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A Good Southerner: The Life of Henry A. Wise of Virginia. By Craig Simpson (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985. Pp. xviii +450 )

Henry Wise emerged as one of the most mercurial and ambiguous southern politicians during the antebellum era. His service in the Civil War brought him to the attention of histroians. Wise, a Virginias, served in most of the major encounters between the Confederacy and the Union Army in 1865; although never trained as a soldier, he acquitted himself ably, especially in the engagements just before Appomatox. When the cause appeared hopeless, Wise led the generals urging Robert E. Lee to surrender. Craig Simpson’s biography of Wise included his military service but gives the body of his work to treating Wise pre-war years.

Henry Wise’s family lived an a sizeable estate on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Raised in the relatively peaceful isolation of Accomack County, Wise imbibed the ideology of the great planters of Virginia’s past. But the transition culturally and politically from the great eighteenth century planters to Jacksonian America involved a bewildering amount of cultural, political, and social transmutations. His education included some of the great thinkers of the Enlightenment, which contributed to Wise’s lifelong flirtation with all things “liberal.”

Most southerners initially found much to admire in Andrew Jackson’s solid defense of state rights and his general ethos. Wise admired Jackson, but in 1832 the Virginian joined a phalanx of aristocratic southerners who bolted the Democracy (as the Democratic party was then known) to join Henry Clay and the remnant National-Republicans. Wise joined the Whig Party enthusiastically, largley because he believed in the merits of the National Bank. The Bank question, like so many other pieces of Wise’s life, exposed deep contradictions. Much of the Virginia gentry despised the bank, and John Tyler, a Whig himself, eventually balked at rechartering the national bank. But unlike Tyler, Wise lacked the basic courtesy and political malleability to gain the trust those with opposing viewpoints.

Simpson’s thesis hinges on a psychological reading of Wise’s many contradictions, Although kind at times and extremely loyal, Wise exhibited the worst traits to be found in the antebellum southern aristocracy. He dueled almost constantly and despised classes he believed to be beneath him. The Trans-Allegheny Virginians, poor small farmers and miners, constantly earned his derision.

Wise’s place in the slavery debates places in the vanguard of southern extremists. But Simpson argued that Wise’s extreme pro-slavery arguments stemmed from political expediency. Wise, according to Simpson, saw southern politics as an extreme arena where only extremist could survive. Wise called Hispanic peoples of Europe, the Caribbean, and the Americas mongrels and saw them as subhuman, never mind that many Spaniards were whiter than wise. Simpson attributes Wise’s virulently racist articulations of slavery and American dominance to a political need to appear as extreme as possible. The argument has merit. Wise repeatedly argued for positions almost asinine, especially dealing with slavery. He believed, for example, that Congress could not have jurisdiction locally over the District of Columbia, and could therefore not abolish slavery there.

For all his slavery bluster, Wise conspicuously broke with the South and the massive majority of southerners when he joined most northern Whigs in denouncing the pro-slavery factions in Kansas. Nearly destroying his reputation in the South, Wise justified this break by arguing it would encourage northern extremism. His Civil War service redeemed him, but Wise shocked the world by his final, and perhaps his best, political act. Henry Wise became a Republican.

Through his work, Simpson convinced the reader that Wise, at every turn, merely tried to do the right thing. Because the book is both narrative and thesis driven, Wise maintained positions that might have been more firmly proved. But to date Simpson’s work remains the best biography available on one of the South’s most fascinating figures.

Miles Smith Texas Christian University

A Good Southerner: The Life of Henry A. Wise of Virginia. By Craig M. Simpson. Chapel Hill: University of South Carolina Press, 1985.

Craig Simpson has written a clear and entertaining biography of one of Virginia’s most famous ante-bellum politicians, Henry A. Wise. Simpson treats his subject fairly and does not attempt to provide a comprehensive explanation for Wise’s many personal eccentricities or political ambiguities. Rather, he presents the reader with details regarding his subject’s early life, which may have accounted for Wise’s position on slavery; his propensity for theatrical rages; and his evolution as a political chameleon, having been in turn a Jacksonian Democrat, Clay Whig, Tyler Whig, Buchanan Democrat, and Grant Republican. Above all, Simpson views Wise as an individual who truly influenced American history during this tumultuous period.

The author portrays Wise as an exaggerated personification of a type common in Virginia and the Old South and relates that although he was greatly admired by some Virginians, he was energetically yet vilified by others. He aspired to membership of the Virginian “aristocracy” yet lacked the wealth and essential family connections that would ensure complete acceptance by the elite of the Old Dominion. Marrying well assisted Wise in his political career, which officially began when he entered Congress in 1833. The freshman representative possessed a lean and angular appearance that was made all the more startling when Wise grew his hair to shoulder length. His speech was often bombastic yet his argumentative style of oratory frequently proved compelling. His affected appearance and demeanor marked him as a memorable individual among a coterie of gentlemen politicians who eschewed this brash, tobacco-chewing figure who flew into frequent rages.

The issue of slavery, and his opinion of John Brown in the aftermath of the Harper’s Ferry raid, ably illustrates Wise’s conflicted personality. His precarious financial position precluded him from ever owning more than five or six slaves; and although he appears to have been a “benign” master, he once wrote that he would not hesitate to shoot any one of them should they chance to run away. As ambassador to Brazil, he actively worked against those Americans who sought to engage themselves in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. His name appears in many letters of appeal directed to the United States government asking for more resources in order to monitor and prevent Americans from engaging in this lucrative business. Brazil was one of the principal slave dealing countries in the western world during the 1840’s; and the nature and volume of the traffic disgusted Wise, as it did many other Southerners.

Although he appeared to be at variance with the institution of slavery, he certainly did not see any reason to commute John Brown’s death sentence. As governor of Virginia, Wise supervised the arrangements for the execution. Despite his regard for Brown as a man of principle, Wise pursued the only course open to a man elected by a community in constant fear of some type of slave rebellion. In any event, Wise undoubtedly considered Brown’s fate a just one.

Simpson benefited from the generosity of Wise’s descendents. They provided him with unlimited access to their antecedent’s documents, which generations of the family had been conscientiously collecting since federal troops ransacked Wise’s library in 1862. Simpson also consulted an impressive array of primary and secondary sources that included the collections belonging to scores of historical societies and universities. Simpson also reviewed a large volume of published correspondence, speeches and diaries, which allowed the author to demonstrate the extraordinary personality and breadth of interests of a man whose private life proved as complex as his political service.

Craig Simpson’s book, A Good Southerner, is not a typical biography. While Simpson does recount the life and political career of Virginian Henry Wise, the author’s intent is much more ambitious. Rather than a simple narrative, Simpson’s work is an analytical study of Wise’s political (and moral) philosophies in the context of his life and career. What results is a noble attempt by the author to understand the inconsistencies that characterized Wise’s political thinking.

Simpson begins his study by examining Wise’s personality. Wise’s parents died when Wise was a relatively young age, leaving little inheritance for their younger son. Simpson suggests that, because of this “slight,” Wise became ambitious, constantly struggling to maintain wealth. This, coupled with a rather haughty attitude typical of Virginia planting elite, made Wise seem a very brash character—sometimes impetuous and almost always commanding.

Wise began his career first in law, but in 1833, he ran for, and won, a House seat as a Jacksonian. Wise felt a connection between himself and Jackson—both were orphans, and Jackson’s political persona appealed to Wise. The two politicians did, however, differ on the Bank question. Wise found the bank a means through which Virginia (and the country) could move into a more modern economy. Jackson, on the other hand, stood firmly against the bank early in his presidency. Wise eventually alienated himself from Jackson because of Wise’s support for the bank. By the late 1830s, Wise had become a leader of the Whig party.

A primary focus in Simpson’s book is Wise’s ideas about slavery. Wise, throughout his political career, remained fickle in regards to the institution of slavery. While a member of the House, Wise vehemently supported the gag rule (a rule quieting petitions sent to the House floor that were abolitionist in nature), yet Simpson’s states that “Wise rose in the House to denounce Northern shipping interests for fastening slavery on the South during the colonial period. Such statements suggest a degree of shame” (33). Simpson goes on to reflect that: “Although Wise occasionally described blacks as ‘wooly headed,’ ‘splay footed,’ and ‘odiferous,’ he never thought them subhuman or impervious to progress” (36). During the 1840’s, Wise traveled to Brazil to fight the illegal American traffic in slavery. There he saw first hand the immoral qualities of the slave trade. Wise returned to take an active role in the Virginia constitutional debates of 1850, arguing for “protecting slavery” (79).

The 1850’s saw Virginia’s government become increasingly fragmented by partisanship brought on, in part, by Whig opposition. Wise, sensing the political disorder, decided to run for governor, pitting himself against the emerging Know-Nothings. Specifically, Wise turned to internal improvements, focusing his campaign on Virginia’s future. Wise won, having effectively wooed Democrats with “calls for organization, vigilance, and committees of correspondence” (114).

The events leading up to the Civil War greatly influenced Wise’s political ideals. Wise did not support the southern push in the 1850’s to make Kansas a slave state, finding Union much more important. Wise also refused to pardon John Brown following the latter’s raid, finding Brown’s conduct too reprehensible. But, to the last, Wise seemed to support the contradictory aspects of Unionism and slavery: “’present relations between the States cannot be permitted long to exit without abolishing slavery throughout the United States, or compelling us to defend it by force of arms’” (226). Wise remained a political figure even after the war, even supporting Republicanism later in life.

Simpson’s book certainly provides an in-depth account of Wise’s political career, making this work a contribution to histories on Southern antebellum political figures. Simpson’s writing in many places is somewhat stilted, and his analysis of Wise’s thought behind the politicians actions is somewhat obscure. It is often hard to determine why any historical figure acts in one way and not another, and, although Simpson provides an excellent account of Wise’s political ideals, the author’s insistence on Wise’s morality in the midst of slavery is somewhat suspect. Nonetheless, Simpson’s book provides a good glance into the life of Virginia politician Henry Wise.