Origins of Southern Radicalism: The South Carolina Upcountry, 1800-1860 [Book Review]

Abstract

Three fundamental problems mar this deeply researched, marvelously written study. First, despite the fact that he treats men in particular cases as acting out of pure self-interest, Lacy Ford's broader generalizations attribute cultural and ideological, not material, motives to them. When in 1818, for instance, the state legislature appropriated an amount equal to four times the normal annual state budget to build canals and roads into the South Carolina upcountry, Ford declares that "most of the criticism came from those who resented the state's promoting other interests more vigorously than their own," rather than from principled libertarian opponents of all governmental subsidies (p. 17). When the same body floated bonds to pay for nearly half of the construction costs of extending railroads into the upcountry in the 1850s, "the most adamant opposition" to one especially costly line, Ford remarks, "originated in those sections of the state which stood to gain little from the project," and repeated struggles over subsidies represented a "battle of selfish interests" in which critics "manipulated the electorate's fear of active government sponsorship of private corporations" to protect their "own personal or local interests" (pp. 315, 317).