12/22/2014 04:20 PM
BATON ROUGE – More than three decades after its initial publication, J. Mills Thornton’s
“Politics and Power in a Slave Society” remains the definitive study of political culture in prewar Alabama. Controversial
when it first appeared, the book argues against a view of antebellum Alabama as an
aristocratic society governed by a planter elite. Instead, Thornton claims that Alabama
was an aggressively democratic state, and that this very egalitarianism set the stage
for secession.
White Alabamians had first-hand experiences with slavery, and these encounters warned
them to guard against the imposition of economic or social reforms that might limit
their equality. Playing upon their fears, the leaders of the southern rights movement
warned that national consolidation presented the danger that fanatic northern reformers
would force alien values upon Alabama and its residents. These threats gained traction
when national reforms of the 1850s gave state government a more active role in in
schools, banks, and transportation, intruding for first time in the everyday lives
of Alabama citizens and enabling ambitious young politicians to carry the state into
secession in 1861.
Called an “important and controversial monograph” on its original publication in 1978,
“Politics and Power in a Slave Society” continues to inspire scholars by challenging
one of the fundamental articles of the American creed: that democracy intrinsically
produces good. Contrary to conventional wisdom, slavery was not an un-American institution;
instead, it coexisted with and supported the democratic beliefs of white Alabama.
Thorton was a professor of history at the University of Michigan for 35 years prior
to his retirement in 2010. He is the author of “Dividing Lines: Municipal Politics
and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma.”
For more information, contact Jenny Keegan at 225-578-6453 or jenniferkeegan@lsu.edu or visit www.lsupress.org.
Ernie Ballard
LSU Media Relations
225-578-5685
eballa1@lsu.edu
Posted on Monday, December 22, 2014