Susan Dunn: How Virginia fell from first among the states ... lessons for our times
[Susan Dunn, a professor at Williams College, is the author of the recently released "Dominion of Memories: Jefferson, Madison, and the Decline of Virginia." (Basic Books) This piece originally appeared in The Free Lance-Star of Fredericksburg, Va.]
At the time of the American Revolution, Virginia was the most powerful state, surpassing all others in wealth, influence, size and population. What's more, no other state produced such a galaxy of forward-looking, transforming leaders: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, John Marshall, George Mason, Patrick Henry, George Wythe -- the list goes on.
These men led 13 backwater colonies in a war against the mightiest power on the planet. At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, their ideas dominated the agenda. Four of the first five presidents were Virginians. In 1816, before James Monroe's election, some politicians in Washington even called for a constitutional amendment to prevent any one state from dominating the presidency.
They needn't have worried because after Monroe, not only the Virginia Dynasty but the state itself reached an abrupt dead end.
Visitors to Virginia during the first half of the 19th century were shocked by dispiriting scenes of decay. At Monticello, all was "dilapidation and ruin," wrote one visitor in 1832. When Charles Dickens toured Virginia in 1842, he painted a sad picture of a state in ruin. "There is no look of decent comfort anywhere," he wrote.
The nation's premier state had descended into poverty. Poverty meant exhausted soil; falling land values; unfinished canal projects; muddy, impassable roads; few railroad lines; a scarcity of industry and an absence of entrepreneurs; not enough banks and credit; people's reluctance to invest in anything other than land and slaves; and declining exports -- in the 1830s, Virginia's chief export was slaves.
One of the shrewdest observers of Virginia's plight was Ellen Randolph, the young granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson. In 1825, Ellen married a Bostonian, Joseph Coolidge, and after their wedding at Monticello, the young couple toured New England. "My dearest grandfather," Ellen wrote when they arrived in Boston, "it is certainly a pleasing sight, this flourishing state of things: the country is covered with a multitude of beautiful villages; the fields are cultivated and forced into fertility; the roads kept in the most exact order."
Ellen happily described densely populated, delightful villages; huge textile factories; churches with tall white spires; schoolhouses and the groups of friendly "little urchins returning from school."
Citizens of each town paid taxes to maintain their schools, she reported, adding that "there is no tax paid with less reluctance."
Jefferson's astute granddaughter had pointed to virtually all the ingredients for a prosperous society: fertile soil and farmers knowledgeable about agriculture; citizens willing to pay taxes to support good roads and free schools; plentiful densely populated areas; churches; factories; and a diversified labor force.
But in the early 19th century, a new generation of Virginia leaders rejected that formula for prosperity. They located the future in the past, nostalgically clinging to the myth of gracious, leisurely plantation life.
And to the less privileged members of Virginia society, they spouted the Jeffersonian vision of independent farmers leading virtuous, self-sufficient lives on the sacred Virginia soil.
Rep. John Randolph of Roanoke scoffed at the very concept of public education. It was outrageous, he wrote, for people to expect government to take care of them. Upper-class Virginians such as Randolph stonily rejected the idea of forcing the wealthy to pay for the education of the poor. It was a violation of their property rights, they huffed.
"Government, rightly understood, is a passive, not an active, machine," declared Gov. William Branch Giles in 1827. "The less government has to do with the concerns of society, the better."
Fast-forward 100 years. Virginia's U.S. senators, Carter Glass and Harry Byrd, loathed Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Like Randolph and Giles, they believed in "rugged individualism" and "pay-as-you-go" government.
Glass and Byrd were among only six senators who voted against the Social Security Act. "Children are supposed to look after their parents," Byrd sermonized.
Are Virginia's leaders today still enamored of that 18th-century, horse-and-buggy idea of small, frugal government? Virginia is now a wealthy state: As of 2006, the median household income in Loudoun, Fairfax and eight other Virginia counties was among the highest in the nation.
Virginia has the nation's highest concentration of technology workers. Two of its institutions of higher learning -- the University of Virginia and the College of William & Mary -- rank among the top 10 public universities.
Yet in public spending on mental health, Virginia is ranked 30th among the states and 45th in Medicaid spending for citizens with developmental disabilities. It is 28th in average salaries for public-school teachers; 47th in state spending on state parks and recreation; and 38th in per-capita state revenues.
Are Virginia's leaders today taking their cues from the 19th-century politicians who oversaw the state's tragic decline? Or will some Virginia leaders abandon that cramped, passive vision of state government and seek to extend prosperity to all, to enhance equality and to walk, as did the brilliant, indispensable generation of George Washington, not only in step with the times, but boldly ahead of them?
Read entire article at Scripps Howard News Service
At the time of the American Revolution, Virginia was the most powerful state, surpassing all others in wealth, influence, size and population. What's more, no other state produced such a galaxy of forward-looking, transforming leaders: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, John Marshall, George Mason, Patrick Henry, George Wythe -- the list goes on.These men led 13 backwater colonies in a war against the mightiest power on the planet. At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, their ideas dominated the agenda. Four of the first five presidents were Virginians. In 1816, before James Monroe's election, some politicians in Washington even called for a constitutional amendment to prevent any one state from dominating the presidency.
They needn't have worried because after Monroe, not only the Virginia Dynasty but the state itself reached an abrupt dead end.
Visitors to Virginia during the first half of the 19th century were shocked by dispiriting scenes of decay. At Monticello, all was "dilapidation and ruin," wrote one visitor in 1832. When Charles Dickens toured Virginia in 1842, he painted a sad picture of a state in ruin. "There is no look of decent comfort anywhere," he wrote.
The nation's premier state had descended into poverty. Poverty meant exhausted soil; falling land values; unfinished canal projects; muddy, impassable roads; few railroad lines; a scarcity of industry and an absence of entrepreneurs; not enough banks and credit; people's reluctance to invest in anything other than land and slaves; and declining exports -- in the 1830s, Virginia's chief export was slaves.
One of the shrewdest observers of Virginia's plight was Ellen Randolph, the young granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson. In 1825, Ellen married a Bostonian, Joseph Coolidge, and after their wedding at Monticello, the young couple toured New England. "My dearest grandfather," Ellen wrote when they arrived in Boston, "it is certainly a pleasing sight, this flourishing state of things: the country is covered with a multitude of beautiful villages; the fields are cultivated and forced into fertility; the roads kept in the most exact order."
Ellen happily described densely populated, delightful villages; huge textile factories; churches with tall white spires; schoolhouses and the groups of friendly "little urchins returning from school."
Citizens of each town paid taxes to maintain their schools, she reported, adding that "there is no tax paid with less reluctance."
Jefferson's astute granddaughter had pointed to virtually all the ingredients for a prosperous society: fertile soil and farmers knowledgeable about agriculture; citizens willing to pay taxes to support good roads and free schools; plentiful densely populated areas; churches; factories; and a diversified labor force.
But in the early 19th century, a new generation of Virginia leaders rejected that formula for prosperity. They located the future in the past, nostalgically clinging to the myth of gracious, leisurely plantation life.
And to the less privileged members of Virginia society, they spouted the Jeffersonian vision of independent farmers leading virtuous, self-sufficient lives on the sacred Virginia soil.
Rep. John Randolph of Roanoke scoffed at the very concept of public education. It was outrageous, he wrote, for people to expect government to take care of them. Upper-class Virginians such as Randolph stonily rejected the idea of forcing the wealthy to pay for the education of the poor. It was a violation of their property rights, they huffed.
"Government, rightly understood, is a passive, not an active, machine," declared Gov. William Branch Giles in 1827. "The less government has to do with the concerns of society, the better."
Fast-forward 100 years. Virginia's U.S. senators, Carter Glass and Harry Byrd, loathed Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Like Randolph and Giles, they believed in "rugged individualism" and "pay-as-you-go" government.
Glass and Byrd were among only six senators who voted against the Social Security Act. "Children are supposed to look after their parents," Byrd sermonized.
Are Virginia's leaders today still enamored of that 18th-century, horse-and-buggy idea of small, frugal government? Virginia is now a wealthy state: As of 2006, the median household income in Loudoun, Fairfax and eight other Virginia counties was among the highest in the nation.
Virginia has the nation's highest concentration of technology workers. Two of its institutions of higher learning -- the University of Virginia and the College of William & Mary -- rank among the top 10 public universities.
Yet in public spending on mental health, Virginia is ranked 30th among the states and 45th in Medicaid spending for citizens with developmental disabilities. It is 28th in average salaries for public-school teachers; 47th in state spending on state parks and recreation; and 38th in per-capita state revenues.
Are Virginia's leaders today taking their cues from the 19th-century politicians who oversaw the state's tragic decline? Or will some Virginia leaders abandon that cramped, passive vision of state government and seek to extend prosperity to all, to enhance equality and to walk, as did the brilliant, indispensable generation of George Washington, not only in step with the times, but boldly ahead of them?