A Positive View of Sectional History

a positive view of sectional history by Wonderoon Joya.

The historian Frank L. Ausley is often described as a sectional historian,

meaning that he was a southern historian, born in Alabama,

writing from a southern perspective.

Similarly, the historian Clyde Wilson has been described as a southern historian,

who is a southern partisan in the best sense,

namely one who offers a southern perspective on American history,

one that yields interesting and important insights.

As long as the sectional historian openly discloses his standpoint,

he is in a unique position to offer insights into history

that are lost to those who attempt to explain history

from a neutral and impartial outsider perspective.

This is not to say that outsiders cannot offer useful insights into history.

On the contrary, Ausley praises northern historians who recognize

that simplistic narratives trivializing the grievances of the south

are unhelpful in ascertaining the truth.

The truth requires as full as possible an understanding of history

without which mankind is doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes.

In his preface to Clyde Wilson's from Union to Empire,

Joseph Stromberg says,

it is the function of history and the role of the historian

to help us understand who we are

and how we got into the situation in which we find ourselves.

In that light, Stromberg commends Wilson as

noteworthy for being one of a vanishing small group of professional historians

who do not regard southern life and history as one dark,

gothic misfortune after another.

In understanding the ideological conflict between sectionalism and nationalism

and the implications for contemporary politics,

a time comes when readers sense that there is more to be learned

from American history than can be gleaned from the endless sermons

about historical slavery, which activists,

such as the journalists behind the New York Times' 1619 project,

constantly serve up.

In her biographical essay on the southern agrarians,

Virginia Rock explains that,

as a sectional historian, Ausley was

never too judicious or too impartial.

Rock observed that,

a sectional allegiance, Ausley has maintained,

can sometimes result in an analysis that comes closer to the truth.

His aim was to give his readers a deeper understanding of the South,

rather than simply to offer what establishment historians euphemistically

describe as a nuanced view of history,

guaranteed never to rock the academic boat

or offend sensitive readers.

A historian who discloses his sectional standpoint

is much more valuable to the reader

than the approach adopted by Marxist historians,

who claim that their historical narratives are objective and nuanced,

while brazenly promoting historical materialism

and class conflict views of history.

In his essay, The Fundamental Cause of the Civil War,

Ego-centric sectionalism,

Ausley explains that there is much insight to be gained

from an explicitly sectional perspective,

and that in truth,

given the wide regional variations in a country

as large as the United States,

it would be difficult to acquire meaningful insight into history

by analyzing all regions through a uniform interpretative lens.

Ausley's view was that the very nature of the American state

makes one or the other type of sectionalism inevitable,

in which case the priority should be to ensure that sectionalism is treated

in a positive rather than a destructive manner.

Let me hasten to say that there are two types of sectionalism,

there is that Ego-centric destructive sectionalism

where conflict is always irrepressible,

and there is that constructive sectionalism where goodwill prevails.

Two types as opposite from one another,

as good as from evil,

as the benign is from the malignant.

Within the Southern tradition lies an important vein

of limited government and state rights

that challenged the centralization of federal power

historically championed by New England intellectuals.

Ausley saw positive sectionalism in a light very similar

to John C. Calhoun's theory of the concurrent majority.

The expression and defense of sectional interests

could serve as a check on the centralization of power.

Such provincialism or sectionalism becomes a national asset.

It is a break upon political centralization and possible despotism.

It has proven and will prove to be,

if properly directed, a powerful force in preserving free institutions.

Ausley gives three reasons why sectionalism

proved to be destructive rather than positive

in the years leading up to the civil war.

First, he explains that no section should see itself as

the real America,

while denouncing the other sections as imposters or traders.

That would defeat the whole point of regionalism,

which is intended as a means of cooperation,

rather than a foundation for mutual denigration.

Second, no section should seek to amass to itself

more power than is held by the others,

as that would defeat the whole point of sectionalism

as a balance of power.

Third, which Ausley sees as most important,

is what he calls,

comedy of sections.

In his view, conflict between north and south

was triggered by a failure to observe this principle.

That is, the people in one section failed in their language and conduct,

to respect the dignity and self-respect of the people in the other section.

The point here is not that all sections should come to some false agreement,

which is usually just another way of one section imposing its will on the other.

The point is, rather, that all sections should exhibit

the mutual respect for their differences on which peaceful coexistence depends.

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