Federal laws encouraged the convergence of the North and South
The North and South has converged politically, often at the hand of federal legislation. Dabney worries that the political union tarnished southern distinctiveness.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Virginius Dabney, July 31, 1975. Interview A-0311-2. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- DANIEL JORDAN:
-
Do you think that the South as an identifiable region is becoming less
meaningful? Whether it is liberalism or anything? That the South has
become blurred into the rest of the country to the degree that it is
just not possible to talk about "southern liberalism,"
or southern anything?
- VIRGINIUS DABNEY:
-
More and more, that is certainly the case. As we do away with, either
forcibly or voluntarily, many of the things that differentiated the
South from the rest of the country, we must move into an era where
there is less difference and more uniformity.
In a way, I hate to see that. I think the South has traditions and a
heritage that is worth preserving and we are gradually seeing these
things eroded by legislation and custom and practice.
- WILLIAM H. TURPIN:
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Do you see anything that is still peculiarly southern, that you could
identify either in a good or bad sense?
- VIRGINIUS DABNEY:
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Well, I think that southerners are more leisurely and more friendly and
slower in their movements and actions. I don't know whether it's the
climate or tradition or what. I think the background of the South is a
colorful one and the history is one that we like to think of in many
ways. I hate to see everything becoming uniform and lacking color, with
no picturesqueness or very little, and I am afraid that we are moving in
that direction.