the states that were part of the confederacy and maybe some people throw kentucky and, oklahoma and in the are good reasons to doo that. so we accept that that's the vernaculars use of the south. but wanted toe look at the history of that territory throughout the entire span of time as opposed to starting at say james taylor st. augustine and tracy european -- >> we will break away briefly from this american history tv program to keep out over 40 year commitment to covering congress. we take your life now to the floor of the u.s. senate where lawmakers are holding what we believe will be a brief session today. no votes are expected.

the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the parliamentarian already read a communication to to the senate. the parliamentarian: washington, d.c., august 15, 2023. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable christopher van hollen, a senator from the state of maryland, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: patty murray, president pro tempore. the presiding officer: in my capacity as a senator from maryland, i ask i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the order of july 27, 2023, i be recognized to ask consent to

modify that order. without objection, so ordered. in my capacity as the senator from maryland, i i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the order of july 27, 2023, the senate, having now convened today, not convene at 12:00 noon as previously ordered and that when it adjourns today, it stand adjourned as under the previous order until 1:00 p.m. on friday, august 18, 2023. and that all other provisions of the july 27 order remain in effect. without objection, so ordered. under the previously order, the senate stands adjourned until 1:00 p.m. on friday, august 18, 1:00 p.m. on friday, august 18, >> the senate is not insufficient for the month of august and part of september to

allow lawmakers to work in the home state. they will be back for legislative business on tuesday september 5th we will bring you live coverage here on c-span2. right now we will return to american history tv. >> the way those societies aree structured, higher degree of incorporationns of african-americans and indigenous people in the catholic society that in protestant british colonies, for example,. >> so one off the other frames f the book that's light out at the beginning is that the south is a region that is a lot of people over many years. this is it necessarily unique o just the south but is a defining feature. so the third author we have with us tonight, scott, you talk about, forward a couple hundred years come stay with me. your essay focuses on the aftermath of the civil war.

are starting a talk about the conception of the south, the people moving in and forming what we now know is that territory here and in many ways after the civil war you have a situation where 40% of the southern population give or take went from being considered property in the eyes of the law to becoming citizens, some of them, the men in that case, being considered for at least the time voting citizens. so youe really have just a massive demographic shift there and the shift in the conception of who gets to be a seven and who gets to participate in society for your essay is entitled the bourbon south at first, i wonder if you could enlighten us on the title, and then you start out with a lot of atlanta history. so given our audience tonight ie thought that might be fun to dig into. >> so the bourbons are immediately after the warck you

have black and white settlers moved into the south, southern n homestead act, lots of black families getting land, buying land. we see a tremendous number of people going cotton for the first time who had never grown cotton before. the bourbons are the ones who come with the story about e bourbons inference is that, is that they never forget -- what's the expression? that they never learn and they never forget. [laughter] enter the bourbons of the people who come in and try to retake the south and make it a white enclave in which white southerners are kind of rule the roost. so they are called the bourbons by critics and others because they just want to remember again and again with the southwest before the war, what the south was during the civil war. so that obsession with kind of,

and dressing up as confederate generals, dressing up as old south planters, all of this memorialization where you try to re-create some imagine south. ironically, the south is being brought together for the first time after the war picked the southern states actually were not connected by large my railroads because, somewhat supported by the southern states individually that they prevented the states into an image editor north carolina didn't want any traffic on the south carolina park south carolina didn't want any traffic going to georgia. it's only when you see the confederacy, and when you see a continuous railroad. to land is not a place really of any importance until the confederacy brings bridges, atlanta to richmond, largely to feed the a confederacy. then you start to see a self that goes all the way to texas and you start to see this

convergence. the peculiar thing about that is this environmental catastrophe that then follows when you bring these railroads through and you start to see yellow fever and all these other diseases that had previously just been coastal spreading throughout the uc pellagra and scurvy at a lot of other diseases that are uniquely southern that have to do with all this cheap food that starts coming in by railroad into the south, and that cheap food doesn't have riboflavin, doesn't have vitamin c or i am. lots and lots of white and black people are eating food that's not especially good for them, and so you see this slowness in all of these diseases and all of these other things. so the south is kind of i would argue becomes something in this trade that there really is a kind of self but it's one that's at least a people like henry grady in atlanta is about remembering a kind of self which the moonlight and acknowledges kind of story of the south.

henry grady with the "atlanta journal-constitution" catapults together as a bourbon we have excluded black people from voting.. he kind of comes up to the supreme court comes up with this way of presenting black people from voting not explicitly but implicitly. and that's the kind of story of the south. and the bourbon south is a kind of a rifle of the bourbon triumvirate in atlanta when you still see when you kind of status. and insurers it's by and large only going to be black people, white peoplee that will be votig that only white people that will be on juries to catch lucy the rise of lynching, all of the other kind of ills that distinctively part of the south. >> building off of that, digging into some of the mechanics of that little m bit more, this question is open to anyone. can you talk more about you mentioned the supreme court specifically but there are other things that are more george or even atlanta specific ort? would you go into that a little bit?

>> so georgia, so most of the cotton that's growing in the southh is, you need 200 frost free days to grow cotton so it's kind of a deep south across cotton appeared after the war when when railroads come through the only way you can get credit is from all the banks are destroyed by the war. the confederates, and, for take all the gold out of the vault come to give them confederate bonds and after the war the bonds are useless. the only way to get credit to grow cotton, and that means that people who are up around here, up in the hills who would have never grown cotton in the 1830s or 1840s never grow cotton but that's the only thing you can get cash for. and credit for. s or country stores and all thesera other things come when u think about the cracker barrel we think about as an old-fashioned thinker but the cracker barrel was a cutting edge of the south in the 1860s and 1870s. it was the institution that gave you credit for growing cotton that provideed you the food that you need to come provide all of these things.

about distinctively and what you think distinctly southern are very much new things and atlanta becomes the hub for the southern railroad, consulting railroad run by radical republicans initially. that joins us out together and most of the cotton then a lot of the cotton ends up going out of virginia rather than through georgia. georgia becomes a kind of colony in a way, it's relationship to the use of the economy changes pretty drastically as well. >> i think it's interesting when you mentioned henry grady in the moonlight magnolias, kind of conception within you also think about what he was nova which was the phrase the new south. so explain. spirit so he gave a speech at the union league in 18 -- around 1880 orr 81, is that right?

in which he says we luckily to the south. the south is thrilling with new capital and imagines the south as a woman. referred start to see the south as a kind of female character that south needs capital part the south is thrilling with investment. in fact, what he's offering is limited is offered lots and lots of white women who have lost husbandor or father's during the civil war so there's a very white men aref wiped out. black men as well but a lot of the white men wiped out by the war itself there so they'e unattached women. in land is the city of women. black and white women. these are going to be the hands that are going to work in the cotton mill. >> rather than just grow cotton we will also see industrialization and urbanization, and industrialization and urbanization in the south is not actually come it's not what we see here. it's not the 20 story buildings.

it's taken cotton and turning it into cloth, and it's taking timber and turning it into furniture picked that sticky tobacco and turning it into cigarettes. it's taking thera raw materials and going one step up that's with the self is better when we talk about urbanization and industrialization places like atlanta were talked about taking all materials and doing one more thing with them. spirit absolutely. i want to go back a little bit before the civil war because of what you touched on, john, some of which are kind of left off with because we skipped a large time period, right? during this time there was a shift in the way that enslaved africans and african-americans and white people related to one another but i wanted to ask, i do wantt to leave is out about the native americans. you talked about how the population was rapidly declining due to disease, due to war, due to other factors. but as the definition of the

south experience, mr. including things like oklahoma were of course there's a large native americanal population. and you talk a little bit about what all this is going on simultaneously what do we see going on in the lead up to the civil war? dating back to the american native because that becomes very important after the civil war. >> well, as i said, during the 18th centuryth most of the south even though the preponderance of the population was steadily becoming more and more european and african, and indigenous population was declining, even after the american revolution, well into the 19th century, most of the south was still claimed by native people and so occupied. what you see though from the type essentially the constitution is signed in 1788, and up until the first two or three decades of the 19th century is an