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Toward a Patriarchal Republic: The Secession of Georgia

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The intricacies of Southern political and social thought are very well reflected in Michael P. Johnson's study of secession in Georgia. Johnson rejects the traditional explanations of Georgian secession: that Georgians misinterpreted the threat posed by Lincoln's election and fell victim to Fire-eater rhetoric or that the electorate, allowed a new role in determining state policy in the wake of the collapse of political parties in 1860, led Georgia out of the Union in a wave of passion. He follows up on Eugene Genovese's view that slavery's ascension to a priority greater than that of the Union's preservation led to secession, and that the movement was led by the planter elite. Working on the basis of contemporary explanations of the crisis, Johnson argues that secession was a rational decision made by state leaders. Significantly, though, he identifies the threat behind secession as being not the external threat posed by abolitionism so much as the internal threat within Georgian society itself. He stresses the fact that deep divisions manifested themselves in the debates over secession, in Georgia and across the South. The planter elite, he suggests, saw the crisis as a test of their hegemony in the state; they supposedly worried that their fellow slaveholders would be won over by Republican rhetoric eventually, especially if it manifested itself in the form of patronage enticements. Because slaveholders were unsure as to the long-term commitment to slavery by members of their own circle, they seceded in order to forestall the penetration of the Republican party into Georgia. According to Johnson, there was no ideological consensus behind the state's secession.

Johnson describes a double revolution in Georgia. The first revolution was one for home rule; this involved eliminating the external threat to Southern society, and it was achieved by the decision to secede from the Union. Attention was then turned to a revolution that was internal in nature, the struggle for who would rule at home. This problem was addressed by drafting a new state constitution, one guaranteeing power to the planter elite. He concludes that "secession was driven by political conflict not only between the South and the North but also between the black belt and the upcountry, slaveholders and nonslaveholders, and those who feared democracy and those who valued it." In the battle for who would rule at home, Johnson describes how the elite created a "patriarchal republic" designed so as to mollify internal discord within white Georgian society. This "patriarchal republic," free of the potential excesses of democracy, would soon be destroyed by the War Between the States.

I would echo much of the sentiments of the previous reviewer of this book--Johnson has done a ton of research and written a very thorough, engrossing study of Georgia's secession. Johnson is obviously a believer in the thoughts of historian Eugene Genovese in that Johnson believes that slavery became such a priority that it led Georgia out of the Union. The interpretation can be debated, but what cannot is the thorough amount of research Johnson did for this work. He has mined journals, newspapers, diaries, books, and articles on the topic. Johnson argues that two revolutions occurred in 1861--the first was secession, the second was after secession when the convention altered the state constitution. This book deserves 5 stars for the sheer amount of research Johnson did--20 years later it is still a standard work, if not the standard work, on the topic. However, I only gave it 4 because I felt like the book really lost steam when Johnson began discussing the second revolution aspect. Perhaps it did not hold my interest as much, but I just felt his arguments and the topic weren't as interesting. Overall, though, a must read for students of secession, Georgia, and the antebellum South.