South Carolina Books

When I think of the term "Irish," a few things come to mind: potato famine, green shamrocks, and Notre Dame Football. I also generally think of the large and prominent Irish populations in Boston, Chicago, and other areas in the North. But, one thing that never comes to mind is the term Southerner.

In his book, The Irish in the South, 1815-1877, David Gleeson brings the idea of an Irish Southerner to light by examining the nineteenth century Irish Diaspora to the U.S. and its impact on the American South. Ideas examined include the impact of the Irish on southern economy, the Catholic Church, politics, and the formation and destruction of the Confederate States of America. In all of this Gleeson implies that the reason the terms Irish and southerner are not automatically linked like in other areas of the country (New England) is they integrated with the southern culture and indeed helped to define the South.

The book is an exhaustive study of not only the Irish, but it also gives the reader a peek into the antebellum South as well. The book has given new meaning to the term "Irish" as well as a new appreciation for the impact of the Irish on the development of the South.

For any of us who survived Hurricane Hugo this book is fascinating. The authors provided accurate research that should prove to be not only interesting but also valid documentation of a tragic time in our history.

I use this excellent documentary source with success in a storytelling class I've taught periodically over the past 10 years. Jack tales are a rarified regional tradition as well as a type of folk hero tale with many connections to other North American and global oral traditions. Their geneology is here traced and illustrated by phonetic transcriptions of a number of performances by different generations of Jack tale tellers from the central Appalachians, each accompanied by an introductory essay. It's a useful case study of how a particular tale type entered the country and spread among a small localized and often related group of tellers, migrated into text form and then out again, and became in one sense the archtypal tale type of the American storytelling revival, thanks to the late Ray Hicks of Beech Mountain, who leads off the bunch and headlined the first decade or so of national festivals in Jonesborough, Tennessee.

Last fall after the festival I had the good fortune to visit my uncle's church in Banner Elk, at the foot of Beech Mountain, where I met a couple of Marshall Ward's former students, who remembered him telling Jack tales to assembled students every Friday after school.

Available elsewhere are audio versions of these Jack tales by at least some of the tellers included in this book: Ray Hicks, Marshall Ward, and Donald Davis.

Hammond is not a nice guy. He married for money, was not a great father, and campagined for elected office at time when no one else did and against the 'party' candidate to boot. Most interesting of all was his commitment to the Confederate cause but resistance to the call for material and manpower to help the cause. In the end, he could not believe it when his slaves were jubilant about the prospect of freedom. Through Hammond's eyes we see the south changed forever by the Civil War, not only due to the lost of their slaves but also by the unsouthern actions the Confederate government had to take and how they affected the southern way of life. Hammond is not a nice guy but this very readable book provides an excellent insight to the antebellum southern mind.

Because I grew up a few miles from the James Williams plantation, I have known about the Laurens County, SC, son who died at Kings Mountain. Most people, however, haven't. I didn't realize his importance until I happened upon his family's cemetery in lower Laurens County one afternoon with my father and all the stones read, "___, wife of Col. James Williams killed at Kings Mountain," "___, brother of Col James Williams killed at Kings Mountain," "____, son of Col. James Williams killed at Kings Mountain," etc. throughout the family plot.

This book reads like a published masters thesis or doctoral dissertation and brings to light one of South Carolina's Revolutionary heroes whom few know. The writer's insight into the conflict with Thomas Sumter is quite interesting.

Well, my grandfather wrote this book a year before he passed away and I think it is amazingly good. I was 16 when he published it. I am not sure that anyone will ever read this but there is a chance. My grandfather was a wonderful man, a brilliant historian, and an incredible intellect. I would recommend this book to anyone.

J

This book was published first in 1835 but as 19th century novels go I found it fairly well-done, and holding my interest. There is a lot of melodrama, and the Indians are portrayed with some balance. There are some racist-like views, and a silly scene where Hector, a slave, begs his good master not to set him free. But the account is fast-moving and event follows rapidly on event. The scene is 1715 in South Carolina, and involves an Indian insurrection which actually happened, tho it is pretty hard to find much about it in history sources. Some of the speeches put in the mouths of characters in the extremely stressful situations in which they find themselves are not without humor to today's reader. It is said this is the best of Simms' novels, and knowing that makes me think some of his other novels might be fun to read--this one is.

John Taylor of Caroline is largely unknown these days yet in the 1780s thru the 1820s he was one of our most influential political theorists and commentators on the Constitution.
His contributions to the pamphlet wars of the 1790s helped clarify the differences between the emerging Jeffersonian opposition and the positions of Hamilton, Adams and other Federalists. Later, starting with the publication of Arator and continuing through to his New Views on the Constitution, John Taylor developed a powerful variant of the so-called South Atlantic Republicanism. Taylor's philosophy (a powerful mix of state's rights, an emphasis on the rights of the {white} individual, Adam Smith's economic theories, veneration of farming and a fear of the "monied" interests) was influential for decades. It is difficult to read deeply in the history of the early republic without having to deal with Taylor's ideas and influence. In particular, I would think it very difficult to understand or appreciate antebellum Southern culture without an understanding of Taylor.
But, I am going to assert, there is a darn good reason that his philosophy has been largely forgotten by all but the most fervid state's right advocate. Simply put, Taylor's particular form of republicanism is based on his ideas about the agrarian life and that is based on his views on slavery. More on that later.
The book under review by Robert Shalhope is a form of intellectual biography. Shalhope is a great and influential historian (it is impossible to read contemporary academic history of the period and not see his name cited). Shalhope assumes that the reader is largely familiar with the great public events of Taylor's time and makes little effort to relate those events (if you need the background reading try Miller's The Federalist Era and Smelser's The Democratic Republic for solid, short intros). Shalhope gives the broad outlines of Taylor's life- enough to see that on the personal level he was a sympathetic and very upright man (given his own morality). Mostly Shalhope is interested in exploring how the structure of Virginia life impacted Taylor's thought and vice versa.
Along the way, he gives excellent summaries of all of Taylor's writings.
Shalhope sees those writings as having a thematic arc that takes Taylor's thought from a form of "Revolutionary republicanism, once held in common with the larger national community, to a sectional ideology" (p.9).
The earlier phase of Taylor's thought is explicated in his "An Enquiry into the Principles and Tendency of Certain Public Measures". Taylor claimed that the following six principles were fundamental:
1. The Constitution established a republican form of government.
2. Congress has the power to tax only for the public good-not for the
good of private persons.
3. The ultimate legitimacy of any legislation is derived from the people...
4. which was regularly delegated by elections to representatives.
5. A representative was legit only as long as he was impelled by the common good.
6. Whenever any of the above was not true, the government had been usurped
and was no longer legitimate. (p.76)
The body of the pamphlet is spent explaining how these principles are imperiled by the Bank of the United States. Taylor seems to have been incapable, according to Shalhope, of seeing a bank as being anything but a fraudulent device to transfer money from those who actually earn it (the farmer, the mechanic) to those who don't (the "monied" interest, the stockjobber, the speculator, etc..).
One could make the case that the rest of Taylor's writings were simply improvements on the themes of the 1790's pamphlets. But Shalhope sees a second phase of Taylor's ideas beginning to emerge with the publication of the Arator essays in 1810. These newspaper essays presented not only Taylor's extensive knowledge of agriculture (he was a very successful and innovative farmer) but also his ideas on an ideal society (p.127).
Taylor believed that there was a "common interest" that it was the duty of government to represent. This common or "natural" interest was based on the ownership of land. Land made fruitful by the work of the agricultural and laboring classes. This is true wealth and, by creating it, there was a natural fostering in those classes of necessary republican virtues. Natural labor led to lives of simplicity, honesty, frugality and temperance. It created men who were self-sufficient, beholden to no one yet who cared for their neighbors and their country. The representative of the country must be faithful to this interest and encourage it above all "artificial" interests if the young American nation was to survive as a bastion of freedom. Artificial interests were those of the stock-jobber, those of the paper money men and those who wanted a constant national debt. If the representatives were corrupted into the service of artificial interests, then we had become a nation of slaves. Thus the Arator essays were designed to bring about a renaissance of agriculture and thus of true republicanism (p.136).
Many of the reforms that Taylor was to suggest in these and later writings were designed to maintain the health of this natural agrarian political economic foundation. His writings are full of intelligent warnings about not mistaking the ability to vote with freedom, about the political machinations of the wealthy capitalist (he actually used this word in some of his later writings {p.187}) and various constitutional changes that could help to foster the political position of the farmer.
But there is always the presence of slavery. By the time of the Arator essays, Taylor owned 145 slaves (p.110). Since the essays are written for the Southern farming elite, they are full of suggestions on how to get the most out of your "animal labour", i.e., your slave. This gets to the crux of what I find so odd about Taylor and, for that matter, Jefferson and Madison and all the others. They wax poetic about the republican nature of
farm labor but they weren't the ones doing the real labor. They merely oversaw. These weren't small family farms. Many of the founders (like Taylor) were solicitous of their slaves but only as long as displayed "complete submission" (p.142). They were terrified of being subjected to the schemes of the money men but they had no problem wielding a far more terrible power over their slaves. Yeah, they were conflicted but so what? A conflicted tyrant is still a tyrant. And ask yourself this- would our culture be so understanding of their conflicts if their slaves had been white?
And so in the end, I am left with a great book about one of our great men who was terribly wrong about the centerpiece of his political theories. You can read Taylor for insights into Southern culture at the time or for insights into the early constitutional debates. You simply cannot read him for a usable political theory. His time is past to which I say (and I am an atheist), "Praise God". You are better off just reading
Shalhope.

A leading biblical scholar and a brillian psychologist present a fascinating guide to the book of Jonah. The father-and-son team of Andre and Pierre Lacocque offer new meaning to a popular biblical narrative. The book of Jonah -- a folktale, a popular narrative, an epic, the skillful symbolism of biblical wisdom on human nature are all part of this revealing encounter.
"Theology, psychology, character study, and biblical study are carefully woven to create this exciting, straightforward, and nontechnical approach to the book of Jonah. A gold mine of psychological insight for pastors and interested lay readers.
"The Jonah Complex reassesses the universality of God's calling and demonstrates its value in understanding human nature. The authors blend exegesis, theology, hermeneutics, psychology, and existentialism to provide a fresh look and new understanding of one of the most popular Old Testament narratives."

Collaboratively compiled and edited by David W. Kling (Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of Miami, Florida) and Douglas A. Sweeney (Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Church History and the History of Christian Thought, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois), Jonathan Edwards At Home And Abroad: Historical Memories, Cultural Movements, Global Horizons collects and showcases the insights of fifteen academicians and scholars concerning one of America's most important religious figures whose influence extended well beyond the borders of the United States. Offering diverse, erudite, and meticulous explorations of Edwards' impact upon American and world history, the essays range from issues concerning the status of African-Americans in nineteenth century America; to issues concerning the salvation of children, theological ideas that spread across the seas, and more. A very highly commended and commendable addition to academic and seminarian library collections, Jonathan Edwards At Home And Abroad offers the reader a wealth thoughtful and informative perspectives on the life and influence of a most remarkable man's global influence on theological development in England and Scotland, the late 18th and early 19th century Christian missionary movements; as well as the then contemporary Christian attitudes and controversies on such subjects as sex, property rights, and the salvation of children.