James Madison, the South, and the Trans-Appalachian West, 17831803

By (author) Jeffrey Allen Zemler

Publication date:

14 November 2016

Length of book:

222 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9781498550864

The strong relationship that historians have described between the South and the trans-Appalachian West in the early nineteenth century had its origins in the twenty-year period after the American Revolution when a group of far-sighted southerners, with James Madison in the forefront, worked to form a political bond between the two regions. While many historians have taken this close relationship for granted or have dismissed it as a natural product of cultural similarities, strong family bonds and slavery being just two, it was built deliberately by a handful of forward-looking southerners with hard work and dedication. Jeffrey A. Zemler carefully analyzes the development of this bond and the history of these two regions during this twenty-year period, which is far more complicated than historians have imagined or described.

Acknowledgment
Editorial Note
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. What to Do with the West?
Chapter 3. A Nationalist Viewpoint
Chapter 4. The West and the New Constitution
Chapter 5. The Fight for the Potomac
Chapter 6.A Western Perspective
Chapter 7.An Unhappy West
Chapter 8. And Slavery
Chapter 9.Western Anxieties and the Military Debate
Chapter 10.A Change in Emphasis
Chapter 11.Epilogue: Looking East
Bibliography

Zemler makes an interesting and important argument. From 1780 to 1800, 'far-sighted' southern leaders–of whom the Virginian James Madison was a leading example–worked to create political and cultural bonds between the established southern states of the Atlantic seaboard and the emergent states of the trans-Appalachian West. (Zemler uses 'West' as a label for the territories west of the Appalachians and south of the Ohio River, which strikes this reviewer as too imprecise.) It is this Madisonian agenda, Zemler contends, that helps readers understand the multitudinous political battles of the American Republic's first two decades. The pursuit of a South-'West' alliance informed debates over issues ranging from the role of the House of Representatives in diplomacy, to the idea of a 'standing army' during this insecure period, to the place of slavery in an expanding southwestern demesne. Moreover, Zemler shows, historians studying the 'Old South' need to look earlier for its origins, as the 'southern-ness' of the eventual cotton frontier was already well in place by 1800. This well-researched, closely argued book will be read with profit by students of the early Republic and Old South. Summing Up: Recommended. All academic levels/libraries.