From
Upper Hogthief, Georgia, to “Fait,” Alabama: Regionalism in
Longstreet’s Georgia Scenes and Hooper’s Some
Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs
from the The Seventeenth Southern Writers Symposium
Adam Tate, Stillman College
Adam Tate, Stillman College
Essay Sections:
Introduction |
Georgia Scenes | Some Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs
| Conclusion | Southern Writers Symposium
Conclusion:
Just as Longstreet had wished in "The Shooting Match," southern regional
consciousness could lead to social unity. Hooper illustrated this theme in an
extraordinary letter to his brother on Christmas Day 1860 about the upcoming
secession convention in Alabama. Hardly in keeping with the Christmas spirit,
he launched into a bitter diatribe against northern radicals. He began: "You
seem to think me bitter, perhaps too bitter, toward the fanatical portion of
the North. . . . I am bitter towards them and I often regret that I cannot in
some way help to destroy them." Blurring the distinction between radicals and
New Englanders in general by using the Puritan myth, he asserted: "I hate them
instinctively — I hate the race and the blood from which they spring —
from Oliver Cromwell down to Ward Beecher, I regard them as one of God's
punishments for a sinful world." Almost at a frenzy, Hooper wrote: "I
hate them more than I do any thing in this world, or than I can hate any
thing in that which is to come; and I cannot repress my joy, when I hear
that they are starving and freezing and rotting around the factories of
New England." He ended the thought with a final wish for violence,
"They pursue me and mine; if I could, I would visit them with fire,
pestilence, famine and the sword." Secession would rid Alabama of "the
accursed tyranny of these demons." In Hooper's hatred of the North as a
corrupt, radical, aggressive power, he revealed that he viewed the possible
war in the future to be one of purification. By separating from the demonic
North, a pure southern nation could preserve order, slavery, and
constitutional liberty.
Thus Hooper and Longstreet ended up in a similar place in 1860 despite their differences in political allegiance. What united their decisions was their conception of southern regionalism. Both men desired a unified social order conceived, at least in part, on racial terms. For Longstreet secession would allow the South to stand up for the old values. For Hooper a southern nation would provide social order by removing the threat against slavery. Nationalism would unify southerners. As their humor reveals, both men conceived of regionalism as cultural unity in an ordered society. Regionalism, therefore, was part of their ideological visions of the good society.
Thus Hooper and Longstreet ended up in a similar place in 1860 despite their differences in political allegiance. What united their decisions was their conception of southern regionalism. Both men desired a unified social order conceived, at least in part, on racial terms. For Longstreet secession would allow the South to stand up for the old values. For Hooper a southern nation would provide social order by removing the threat against slavery. Nationalism would unify southerners. As their humor reveals, both men conceived of regionalism as cultural unity in an ordered society. Regionalism, therefore, was part of their ideological visions of the good society.
Essay Sections:
Introduction |
Georgia Scenes | Some Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs
| Conclusion | Southern Writers Symposium
