A History of the South by Francis Butler SimkinsReview by: John Payne Jr.The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Spring, 1954), pp. 112-114Published by: Arkansas Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40037964 .

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A History of the South. By Francis Butler Simkins (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953. 615 pp.)

BOOK REVIEWS

A History of the South contains the material that is in Francis B. Simkins' earlier book, The South Old and New, 1 820- 1 947, which was first published in the latter year. The new work carries the story back to the founding of the Jamestown colony in Virginia in 1607 and brings it up through the Presidential election of 1952. The publisher's blurb on the dust jacket is perhaps not unreasonably lauda- tory in making the claim that this new book is uthe compre- hensive study of the whole South throughout its whole history. ..." Certainly Professor Simkins has set such a task as his goal and has come very close to attaining it. He has undertaken to write about every side of the South's history and does so with intelligence and a very deep knowl- edge of his subjects. He devotes a great deal of space to Southern literature, art and architecture, religion and so- cial customs, without in any way slighting political his- tory. The chapters on literature are especially fine. He has been over the whole field from William Byrd's History nf the Dividing Line of 1729 to Erskine Caldweirs Tobacco Road, two works, incidentally, which are further apart in time than in content. Simkins' necessarily brief comments on such writers as Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, and Ellen Glasgow are, in this reviewer's opinion, choice bits of literary criticism. One wishes he could have seen fit to say a little more about Mark Twain, who, to most people, remains a Southern writer, even though he undoubtedly was, as Simkins remarks, one "whose genius transcends sectional limitations."

In covering every aspect of Southern life and thought, the author constantly searches for the explanation of South - ernism. What makes the South a distinct, identifiable sec- tion? He concludes that it is a feeling of cultural separate- ness that has persisted despite all the surface changes brought about by the growth of cities, invasions of North-

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BOOK REVIEWS 113

ern industrialism, and importation of liberal ideas. South- ern people as a whole have not surrendered their rural ideals, their old-time religious beliefs, or, most significant of all, their doctrine of white supremacy. The average Southerner who moves to town and goes into business or gets a job in a factory does not surrender his rural ways. In the case of the businessman, he hopes to make enough money to buy a farm that he can return to in his old age. Even though a few of the more educated Southerners have been converted to an "alien liberalism/' the average person is still conserva- tive and orthodox in his religion, as shown by the remark- able, and growing, strength of the Fundamentalist sects. One of the most rapidly increasing groups in the South, the Church of Christ, uses as its main appeal a literal interpre- tation of the Bible. The strength of the Southern Baptists, the "most distinctly Southern of the great religious bodies/' might also be explained by "its utter refusal to compromise with liberal tendencies of other churches."

Professor Simkins thinks, too, that in the most con- troversial field of all, racial relations, the changes have been more apparent than real. He does not fail to take note of the many reforms: the virtual disappearance of lynch- ing, the opening of professional and graduate schools to Negroes, the larger numbers of Negroes going to the polls each year, and so on. But there, he reminds us, are simply matters of civil rights, and it is still the opinion of the "re- sponsible element" in the South that a line should be drawn between civil rights and social privilege. Here he quotes, apparently with complete concurrence, the section's great historian Douglas Freeman: "The South is going to keep that line drawn and that's all there is to it."

Professor Simkins, and the many others who think like him, may of course be perfectly correct. The doctrine of white supremacy may, indeed, be a permanent belief. One is inclined to wonder, however, whether he attaches quite enough importance to the reforms that he so care- fully takes note of. It appears to this reviewer that a pretty good case could be made for the claim that white supremacy has received some pretty stiff jolts, actual as well as ap- parent, within the last decade. Another unfavorable Su-

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II4 ARKANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

preme Court decision might well be a crippling blow. There is one other criticism that I would make of

the book, and this is one that was almost invariably made by reviewers of his earlier work. It concerns the things Simkins has to say about Abraham Lincoln. It is to be wished that he had been as free from bias in his appraisal of that great leader as he was everywhere else in his book. The following is only one of several grossly unfair state- ments about Lincoln :

Some scholars believe that [Lincoln] blundered into war, overestimating the strength of the Union party in the South. It is more likely that, with a subtlety approaching the diabolical, he provoked the Confed- erates into firing upon Fort Sumter in order to solidify Northern public opinion.

Many persons who cherish the name of Lincoln will find these words a little hard to take. Arkansas State Teachers College John Payne, Jr.

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