Excerpt from The Meaning of the Solid South an Address by Charles William Dabney at the Commencement of the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, May 26, 1909, and Repeated by Request at the Commencement of the Central University of Kentucky, Danville, June 9, 1909

In every essential of national sentiment the United States is a thoroughly united people. In devotion to our charac teristic American ideals, liberty of/the individual and equality of opportunity for all, in industry and in education, at work and at play, our people are united. Northern capital builds Southern mills and Southern men sell the products to North ern consumers. Northern money aids in founding Southern schools, and Southern boys and girls go to Northern colleges. Vv'e visit back and forth in happy friendly relations. Our sons and daughters intermarry, the more freely, apparently, be cause their grandfathers tried to kill each other. National feeling is certainly as strong in the South as it is in the North, only with the difference that in the South it is usually a little more Openly and eloquently expressed. In the war for the liberation of Cuba, Southern boys marched side by side with Northern and Western, proudly wearing the blue and following the flag their fathers fought against, and North Carolina gave the first martyr on the sea and Tennessee on the land. Working together in factory and farm, united in hearts and in homes, we still persist. However, in remaining divided in our political affiliations.

Today, however, many of us sincerely believe that thetime has come when thoughtful men, especially the edu cated young men who are to lead these people in the future, should carefully consider the grounds of this sectional politi cal division and its meaning to our country. The Solid South had its reason for being; it had its mission; it has evidently done good service. What was the reason for its being, the meaning, the mission of the Solid South? Whatever this mission was, the South has fulfilled it at the expense of wealth, of blood, and of life; and she still main tains her isolated political position at great sacrifice. One of the greatest of her sacrifices, for example, is loss of national political leadership.

Both great national parties, it seems, have practically agreed that the section of the country which, prior to 1861, furnished nine of the fifteen Presidents and six of the fourteen Vice-presidents, is today disqualified from furnishing any candidates for these highest offices of the nation. The South accepts this verdict for its own, the Democratic party, just as the North does for its party, the Republican. Moreover, this rule is carried out almost to the total exclusion of the states men of the South from the active councils of the republic founded by their fathers. Thus, the intellect and the char acter, representing one-third of the population and one-sixth of the wealth of the country, have no direct part in shaping the political policies or in administering the higher affairs of the nation, to whose interests they are so cordially devoted. By this process the nation loses the active co-operation of a por tion of its population more purely American in blood and in love of country than that of any other section, and it loses in part the talents of a race noted for its political ability and wisdom. To the foreigner, we are told, the remarkable fact about this situation is that it persists by the will of the people of the excluded section.

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