Politics has remained at the core of most southern issues---slavery, morality, roles of state and federal governments, women's rights, regulation of business, and racial desegregation. The southern politician has come to be identified with crucial events in southern history, and southerners, especially those of recent prominence, have maintained their strong identity in national politics. But is there a southern political tradition?

In 1994 at the Chancellor's Symposium in Southern History held at the University of Mississippi, scholars weighed the facts and attempted to deliver a...