Dominion of Memories

Susan Dunn. Dominion of Memories: Jefferson, Madison, & the Decline of Virginia. New York: Basic Books, 2007.

In this short and readable volume, Dunn recounts the sad, and largely self-inflicted, decline of Virginia in the first several decades of American independence. This decline was multifaceted--economic, political, cultural, and demographic.

The largest and most powerful of the thirteen colonies, Virginia and Virginians naturally assumed a leadership role early in the American Revolution, and it would not cede that status for several decades. One Virginian would lead the Continental Army, and another would write the Declaration of Independence. Later, yet another Virginian would lead the effort to craft a new Constitution, and George Washington would return to public service as the first President of the Country once that Constitution was ratified--thus beginning a near-lock on the leadership of the new country. Most students of American history are familiar with the "Virginia dynasty" which ruled the White House for 32 of the first 36 years under the new government--even as yet another Virginian was defining the previously-vague status of the Supreme Court.

That is all fairly well-known to any casual student of American history. What is somewhat less well-known, and much less edifying, is the subsequent decline of Virginia in the early decades of the nineteenth century. The land, particularly in the older eastern regions, became depleted from over-farming, excessive tobacco cultivation, and inefficient agricultural practices. The relative population declined as other states grew in population faster, and as more and more Virginians fled their unproductive farmlands for opportunities to the west and to the south. The economy faltered as the continued reliance on agriculture bypassed the growing commercial and industrial possibilities of the dynamic economy.

Virginia's political leadership exacerbated the situation at nearly every turn; choosing to resist making the sort of structural changes which would have encouraged entrepreneurial development, and resisting any active governmental support for infrastructure or education. Ultimately, a limited public-private system for supporting internal improvements was adopted, but it was far too meager and suspect to political interests to be effective. And the resistance to funding public schools kept Virginians far less educated and literate than the citizens of the more dynamic, growing northern and western states which were supplanting her once-dominant role in national affairs.

The subtext to much of this reactionary stubbornness was slavery, the defense of which (in the opinion of the eastern slave-holding elite, who held disproportionate power under the undemocratic state Constitution) merited constant sacrifice of state expenditures on measures which might facilitate the rise of a capable middle class which could challenge for suffrage and more. Not to mention an increasingly state's rights position regarding the Federal government.

Much of this backwardness was inflicted on the state and its people by the second generation of Virginia politicians; men like John Randolf of Roanoke and Abel Upshur. However, Dunn is more interested in how the ultimately self-defeating justifications of these reactionary theorists for trapping Virginia in a static deference to an imagined idyllic past were grounded in some--not all, but some--of the writings and arguments of two of the Old Dominion's finest Founders; Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

Jefferson and Madison had their differences, even though they were allies for most of their public careers, but they shared a tendency to vacillate between being optimistic, forward-thinking nationalists, and pessimistic, backward-looking Virginia provincialism. The role the two men played in creating the Union that later states-rights politicians would try to destroy was often betrayed by their failure to reckon with the damaged and corrosive effects that their flirtations with nullification, limited government, and the protection of slavery would work on their beloved native state.
Dunn finishes the book with an epilogue bringing the story into contemporary times, arguing that it is not too late for Virginia--and America--to choose between the two conflicting visions Jefferson and Madison embodied and articulated.

Interpretations of American History, Volume 1

Gerald N. Grob and George Athan Billias, eds. Interpretations of American History, Volume 1 to 1877, Patterns and Perspectives. New York: The Free Press, 1967

This is the first of two volumes of what is somewhat of a classic of American historiography--a brief summary and sampling of shifting interpretations of some key eras and topics in American history. Written for college undergraduates, this collection is actually a decent introduction or survey for anybody wanting to get a quick overview of some key arguments in the literature.

There are nine chapters; each with an introduction by the editors followed by three selections from the historiography discussed. The first, an "Introduction", discusses general approaches historians have taken in explaining American institutions and historical development. Each chapter after that covers a particular chronological era in American history, beginning with the Puritan settling of New England (there is not a comparable chapter on the founding of the Chesapeake colonies, or any other for that matter). There is a lot of selectivity involved, but given that the editors wished to cover such a large time frame in one book that could not have been otherwise.

One welcome feature of this series--while the first volume goes through 1877, the second volume actually begins in 1865; the final chapter from volume 1 on Reconstruction is repeated in the second volume as the first volume. This repetition reflects an awareness that the Reconstruction era was both a coda to the Civil War and a precursor to events in the Gilded Age.

The chronological approach has limitations, however. This approach obviously precludes any consideration of thematic histories or other issues which transcend particular, widely-accepted 'eras' in American history. There is no chapter on slavery, for example, or on gender. There are no general discussions of economic history, transportation, or any other facet of national development in the nearly three century period this volume encompasses. Then again, this approach does realistically reflect the way in which general and undergraduate students will experience American history.

Although it was published nearly five decades ago, this book is still a handy reference and a reliable guide to some of the most contentious and fundamental arguments in American historiography.