Nation within a Nation: The American South and the Federal Government

by Glenn Feldman (Editor)

Overview

From the Constitutional Convention to the Civil War to the civil rights movement, the South has exerted an outsized influence on American government and history while being distinctly anti-government. It continues to do so today with Tea Party politics. Southern states have profited immensely from federal projects, tax expenditures, and public spending, yet the region's relationship with the central government and the courts can, at the best of times, be described as contentious. Nation within a Nation features cutting-edge work by lead scholars in the fields of history, political science, and human geography, who examine the causes—real and perceived—for the South's perpetual state of rebellion, which remains one of its most defining characteristics. Nation within a Nation features cutting-edge work by lead scholars in the fields of history, political science, and human geography who examine the causes—real and perceived—of the South’s perpetual state of rebellion, which remains one of its most defining characteristics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813064482
Publisher:	University Press of Florida
Publication date:	11/05/2019
Pages:	366
Product dimensions:	6.13(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Glenn Feldman (1962–2015) was professor of history at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including Painting Dixie Red: When, Where, Why, and How the South Became Republican and Before Brown: Civil Rights and White Backlash in the Modern South.

Table of Contents

Content List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 Glenn Feldman Part I. Past to Present 1. First to Secede, Last to Accede: South Carolina’s Resistance to the Republic, 1780–Present 19 Thomas F. Schaller Part II. Race, War, and Culture 2. Tom Watson and Resistance to Federal War Policies in Georgia during World War I 67 Zachary C. Smith 3. “Negroes, the New Deal, and . . . Karl Marx”: Southern Antistatism in Depression and War 102 Jason Morgan Ward 4. Dixiecrats, Dissenting Delegates, and the Dying Democratic Party: Mississippi’s Right Turn from Roosevelt to Johnson 122 Rebecca Miller Davis 5. Right Turn? The Republican Party and African American Politics in Post-1965 Mississippi 149 Chris Danielson Part III. A Nation within a Nation? 6. Texas Philosophy, Nashville Agrarianism, Reagan Republicanism, and the Neo-Confederacy: The Influence of M. E. Bradford 181 Fred Arthur Bailey 7. The Evil Empire Within: Southern Nationalism and the Washington Problem 205 David R. Jansson Part IV. Economic Development and Reform 8. Getting Farmers—and Tourists—“Out of the Mud”: Alabama’s Nineteenth-Century Experience with Public Projects and Its Response to the Federal Road Aid Acts of 1916 and 1921 229 Martin T. Olliff 9. “From Nothin’ to Somethin’”: The Tennessee Valley Authority and Federal-Local Cooperation in the Sun Belt South, 1940–1960 261 Matthew L. Downs 10. Lighting the “Dark and Evil World”: Judge J. Smith Henley, Arkansas, and the Federal Judiciary’s Reform of the Southern Prison 287 Gregory L. Richard Part V. Tax Fury and the Tea Party 11. The Tea Party in the South: Populism Revisited? 303 Allan B. McBride 12. Deal or No Deal: Taxes, Government Spending, and Alabamians Having Their Cake and Eating It Too 325 Natalie Motise Davis List of Contributors 343 Index 345

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Original, illuminating, and provocative, Nation within a Nation is certain to challenge those who deny southern exceptionalism. These essays show the complexity, hypocrisy, and, yes, perversion in this tortured relationship.”—Orville Vernon Burton, author of The Age of Lincoln “Feldman has put together an impressive array of scholars who intelligently analyze the peculiar, somewhat dysfunctional, somewhat hypocritical relationship of the South to the federal government.”—Ralph Young, author of Dissent in America: The Voices That Shaped a Nation “Documents the many complex nuances that make the relationship between the South and the federal government such a compelling story. Writing against the historiographical grain, collectively these essays support the idea of southern distinctiveness, a distinctiveness born out of persistent resentment to all things emanating from Washington.”—Kari Frederickson, coeditor of Making Waves: Female Activists in Twentieth-Century Florida

Editorial Reviews

The chapters—individually and collectively—make a powerful case for southern distinctiveness and illustrate the southernization of the relationship between non-southern states and the federal government.”—Journal of American Studies “The book is an interesting read for those concerned with the history of the South, but also for those interested in how newer issues such as the US-Mexican border and criminal justice policies fit within the region’s history.”—New Books in Political Science “Genuinely transnational in scope. . . . Make[s] significant contributions to our understanding of the relationship between the South and the federal government.”—Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

From the Publisher