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- Title
THE SOUTHERN SCHOLAR: HOWARD COLLEGE BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR.
- Authors
BROPHY, ALFRED L.
- Abstract
The Southern Scholar examines graduation addresses delivered at Howard College in Marion, Alabama, in the 1840s and 1850s to gauge the nature of ideas on that campus. In contrast with some more stridently proslavery addresses at many other southern schools in this era, especially the University of Alabama, the addresses at Howard College are largely more moderate. Though one address emphasizes the economic benefits of slavery, most are more focused on the role of educated people in sustaining a commercial Republic in the United States. The addresses reflect the place that many thought southern "scholars"--students and college graduates--should play in leading the South and the United States towards a stable, commercial Republic. In contrast with Emerson's American Scholar, who was supposed to challenge accepted ideas, the "southern scholar" of the Howard College addresses were people who would support a Republic based on broad commerce and industrial development. Such ideas fit well with the economic origins of the students; federal census data reveal that a significant number of a sample of Howard College students in 1850-51 came from slave-owning families. The ideas at Howard College, moreover, reveal the wide intellectual horizons of affluent Southerners, which correlates with what other scholars are increasingly finding about the pre-Civil War South.
- Subjects
UNITED States; SCHOLARS; BACCALAUREATE addresses; HOWARD College (Birmingham, Ala.); COLLEGE campuses; COLLEGE students
- Publication
Cumberland Law Review, 2016, Vol 46, Issue 2, p289
- ISSN
0360-8298
- Publication type
Article