South Carolina's Scandalous History

While I'm in South Carolina on vacation, I've been thinking about the long history of major political scandals in this state--with 2 of the biggest coming in the past year. It's hard to imagine, as I look out the window at pines and oaks draped in Spanish moss and hear the slow, friendly drawl of the people here that this is the place that produced Joe Wilson. Wilson, who in fact represents the area where my family vacations, was the congressman who yelled "You lie!" during Obama's speech on health reform this past fall. It wasn't the accusation so much as where it was said and how. There is a decorum to criticizing the president, and a decorum to behavior in the chambers of congress.

Another South Carolina congressmen crossed similar lines in a scandal in 1856. Preston Brooks had a gripe with another member of congress, Charles Sumner. Protocol then dictated Brooks should challenge Sumner to a duel, but that would require acknowledging that Sumner was a gentleman--only gentlemen duelled each other. So, Brooks took what was to him the logical alternative--whacking Sumner with his cane in the Senate chamber. Sumner suffered such severe injuries he was unable to return to work for 3 years.

Both congressmen met with support from their constituents, cheers from the supposedly genteel voters for the indecorous acts of their representatives. Brooks received gifts of new canes, one reading "Hit him again." The phones at Wilson's office rang off the hook with calls of support. In both cases, opposition in the North erupted in response. I'm not the first to note the parallels--this NY Times column describes the Brooks/Sumner story in more detail.

I can't think of much in the way of historical parallels for the second big South Carolina scandal, Governor Sanford's "hiking the Appalachian trail" incident. But consider these other SC sex scandals:
-Strom Thurmond's secret, illegitimate black daughter revealing her identity in 2003
-the wife of an indicted SC congressman posed in Playboy and bragged about having sex with him on the US Capitol steps in 1981.

And some other SC political hits:
-the lieutenant governor shot and killed a newspaper editor in Columbia, SC in the early 1900s
-a coalition of state congressmen calling themselves "The Fat and Ugly Caucus" attempted a power grab and many were later indicted in a vote-selling probe
-a speech on the Senate floor--reminiscent of Joe Wilson--by a SC Senator which the New York Times called "coarse abuse of the president" under the headline "Senate Disgraced" in 1896

Oh, and let's not forget that South Carolina was the first to secede from the Union. One historian argues that "South Carolinians don't really want to be part of the United States, and they don't have any use for the political rules and processes the rest of us pretty much agree to." It's true that South Carolina was historically, and continues to be, one of the least democratic states in the country. It has been shaped by social hierarchy and deference since its beginnings, and it appears that South Carolinians are content to let their elected officials do as they please--and sometimes even cheer them on.

The Grand Tour of Random Cities

There is irony in the fact that a city founded by the most hard-core of the Puritans is now one of the least law-abiding places in the country. As the train enters the city, a decrepit brick building towering over the ruins of another building has a message in graffiti written across it: "Detox the Ghetto." And on the city's tourism website, the changing advertisements on the right of the page are for financial rewards for turning in guns or illegal dumpers, a crime hotline, and a neighborhood renewal group.

Newark, New Jersey, may have dropped from the most dangerous to the 20th most dangerous city in America, but it is far from feeling like an alive and healthy place. It was my latest stop in what could be called my "Grand Tour of Random Cities." In my travels in the past few years, I've gone to places that are largely off the tourist map--East Lansing, Michigan; St. Louis; Springfield, Illinois; Providence; Richmond; Columbus, Ohio; Baltimore; and now, Newark. Each of these cities has its merits, but they are all places that have struck me as still recovering from the near-death experience of white flight and urban decay in recent decades.

I only saw a small pocket of Newark during my visit to the New Jersey Historical Society, but what I found most creepy there--as in Richmond, St. Louis, and to some extent in Baltimore--was the lack of people out in the streets. Broad, congested city streets run through block after block of silent, cold buildings and the people are largely sealed inside their cars. The historical society is in one of the few remaining 19th century buildings in this part of Newark, and as I sat in the 5th floor library, the whole building occasionally shook as a trolley rattled past.

In a city like Newark, the past feels fragile. To walk through the empty streets of a half-dead city in order to read the papers of its earlier inhabitants, inhabitants who lived there when the city was growing and thriving, is in some ways a depressing endeavor. I feel like a voyeur who is peering into the city's past without contributing to its future. Unless, that is, cities like these can figure out--as Washington, Boston, or Charleston have--that their history is what could build their future.

"The Most Unconquerable Place on Earth"

I was talking with a friend today about Obama's decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. Somehow I just cannot work up the energy to be angry, because it seems more laughable than anything. Really, if Genghis Khan couldn't conquer this place, what makes us think that we can? Maybe tanks, drones and machine guns aren't such game-changers after all. And perhaps Obama should have had an historian or two--or John Oliver--join his team to decide a course of action in Afghanistan.

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Party Politics

I have been frustrated the past few weeks by the same phenomenon in two different eras: the twisted convulsions of politicians trying to fit into our two-party system. My argument about the stalled health care debate in the Senate hinges on this fact: the Democrats are such a diverse party that the idea of a Democratic super majority is really meaningless. There are two subparties: the DINO's (Democrats In Name Only) from conservative states, and the Progressives. The third entity, mostly left out of the argument, is the Republican party, which is now almost wholly Southern and right-wing because of having bled moderates in the past few elections. At any rate, all of this means there are three factions with totally different interests, each accusing the other of heading the country into ruin.

How little things have changed...in the US history survey course I'm TA'ing, we've been covering the Second Party System in the past few weeks. From the fall of Federalists to the rise of Democrats and Whigs, to the fall of Whigs and rise of Republicans, plus those other pesky third parties thrown in, it's almost impossible to follow. The messiness of it does explain, though, why nobody could ever make any real progress on dealing with slavery. And, like today, politicians on both sides were accusing each other of destroying America. But the messiness is also frustratingly complicated to grasp.

It occurred to me that since we do know, in the case of the 19th century, the full trajectory of the party system, a diagram would be helpful to explain it. Surely somebody had created such a thing...and, thanks to Google, I found this amazing diagram courtesy of the UNC education school:

(follow the link to see a copy big enough to read)

Not that this whole jumble of political changes could ever be crystal-clear, but I think the diagram helps quite a bit. Historians are often loath to use images for explanations, preferring the written or spoken word. I wonder if part of our graduate school training should be in the use of images to tell historical stories and illustrate concepts; sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words (or a 50-minute lecture).