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An American Dilemma
1320
Dabney, of> cit.y pp. 241*244..
Archer, of, cit,y p. 154.
For a general description of intolerance in the South, see Dabney, of, cU,y pp.
237-256.
The Mind of the South (1941).
Ibid,, p. 33.
W. J. Cash, who stressed these factors, concludes that:
“If the yoke of law and government weighed but lightly, so also did that of class.
Prior to the last ten or fifteen years before Secession, the Old South may be said, in
truth, to have been nearly innocent of the notion of class in any rigid and complete
sense.”*
On the other hand, there was the myth among the Southern aristocrats that they
were descended from Cavalier Norman stock, whereas the lower classes in the South
were of Roundhead Saxon stock. As we said, they kept these ideas to themselves.
For a discussion of the efifect of the last War on the South, see Frank Tannen-
baum. Darker Phases of the South (1924), pp. 13-20.
Quoted from memory.
One Southern liberal has given us the following lyrical picture of the South:
“In particular here was a large segment of “America’s Tragedy” with its harvest of
later conflict and confusion, born of undesigned and unbalanced programs of reconstruc-
tion. So came an American epoch that was the South. Old golden pages of history,
shining parchment records of culture, then yellow and faded, scorched and seared with
years of embattled conflict, and epic struggle. . . , Gallant figures on black horses and
white . . . and crude, simple folk, sore with the footfall of time, passing across an
epoch which was to be destroyed by physical and cultural conflagration and to rise up
again In another American epoch strangely different and vivid and powerful. Cultures
in the making, social processes at work, portraiture descriptive of how civilizations grow.
All the South’s yesterdays, with their brilliant episodes and with their sordid pictures
receding, giving way to the South’s tomorrows, through a sweeping American develop-
ment reminiscent of universal culture. Thus, there are many Souths yet the South.
It is pre-eminently national in backgrounds, yet provincial in its processes. There are
remnants of European culture framed in intolerant Americanism. There are romance,
beauty, glamor, gaiety, comedy, gentleness, and there are sordidness, ugliness, dullness,
sorrow, tragedy, cruelty. There are wealth, culture, education, generosity, chivalry,
manners, courage, nobility, and there are poverty, crudeness, ignorance, narrowness,
brutality, cowardice, depravity. The South is American and un-American, Christian and
barbaric. It is strong and weak, white and black, rich and poor. There are great white
mansions on hilltops among the trees, and there are unpainted houses perched on pillars
along hillside gullies or lowland marshes. Yet, here is reflected a composite region-in-the-
making, descriptive of American reality, rich in power, range, and contrast, shaped and
proportioned by strong backgrounds whose unfolding episodes were vivid with the
quiver of life. Here are epic and romantic materials of history and literature alongside
measurable elements for the scientific study of human society. Here are illuminating
materials for the better understanding of American life through the study of regional
situations and folk society. Their consistency is often in their contradictions, their unity
in their diversity, like some masterpiece of orchestral harmony. Or, like some unfold-
• Ibid,, p, 34.
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