majority or urban areas in the South. Although historically a Democratic stronghold , most states in the region have in recent decades come to favor Republicans , although both the Republican and Democratic Party are competitive in certain Southern swing states . The region contains almost all of the Bible Belt , an area of high Protestant church attendance, especially evangelical churches such as

363-519: A Southern way of life against what may be called the American or prevailing way; and all as much as agree that the best terms in which to represent the distinction are contained in the phrase, Agrarian versus Industrial. ...Opposed to the industrial society is the agrarian, which does not stand in particular need of definition. An agrarian society is hardly one that has no use at all for industries, for professional vocations, for scholars and artists, and for

484-497: A group of artists and craftsmen who established a community in Ditchling , Sussex, England, in 1920, with the motto "Men rich in virtue studying beautifulness living in peace in their houses". The guild sought to recreate an idealised medieval lifestyle in the manner of the Arts and Crafts Movement . It survived for almost 70 years until 1989. The Big Society was the flagship policy idea of

605-533: A large American army in the process, and set up a network of bases inland. Although there were Loyalists within the Southern colonies, they were concentrated in larger coastal cities and were not great enough in number to overcome the revolutionaries. The British forces at the Battle of Monck's Corner and the Battle of Lenud's Ferry consisted entirely of Loyalists with the exception of the commanding officer ( Banastre Tarleton ). Both white and black Loyalists fought for

726-692: A large area north of the city (along the Mississippi) becoming known as the German Coast. Still greater numbers immigrated to Texas (especially after 1848), where many bought land and were farmers. Many more German immigrants arrived in Texas after the Civil War, where they created the brewing industry in Houston and elsewhere, became grocers in numerous cities, and also established wide areas of farming. By 1840, New Orleans

847-538: A leading role in the attempt to preserve the system of segregation , Warren took his stand against it. As Paul V. Murphy writes, "Loyalty to the southern past and the ambiguous lessons of Agrarianism led both men in very different directions." Louis D. Rubin Jr. assessed the Agrarians in 1979: In retrospect the importance of I'll Take My Stand lay in its vigorous reaffirmation of religious humanism and its farseeing critique of

968-440: A naval flotilla was sent to Charleston harbor, and the threat of landing ground troops was used to compel the collection of tariffs. A compromise was reached by which the tariffs would be gradually reduced, but the underlying argument over states' rights continued to escalate in the following decades. The second issue concerned slavery, primarily the question of whether slavery would be permitted in newly admitted states. The issue

1089-459: A short time during Reconstruction. There were thousands of people on the move, as African Americans tried to reunite families separated by slave sales, and sometimes migrated for better opportunities in towns or other states. Other freed people moved from plantation areas to cities or towns for a chance to get different jobs. At the same time, whites returned from refuges to reclaim plantations or town dwellings. In some areas, many whites returned to

1210-463: A small part of the economy, with small business owners hiring employees, usually young, inexperienced people. Distributism requires either direct or indirect distribution of the means of production (productive assets)⁠—in some ideological circles including the redistribution of wealth —to a wide portion of society instead of concentrating it in the hands of a minority of wealthy elites (as seen in its criticism of certain varieties of capitalism ) or

1331-421: A society marked by widespread property ownership. Cooperative economist Race Mathews argues that such a system is key to creating a just social order . Distributism has often been described in opposition to both laissez-faire capitalism and state socialism which distributists see as equally flawed and exploitative. Furthermore, some distributists argue that state capitalism and state socialism are

SECTION 10

#1732851406517

1452-464: A total of 260,000, out of a total white Southern population at the time of around 5.5 million. Based on 1860 census figures, 8% of all white males aged 13 to 43 died in the war, including 6% in the North and about 18% in the South. Northern military deaths were greater than Southern military deaths in absolute numbers, but were two-thirds smaller in terms of proportion of the population affected. After

1573-538: Is an economic theory asserting that the world's productive assets should be widely owned rather than concentrated. Developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, distributism was based upon Catholic social teaching principles, especially those of Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Rerum novarum (1891) and Pope Pius XI in Quadragesimo anno (1931). It has influenced Anglo Christian Democratic movements, and has been recognized as one of many influences on

1694-404: Is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do". The Democratic Labour Party of Australia espouses distributism and does not hold the view of favouring the elimination of social security who, for instance, wish to "[r]aise the level of student income support payments to

1815-498: Is beneficial for a person and his family and is, in fact, a right due to God having "given the earth for the use and enjoyment of the whole human race". G. K. Chesterton presents similar views in his 1910 book, What's Wrong with the World . Chesterton believes that whilst God has limitless capabilities, man has limited abilities in terms of creation. Therefore, man is entitled to own property and treat it as he sees fit, stating: "Property

1936-466: Is considered to be the preferred alternative to private banks . G. K. Chesterton considered one's home and family the centrepiece of society. He recognized the family unit and home as centrepieces of living and believed that every man should have his property and home to enable him to raise and support his family. Distributists recognize that strengthening and protecting the family requires that society be nurturing. Distributism puts great emphasis on

2057-588: Is known for having developed its own distinct culture , with different customs, fashion, architecture , musical styles , and cuisines , which have distinguished it in many ways from other areas of the United States. From 1860 to 1861, eleven Southern states plus an additional two Southern states that were claimed and partially controlled seceded from the Union , forming the Confederate States of America . Following

2178-476: Is merely the art of the democracy. It means that every man should have something that he can shape in his own image, as he is shaped in the image of heaven. But because he is not God, but only a graven image of God, his self-expression must deal with limits; properly with limits that are strict and even small." According to Belloc, the distributive state (the state which has implemented distributism) contains "an agglomeration of families of varying wealth, but by far

2299-419: Is that the culture of the soil is the best and most sensitive of vocations, and that therefore it should have the economic preference and enlist the maximum number of workers. Though the book was reviewed widely, it only sold about 2000 copies as of 1940. It has been reprinted several times. The current edition was published by Louisiana State University Press in 2006 to mark the book's 75th anniversary. Most of

2420-558: The 15th Amendment (which extended the right to vote to African American males), African Americans in the South were made free citizens and were given the right to vote. Under Federal protection, white and black Republicans formed constitutional conventions and state governments. Among their accomplishments were creating the first public education systems in Southern states, and providing for welfare through orphanages, hospitals and similar institutions. Northerners came south to participate in politics and business. Some were representatives of

2541-519: The American Civil War , these states were subsequently added back to the Union. Sociological research indicates that Southern collective identity stems from political, historical, demographic, and cultural distinctiveness from the rest of the United States; however, this has declined since around the late 20th century, with many Southern areas becoming a melting pot of cultures and people. Ethnic groups in

SECTION 20

#1732851406517

2662-680: The American Solidarity Party generally adheres to Distributist principles as its economic model. Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam view their Grand New Party , a roadmap for revising the Republican Party in the United States , as "a book written in the distributist tradition". The Brazilian political party, Humanist Party of Solidarity , was a distributist party, alongside the National Distributist Party in England, and

2783-470: The American Solidarity Party have advocated distributism alongside social market economy in their economic policies and party platform. According to distributists, the right to property is a fundamental right, and the means of production should be spread as widely as possible rather than being centralised under the control of the state ( statocracy ), a few individuals ( plutocracy ), or corporations ( corporatocracy ). Therefore, distributism advocates

2904-456: The Basque Country in a region of Spain and France, was founded by a Catholic priest, Father José María Arizmendiarrieta , who seems to have been influenced by the same Catholic social and economic teachings that inspired Belloc, Chesterton, Father Vincent McNabb , and the other founders of distributism. Distributist ideas were put into practice by The Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic ,

3025-593: The British Isles before the American Revolution . In the 1980 census , 34% of Southerners reported that they were of English ancestry; English was the largest reported European ancestry in every Southern state by a large margin. The early colonists engaged in warfare , trade, and cultural exchanges. Those living in the backcountry were more likely to encounter Creek Indians , Cherokee , and Choctaws and other regional native groups. The oldest university in

3146-768: The Chesapeake Bay . The next region to be settled was the Deep South, beginning in Province of Carolina and later the Province of Georgia . The last region to be settled was Appalachia, also settled by the Scotch-Irish . King Charles II of England granted the Charter of Carolina in 1663 for land south of the British Colony of Virginia and north of Spanish Florida . He granted the land to eight lords proprietor . Charles granted

3267-615: The Democratic Labour Party in Australia. In the first round of the 2024 Romanian presidential election , candidate Călin Georgescu , a far-right independent candidate who advocates for a system based on distributism and sovereigntism received 23% of votes and qualified for the second round. Distributism is known to have influenced the economist E. F. Schumacher , a convert to Catholicism. The Mondragon Corporation , based in

3388-528: The Democratic Party to power. In 1876 white Democrats regained power in most of the state legislatures. They began to pass laws designed to strip African Americans and Poor Whites from the voter registration rolls. The success of late-19th century interracial coalitions in several states inspired a reaction among some white Democrats, who worked harder to prevent both groups from voting. Distributism List of forms of government Distributism

3509-616: The Freedmen's Bureau and other agencies of Reconstruction; some were humanitarians with the intent to help black people. Some were adventurers who hoped to benefit themselves by questionable methods. They were all condemned with the pejorative term of carpetbagger . Some Southerners would also take advantage of the disrupted environment and made money off various schemes, including bonds and financing for railroads. White Southerners who supported Reconstruction policies and efforts became known as scalawags . Secret vigilante organizations such as

3630-614: The Gulf of Mexico and Mexico to its south. Historically, the South was defined as all states south of the 18th-century Mason–Dixon line , the Ohio River , and 36°30′ parallel . Within the South are different subregions such as the Southeast , South Central , Upper South , and Deep South . Maryland , Delaware , Washington, D.C. , and Northern Virginia have become more culturally, economically, and politically aligned in certain aspects with

3751-541: The Ku Klux Klan  – an organization sworn to perpetuate white supremacy  – had arisen quickly after the war's end in the 1860s, and used lynching , physical attacks, house burnings and other forms of intimidation to keep African Americans from exercising their political rights. Although the first Klan was disrupted by prosecution by the Federal government in the early 1870s, other groups persisted. By

Southern Agrarians - Misplaced Pages Continue

3872-624: The Old South and the Lost Cause of the Confederacy . It ignored slavery and denounced "progress", for example, and some critics considered it to be moved by nostalgia. A key quote from the "Introduction: A Statement of Principles" to their 1930 book I'll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition : All the articles bear in the same sense upon the book's title-subject: all tend to support

3993-610: The Patriot cause . Virginia would provide leaders such as commander-in-chief George Washington , and the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson . In 1780 and 1781, the British largely halted reconquest of the northern states and concentrated on the south, where they were told there was a large Loyalist population ready to leap to arms once the royal forces arrived. The British took control of Savannah and Charleston, capturing

4114-483: The Southern Baptist Convention . Historically, the South relied heavily on agriculture as its main economic base and was predominantly rural until after World War II . Since the 1940s, the region has become more economically diversified and metropolitan , helping attract both national and international migrants. In the 21st century, it is the fastest-growing region in the United States, with Houston being

4235-470: The humid subtropical climate zone. Crops grow readily in the South due to its climate consistently providing growing seasons of at least six months before the first frost. Some common environments include bayous and swamplands, the southern pine forests , the warm temperate montane forest of the Appalachians, the savannas of the southern Great Plains, and the subtropical jungle and maritime forests along

4356-591: The roseate spoonbill and the extinct but symbolic carolina parakeet . The question of how to define the boundaries and subregions in the South has long been the focus of research and debate. As defined by the United States Census Bureau , A survey conducted by social geographers in 2010 selected thirteen states as the cultural south; Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, Virginia, West Virginia, and Oklahoma. The Southern region of

4477-539: The social market economy . Distributism views laissez-faire capitalism and state socialism as equally flawed and exploitative, due to their extreme concentration of ownership. Instead, it favours small independent craftsmen and producers; or, if that is not possible, economic mechanisms such as cooperatives and member-owned mutual organisations , as well as small to medium enterprises and vigorous anti-trust laws to restrain or eliminate overweening economic power. Christian democratic political parties such as

4598-595: The 16th century, reaching a peak in the late 17th century, but the population was small because the Spaniards were relatively uninterested in agriculture, and Florida had no mineral resources. There were regional differences in the Southern colonies, with the three main regions of Tidewater , the Deep South , and Appalachia . The first region to be settled was Tidewater, containing the low-lying plains of southeast Virginia , northeastern North Carolina , southern Maryland and

4719-510: The 1930s, the Agrarians were challenged by the modernizing social scientists (the "Chapel Hill Sociologists") based at the University of North Carolina (in Chapel Hill) and led by Howard W. Odum , on issues of urbanism, social progress, and the very nature and definition of the South. The sociologists produced Rupert Vance's The Human Geography of the South (1932), and Odum's Southern Regions of

4840-613: The 1960s, and the widespread use of poll taxes and other methods to deny black and poor people the ability to vote or hold office until the 1960s. Scholars have characterized pockets of the Southern United States as being authoritarian enclaves from Reconstruction until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 . When looked at broadly, studies have shown that Southerners tend to be more conservative than most non-Southerners, with liberalism being mostly predominant in places with

4961-644: The Agrarian Tradition , contributed to the Southern Renaissance , the reinvigoration of Southern literature in the 1920s and 1930s. They were based at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. John Crowe Ransom was their unofficial leader, though Robert Penn Warren became their most prominent member. The membership overlaps with The Fugitives . The twelve authors of the Southern Agrarians manifesto, I'll Take My Stand , were: Other writers associated with

Southern Agrarians - Misplaced Pages Continue

5082-565: The Agrarian themes in light of what they see as the failures of highly urbanized and industrialized modern societies. Today, the Southern Agrarians are regularly lauded in neo-Confederate media such as the Southern Partisan . Some of their social, economic, and political ideas have been refined and updated by writers such as Allan C. Carlson and Wendell Berry . The Intercollegiate Studies Institute has published books which further explore

5203-400: The Agrarians include Richard M. Weaver , Caroline Gordon , Brainard Cheney and Herbert Agar . The Agrarians evolved from a philosophical discussion group known as the "Fugitives" or " Fugitive Poets ". Many of the Southern Agrarians and Fugitive poets were connected to Vanderbilt University , either as students or as faculty members. Davidson, Lytle, Ransom, Tate, and Warren all attended

5324-527: The Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Unique flora include various species of magnolia, rhododendron, cane, palm, and oak, among others. Fauna of the region is also diverse, encompassing a plethora of amphibian species, reptiles such as the green anole , the venomous cottonmouth snake, and the American alligator , mammals like the American black bear , the swamp rabbit , and the nine-banded armadillo , and birds such as

5445-706: The British Governor Dunmore of Virginia's promise of freedom for service. Many others were removed by Loyalist owners and became slaves elsewhere in the British Empire. Between 1770 and 1790, there was a sharp decline in the percentage of blacks – from 61% to 44% in South Carolina and from 45% to 36% in Georgia. In addition, some slaveholders were inspired to free their slaves after the Revolution. They were moved by

5566-714: The British Navy. The British Navy did arrive, but so did a stronger French fleet, and Cornwallis was trapped. American and French armies, led by George Washington, forced Cornwallis to surrender his entire army in Yorktown, Virginia in October 1781, effectively winning the North American part of the war. The Revolution provided a shock to slavery in the South and other regions of the new country. Thousands of slaves took advantage of wartime disruption to find their own freedom, catalyzed by

5687-623: The British at the Battle of Kemp's Landing in Virginia. Led by Nathanael Greene and other generals, the Americans engaged in Fabian tactics designed to wear down the British invasion force and to neutralize its strong points one by one. There were numerous battles large and small, with each side claiming some victories. By 1781, however, British General Cornwallis moved north to Virginia, where an approaching army forced him to fortify and await rescue by

5808-601: The Census definition, two U.S. territories located southeast of Florida ( Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands ) are sometimes included as part of the Southern United States. The Federal Aviation Administration includes Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands as part of the South, as does the Agricultural Research Service and the U.S. National Park Service . The first well-dated evidence of human occupation in

5929-419: The Civil War, the South was devastated in terms of infrastructure and economy. Because of states' reluctance to grant voting rights to freedmen, Congress instituted Reconstruction governments. It established military districts and governors to rule over the South until new governments could be established. Many white Southerners who had actively supported the Confederacy were temporarily disenfranchised. Rebuilding

6050-495: The Confederacy. Though early in the war, the Confederacy controlled more than half of Kentucky and the southern portion of Missouri. By March 1862, the Union largely controlled all the border state areas, had shut down all commercial traffic from all Confederate ports, had prevented European recognition of the Confederate government, and was poised to seize New Orleans. The rugged mountainous East Tennessee region attempted to rejoin

6171-549: The Deep South and coastal plain areas, from the early 1600s to mid-1800s. This includes the presence of a large proportion of African Americans within the population, support for the doctrine of states' rights , and legacy of racism magnified by the Civil War and Reconstruction era (1865–1877). Following effects included thousands of lynchings (mostly from 1880 to 1930), a segregated system of separate schools and public facilities established from Jim Crow laws that remained until

SECTION 50

#1732851406517

6292-623: The East Coast to the Great Lakes. Some noted explorers who encountered and described the Mississippian culture, by then in decline, included Pánfilo de Narváez (1528), Hernando de Soto (1540), and Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville (1699). Native American descendants of the mound-builders include Alabama , Apalachee , Caddo , Cherokee , Chickasaw , Choctaw , Creek , Guale , Hitchiti , Houma , and Seminole peoples, all of whom still reside in

6413-595: The Henderson poverty line". The American Solidarity Party has a platform of favouring an adequate social security system, stating: "We advocate for social safety nets that adequately provide for the material needs of the most vulnerable in society". The position of distributists, when compared to other political philosophies, is somewhat paradoxical and complicated (see triangulation ). Firmly entrenched in an organic but very English Catholicism , advocating culturally traditional and agrarian values, directly challenging

6534-521: The King's Men . At a reunion of the Fugitive Poets in 1956, Warren confessed that for about a decade — from just before World War II to some years after — he had shut Agrarianism from his mind as irrelevant to the cataclysmic social and political events then playing out in the world. Now, however, he believed that, rather than being irrelevant, his old Agrarian enthusiasms were tied into the major problems of

6655-566: The Mississippi River in 1863. In the East, however, the Confederate Army under Robert E. Lee beat off attack after attack in its defense of their capital at Richmond. But when Lee tried to move north, he was repulsed (and nearly captured) at Sharpsburg (1862) and Gettysburg (1863). The Confederacy had the resources for a short war, but was unable to finance or supply a longer war. It reversed

6776-531: The Northeastern United States and are sometimes identified as part of the Northeast or Mid-Atlantic . The United States Census Bureau continues to define all four places as formally being in the South. To account for cultural variations across the region, some scholars have proposed definitions of the South that do not coincide neatly with state boundaries. The South does not precisely correspond to

6897-695: The South Will Survive: Fifteen Southerners Look at Their Region a Half Century after I'll Take My Stand, with contributions from Donald L. Anderson (1932–2004), M. E. Bradford , Cleanth Brooks , Thomas Fleming , Samuel T. Francis , George Garrett , William C. Havard , Hamilton C. Horton Jr. , Thomas H. Landess , Marion Montgomery , John Shelton Reed , George C. Rogers Jr. , David B. Sentelle , and Clyde N. Wilson , with an afterword by Lytle. In recent decades, some American traditional conservatives such as Allan C. Carlson , Joseph Scotchie , and Eugene Genovese have praised

7018-409: The South and Eastern United States and were sent to Oklahoma. By 1856, the South had lost control of Congress, and was no longer able to silence calls for an end to slavery – which came mostly from the more populated, free states of the North. The Republican Party, founded in 1854, pledged to stop the spread of slavery beyond those states where it already existed. After Abraham Lincoln

7139-445: The South include: Historically, the South was defined as all states south of the 18th century Mason–Dixon line , the Ohio River , and 36°30′ parallel . Newer definitions of the South today are harder to define, due to cultural and sub-regional differences throughout the region; however, definitions usually refer to states that are in the southeastern and south central geographic region of the United States. Although not included in

7260-445: The South were the most diverse among American regions, and include strong European (especially English , Scots-Irish , Scottish , Irish , French , and Spanish ), African , and Native American ancestries. The politics and economy of the region were historically dominated by a small rural elite. The historical and cultural development of the South has been profoundly influenced by the institution of slave labor , especially in

7381-607: The South, the College of William & Mary , was founded in 1693 in Virginia; it pioneered in the teaching of political economy and educated future U.S. Presidents Jefferson , Monroe and Tyler , all from Virginia. Indeed, the entire region dominated politics in the First Party System era: for example, four of the first five presidents – Washington , Jefferson , Madison and Monroe  – were from Virginia. The two oldest public universities are also in

SECTION 60

#1732851406517

7502-479: The South. Other peoples whose ancestral links to the Mississippian culture are less clear, but those who were in the region before the European incursion include the Catawba and the Powhatan . The arrival of European settlers caused a massive population decline in Native Americans , due to Europeans unknowingly spreading diseases that the natives had no immunities towards, numerous violent conflicts, and forcibly relocating them. The predominant culture of

7623-428: The South: the University of North Carolina (1789) and the University of Georgia (1785). Slavery was legal in all of the Thirteen Colonies prior to the American Revolution in 1776. Britain had slave island colonies in the Caribbean , including Jamaica , Barbados , Nevis , and Antigua , which provided a steady flow of profits from the slave labor that produced sugar. The Southern Colonies differed in that

7744-443: The Southern Agrarians contributed to a second collection of essays, Who Owns America? (1936), which also included writings from English distributists . The Agrarians were the most prolific contributors to The American Review , edited by Seward Collins . Various Agrarians contributed as many as 70 articles, led by Donald Davidson with 21. Scholar Louis Menand has identified many of their contributions as influential in spreading

7865-400: The Southern transportation system depended primarily on river and coastal traffic by boat; both were shut down by the Union Navy . The small railroad system virtually collapsed, so that by 1864 internal travel was so difficult that the Confederate economy was crippled. The Confederate cause was hopeless by the time Atlanta fell and William T. Sherman marched through Georgia in late 1864, but

7986-415: The Union as a new state , having opposed secession and slavery compared to most of Tennessee. In the four years of war 1861–65 the South was the primary battleground, with all but two of the major battles taking place on Southern soil. Union forces led numerous campaigns into the western Confederacy, controlling the border states in 1861, the Tennessee River, the Cumberland River and New Orleans in 1862, and

8107-432: The United States (1936), as well as numerous articles in the journal Social Forces. The sociologists argued that the problems in the South stemmed from traditionalism which ought to and could be cured by modernization, the opposite of the Agrarian viewpoint. Robert Penn Warren emerged as the most accomplished of the Agrarians. He became a major American poet and novelist, winning the Pulitzer Prize for his 1946 All

8228-426: The United States in the 1930s, distributism was treated in numerous essays by Chesterton, Belloc and others in The American Review , published and edited by Seward Collins . Pivotal among Belloc's and Chesterton's other works regarding distributism are The Servile State and Outline of Sanity . In Rerum novarum , Leo XIII states that people are likely to work harder and with greater commitment if they possess

8349-593: The United States includes sixteen states. As of 2010, an estimated 114,555,744 people, or thirty seven percent of all U.S. residents, lived in the South, the nation's most populous region. The Census Bureau defined three smaller divisions: The Council of State Governments , an organization for communication and coordination between states, includes in its South regional office the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. Other terms related to

8470-475: The abuses of unchecked industrial exploitation. In certain crucial respects it is far closer in spirit and intent to works such as Henry David Thoreau 's Walden , Edward Bellamy 's Looking Backward , and T. S. Eliot's " The Waste Land " in its rebuke to an acquisitive business society. This, and not its topical prescriptions for the southern economy of the day, largely accounts for its continuing importance. In 1981, University of Georgia Press published Why

8591-411: The age. In the modern world, the individual had been marginalized, stripped of any sense of responsibility, or of past or place. "In this context," writes Paul V. Murphy, "the Agrarian image of a better antebellum South came to represent for Warren a potential source of spiritual revitalization. The past recalled, not as a mythical 'golden age' but 'imaginatively conceived and historically conceived in

8712-411: The arguments over states' rights that culminated in secession and the Civil War. One of these issues concerned the protective tariffs enacted to assist the growth of the manufacturing sector, primarily in the North. In 1832, in resistance to federal legislation increasing tariffs, South Carolina passed an ordinance of nullification , a procedure in which a state would, in effect, repeal a Federal law. Soon

8833-495: The civil rights movement paradoxically stemmed from Agrarianism, which by the 1950s, meant for him something very different from the Agrarianism of I'll Take My Stand . As Warren's political and social views evolved, his notion of Agrarianism evolved with them. He came to support more progressive ideas and racial integration and was a close friend of the eminent African-American author Ralph Ellison . While Donald Davidson took

8954-613: The codes are not an exact copy, such as Virginia and Maryland , the influence of the Barbados Slave Code can be traced throughout various provisions. In the mid-to-late-18th century, large groups of Ulster Scots (later called the Scotch-Irish ) and people from the Anglo-Scottish border region immigrated and settled in the back country of Appalachia and the Piedmont . They were the largest group of non-English immigrants from

9075-479: The economic ideas of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and his mutualist economic theory. The lesser-known anarchist branch of distributism of Day and the Catholic Worker Movement can be considered a form of free-market libertarian socialism due to their opposition to state capitalism and state socialism. Some have seen it more as an aspiration, successfully realised in the short term by the commitment to

9196-575: The eleven Confederate states, states such as Tennessee (especially East Tennessee ), Virginia (which included West Virginia at the time), and North Carolina were home to the largest populations of Unionists. Many areas of Southern Appalachia harbored pro-Union sentiment as well. As many as 100,000 men living in states under Confederate control would serve in the Union Army or pro-Union guerrilla groups. Although Southern Unionists came from all classes, most differed socially, culturally, and economically from

9317-535: The end of the 15th century – the Mississippian culture . The Mississippian culture was a complex, mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the Southeastern United States from approximately 800 AD to 1500 AD. Natives had elaborate and lengthy trading routes connecting their main residential and ceremonial centers extending through the river valleys and from

9438-404: The entire geographic south of the United States, but primarily includes the south-central and southeastern states. For example, California, which is geographically in the southwestern part of the country, is not considered part of the South. However, the geographically southeastern state of Georgia is. The South, being home to some of the most racially diverse areas in the United States,

9559-411: The greater number of owners of the means of production". This broader distribution does not extend to all property but only to productive property; that is, that property which produces wealth, namely, the things needed for man to survive. It includes land, tools, and so on. Distributism allows society to have public goods such as parks and transit systems. Distributists accept that wage labour will remain

9680-537: The hands of the state (as seen in its criticism of certain varieties of communism and socialism ). More capitalist-oriented supporters support distributism-influenced social capitalism (also known as a social market economy) , while more socialist-oriented supporters support distributism-influenced libertarian socialism . Examples of methods of distributism include direct productive property redistribution, taxation of excessive property ownership, and small-business subsidization. Distributists advocate in favour of

9801-556: The idea of New Criticism to the United States from Britain. Collins eventually became a public supporter of fascism. Several of the Agrarians came to regret (and renounce) their relationship with Collins, however, after his political views became better known. Agrarian Allen Tate wrote a rebuttal of fascism for the liberal The New Republic in 1936. Nevertheless, Tate remained in contact with Collins and continued to publish in The American Review until its demise, in 1937. In

9922-860: The ideas of the Agrarians. Southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie , also referred to as the Southern States , the American South , the Southland , Dixieland , or simply the South ) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau . It is between the Atlantic Ocean and the Western United States , with the Midwestern and Northeastern United States to its north and

10043-504: The institution became even more deeply an integral part of the South's economy. With the opening up of frontier lands after the government forced most Native Americans to move west of the Mississippi, there was a major migration of both whites and blacks to those territories. From the 1820s through the 1850s, more than one million enslaved Africans were transported to the Deep South in forced migration, two-thirds of them by slave traders and

10164-559: The invention of the cotton gin , short staple cotton could be grown more widely. This led to an explosion of cotton cultivation, especially in the frontier uplands of Georgia, Alabama and other parts of the Deep South, as well as riverfront areas of the Mississippi Delta. Migrants poured into those areas in the early decades of the 19th century, when county population figures rose and fell as swells of people kept moving west. The expansion of cotton cultivation required more slave labor, and

10285-512: The labor-intensive cultivation of tobacco, the first cash crop of Virginia. Tobacco exhausted the soil quickly, requiring that farmers regularly clear new fields. They used old fields as pasture, and for crops such as corn wheat, or allowed them to grow into woodlots. The Barbados Slave Code served as the basis for the slave codes adopted in the British American colonies, including Carolina , Georgia , and Antigua . In other colonies where

10406-574: The land in return for their financial and political assistance in restoring him to the throne in 1660. The granted lands included all or part of the present-day U.S. states of North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. In the British colonies, immigration began in 1607 and continued until the outbreak of the Revolution in 1775. Settlers cleared land, built houses and outbuildings, and on their own farms. The Southern rich owned large plantations that dominated export agriculture and used slaves. Many were involved in

10527-485: The land on which they labour, which in turn will benefit them and their families as workers will be able to provide for themselves and their household. He puts forward the idea that when men have the opportunity to possess property and work on it, they will "learn to love the very soil which yields in response to the labor of their hands, not only food to eat, but an abundance of the good things for themselves and those that are dear to them". He also states that owning property

10648-498: The land to farm for a while. Some freedpeople left the South altogether for states such as Ohio and Indiana, and later, Kansas. Thousands of others joined the migration to new opportunities in the Mississippi and Arkansas Delta bottomlands, and Texas. With passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (which outlawed slavery), the 14th Amendment (which granted full U.S. citizenship to African Americans) and

10769-460: The life of cities. Technically, perhaps, an agrarian society is one in which agriculture is the leading vocation, whether for wealth, for pleasure, or for prestige – a form of labor that is pursued with intelligence and leisure, and that becomes the model to which the other forms approach as well as they may. But an agrarian regime will be secured readily enough where the superfluous industries are not allowed to rise against it. The theory of agrarianism

10890-544: The logical conclusion of capitalism as capitalism's concentrated powers eventually capture the state. Thomas Storck argues: "Both socialism and capitalism are products of the European Enlightenment and are thus modernising and anti-traditional forces. In contrast, distributism seeks to subordinate economic activity to human life as a whole, to our spiritual life, our intellectual life, our family life." A few distributists, including Dorothy Day , were influenced by

11011-413: The mere concept of anarchism. Chesterton thought that distributism would benefit from the discipline that theoretical analysis imposes and that distributism is best seen as a widely encompassing concept inside of which any number of interpretations and perspectives can fit. This concept should fit a political system broadly characterized by widespread ownership of productive property. In the United States,

11132-649: The mid-to-late-1870s, some upper class Southerners created increasing resistance to the altered social structure. Paramilitary organizations such as the White League in Louisiana (1874), the Red Shirts in Mississippi (1875) and rifle clubs, all "White Line" organizations, used organized violence against Republicans , both black and white, to remove Republicans from political office, repress and bar black voting, and restore

11253-613: The number of immigrants arriving at Southern ports began to increase, although the North continued to receive the most immigrants. Huguenots were among the first settlers in Charleston, along with the largest number of Orthodox Jews outside of New York City. Numerous Irish immigrants settled in New Orleans, establishing a distinct ethnic enclave now known as the Irish Channel . Germans also went to New Orleans and its environs, resulting in

11374-797: The original Southern states was English . In the 17th century, most voluntary immigrants were of English origin and settled chiefly along the eastern coast but had pushed as far inland as the Appalachian Mountains by the 18th century. The majority of early English settlers were indentured servants , who gained freedom after working off their passage. The wealthier men, typically members of the English landed gentry , who paid their way received land grants known as headrights to encourage settlement. The Spanish and French established settlements in Florida , Texas , and Louisiana . The Spanish settled Florida in

11495-553: The others by masters who moved there. Planters in the Upper South sold slaves in excess of their needs as they shifted from tobacco to mixed agriculture. Many enslaved families were broken up, as planters preferred mostly strong males for field work. Two major political issues that festered in the first half of the 19th century caused political alignment along sectional lines, strengthened the identities of North and South as distinct regions with certain strongly opposed interests, and fed

11616-438: The popularity of political Catholicism across Europe . According to historian Michael A. Riff, a common feature of these movements was opposition to secularism , capitalism, and socialism. In 1891 Pope Leo XIII promulgated Rerum novarum , in which he addressed the "misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class" and spoke of how "a small number of very rich men" had been able to "lay upon

11737-650: The precepts of Whig history —Belloc was nonetheless an MP for the Liberal Party, and Chesterton once stated, "As much as I ever did, more than I ever did, I believe in Liberalism. But there was a rosy time of innocence when I believed in Liberals". Distributism does not favour one political order over another (political accidentalism). While some distributists such as Dorothy Day have been anarchists , it should be remembered that most Chestertonian distributists are opposed to

11858-420: The principle of subsidiarity. This principle holds that no larger unit (whether social, economic, or political) should perform a function that a smaller unit can perform. In Quadragesimo anno , Pope Pius XI provided the classical statement of the principle: "Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it

11979-572: The principles of subsidiarity and solidarity (built into financially independent local cooperatives and small family businesses ). However, proponents also cite such periods as the Middle Ages as examples of the long-term historical viability of distributism. Particularly influential in the development of distributist theory were Catholic authors G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc , two of distributism's earliest and strongest proponents. The mid-to-late 19th century witnessed an increase in

12100-462: The principles of the Revolution, along with Quaker and Methodist preachers who worked to encourage slaveholders to free their slaves. Planters such as George Washington often freed slaves by their wills. In the Upper South , more than 10% of all blacks were free by 1810, a significant expansion from pre-war proportions of less than 1% free. Cotton became dominant in the lower South after 1800. After

12221-456: The proportion of their populations that were African American slaves was much higher than in the Middle Colonies and New England Colonies , as shown on the map. According to Bertram Wyatt-Brown , "Bondage was an answer to an economic need. The South was not founded to create slavery; slavery was recruited to perpetuate the South." The Barbados Slave Code of 1661 served as the basis for

12342-560: The rebels fought on until Lee's army surrendered in April 1865. Once the Confederate forces surrendered, the region moved into the Reconstruction Era (1865–1877), in a partially successful attempt to rebuild the destroyed region and grant civil rights to freed slaves. Southerners who were against the Confederate cause during the Civil War were known as Southern Unionists . They were also known as Union Loyalists or Lincoln's Loyalists. Within

12463-460: The region's largest city. The South is a diverse meteorological region with numerous climatic zones, including temperate , sub-tropical , tropical , and arid —though the South generally has a reputation as hot and humid, with long summers and short, mild winters. Most of the South—except for the areas of higher elevations and areas near the western, southern, and some northern fringes—falls in

12584-444: The regions dominant pre-war planter class . The South suffered more than the North overall, as the Union strategy of attrition warfare meant that Lee could not replace his casualties, and the total war waged by Sherman, Sheridan and other Union armies devastated the infrastructure and caused widespread poverty and distress. The Confederacy suffered military losses of 95,000 soldiers killed in action and 165,000 who died of disease, for

12705-491: The return of a guild system to help regulate industries to promote moral standards of professional conduct and economic equality among members of a guild. Such moral standards of professional conduct would typically focus on business conduct, working conditions and other issues in relation to industry specific matters such as workplace training standards. Distributism favours cooperative and mutual banking institutions such as credit unions, building societies and mutual banks. This

12826-533: The slave codes adopted in the British American colonies of the Province of Carolina and the Province of Georgia . In other colonies where the slaves codes were not an exact copy, such as the Colony of Virginia and the Province of Maryland , the influence of the Barbados Slave Code can be traced throughout various provisions. During the American Revolutionary War , the Southern colonies helped embrace

12947-503: The south United States occurs around 9500 BC with the appearance of the earliest documented Americans, who are now referred to as Paleo-Indians . Paleoindians were hunter-gatherers that roamed in bands and frequently hunted megafauna . Several cultural stages, such as Archaic ( c.  8000 –1000 BC) and the Woodland ( c.  1000 BC – AD 1000), preceded what the Europeans found at

13068-444: The state of Kentucky attempted to remain neutral, and it could only do so briefly. When Lincoln called for troops to suppress what he referred to as "combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary" judicial or martial means, four more states decided to secede and join the Confederacy (which then moved its capital to Richmond, Virginia). Although the Confederacy had large supplies of captured munitions and many volunteers, it

13189-500: The strictest readings of the researchers', could be a 'rebuke to the present'." It was Warren's concern with democracy, regionalism, personal liberty and individual responsibility that led him to support the civil rights movement , which he depicted in his nonfiction works Segregation (1956) and Who Speaks for the Negro? (1965) as a struggle for identity and individualism. As Hugh Ruppersburg, among others, has argued, Warren's support for

13310-424: The teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself". Affirmed in the encyclical was the right of all men to own property, the necessity of a system that allowed "as many as possible of the people to become owners", the duty of employers to provide safe working conditions and sufficient wages, and the right of workers to unionise . Common and government property ownership

13431-457: The traditional low-tariff policy of the South by imposing a new 15% tax on all imports from the Union. The Union blockade stopped most commerce from entering the South, and smugglers avoided the tax, so the Confederate tariff produced too little revenue to finance the war. Inflated currency was the solution, but that created distrust of the Richmond government. Because of low investment in railroads,

13552-427: The university; Davidson and Ransom later joined the faculty, along with Wade and Owsley. They were known also as "Twelve Southerners", the "Vanderbilt Agrarians", the "Nashville Agrarians", the "Tennessee Agrarians", and the "Fugitive Agrarians". They were offended by H. L. Mencken 's attacks on aspects of Southern culture that they valued, such as its agrarianism, conservatism, and religiosity. They sought to confront

13673-469: The widespread and rapidly increasing effects of modernity, urbanism, and industrialism on American (but especially Southern) culture and tradition. The Agrarians were influenced by the medievalism of Victorian writers Thomas Carlyle , John Ruskin and William Morris , as well as the French right-wing tradition that began with Counter-Enlightenment philosopher Joseph de Maistre , which they accessed through

13794-487: The writings of contemporaries T. E. Hulme , T. S. Eliot and Charles Maurras . The informal leader of the Fugitives and the Agrarians was John Crowe Ransom , but in a 1945 essay, he announced that he no longer believed in either the possibility or the desirability of an Agrarian restoration, which he declared a "fantasy". I'll Take My Stand was criticized at the time, and since, as a reactionary and romanticized defense of

13915-402: Was a cosmopolitan port with a variety of jobs that attracted more immigrants than other areas of the South. Because of lack of investment, however, construction of railroads to span the region lagged behind the North. People relied most heavily on river traffic for getting their crops to market and for transportation. Between 1830 and 1850, Native Americans were removed from their home states in

14036-514: Was difficult as people grappled with the effects of a new labor economy of a free market in the midst of a widespread agricultural depression. In addition, the limited infrastructure the South had was mostly destroyed by the war. At the same time, the North was rapidly industrializing. To avoid the social effects of the war, most of the Southern states initially passed black codes . During Reconstruction, these were mostly legally nullified by federal law and anti-Confederate legislatures, which existed for

14157-412: Was elected the first Republican president in 1860, seven cotton states declared their secession and formed the Confederate States of America before Lincoln was inaugurated. The United States government, both outgoing and incoming, refused to recognize the Confederacy, and when the new Confederate President Jefferson Davis ordered his troops to open fire on Fort Sumter in April 1861, war broke out. Only

14278-544: Was expressly dismissed as a means of helping the poor. Around the start of the 20th century, G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc drew together the disparate experiences of the various cooperatives and friendly societies in Northern England, Ireland, and Northern Europe into a coherent political theory which specifically advocated widespread private ownership of housing and control of industry through owner-operated small businesses and worker-controlled cooperatives. In

14399-469: Was initially finessed by political compromises designed to balance the number of "free" and "slave" states. The issue resurfaced in a more virulent form, however, around the time of the Mexican–American War , which raised the stakes by adding new territories primarily on the Southern side of the imaginary geographic divide. Congress opposed allowing slavery in these territories. Before the Civil War,

14520-505: Was slower than the Union in dealing with the border states. While the Upland South border states of Kentucky, Missouri, West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, as well as the District of Columbia , continued to permit slavery during the Civil War, they remained with the Union though Kentucky and Missouri both had rival Confederate governments that formed that were admitted and recognized by

14641-414: Was the wealthiest city in the country and the third largest in population. The success of the city was based on the growth of international trade associated with products being shipped to and from the interior of the country down the Mississippi River. New Orleans also had the largest slave market in the country, as traders brought slaves by ship and overland to sell to planters across the Deep South. The city

#516483