Dominion of Memories: Jefferson, Madison & the Decline of Virginia

by Susan Dunn

For decades, the Commonwealth of Virginia led the nation. The premier state in population, size, and wealth, it produced a galaxy of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Mason, Marshall. Four of the first five presidents were Virginians. And yet by the middle of the nineteenth century, Virginia had become a byword for slavery, provincialism, and poverty. What happened? In her remarkable book, Dominion of Memories , historian Susan Dunn reveals the little known story of the decline of the Old Dominion. While the North rapidly industrialized and democratized, Virginia's leaders turned their backs on the accelerating modern world. Spellbound by the myth of aristocratic, gracious plantation life, they waged an impossible battle against progress and time itself. In their last years, two of Virginia's greatest sons, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, grappled vigorously with the Old Dominion's plight. But bound to the traditions of their native soil, they found themselves grievously torn by the competing claims of state and nation, slavery and equality, the agrarian vision and the promises of economic development and prosperity. This fresh and penetrating examination of Virginia's struggle to defend its sovereignty, traditions, and unique identity encapsulates, in the history of a single state, the struggle of an entire nation drifting inexorably toward Civil War.

Genres: History, American History, Nonfiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published May 21, 2007

About the author

Susan Dunn is Professor of Literature and the History of Ideas at Williams College and Senior Scholar and the Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland. She is the author of several books, including the critically acclaimed Sister Revolutions

Academic Degrees
* A. B. cum laude, Smith College, 1966. Phi Beta Kappa.
* Ph.D. Harvard University, 1973

Professional Experience
* Williams College, Preston S. Parish '41 Third Century Professor in the Arts and Humanities, 1973 to present
* Wellesley College, Instructor, 1971-1973
* Harvard University, Extension Division, Instructor, 1970-1973
* Harvard University, Teaching Fellow, 1967-1970

Reviews

[Sean Chick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not care for the way this was written, its ultimately reductionist arguments, and its soft-core progressivism. This is less history as tragedy, and more a finger wagging session. That said, I do think Dunn is at her best discussing slavery and why Virginia did not emancipate, so it is not one star material.

[Tony Laplume · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat competent and incompetent at the same time. Its signal weakness is in its narrative that otherwise seems like such a virtue, beginning with Jefferson and Madison and only reluctantly leaving them behind. In that sense, readers might enjoy it as a survey of the later years of these Founding Fathers. The problem is...this doesn’t really explain the thesis of the book. To do so would likely go farther back, to the founding of Virginia itself, and how the attitudes Dunn continually meditates on were formed. Instead, she remains fixated on a narrow thirty year period, the first three decades of the nineteenth century, as if that alone explains why Virginia went from a political dynamo to an afterthought. She might explain the method, but she never seems to understand the reason behind it. In fact, throughout the book there’s an almost apologetic approach, both to Jefferson and Madison, and little signposts, should a reader be inclined, to interpret the decline less as a purely internal affair and more a collaborative effort with a cruel outside world. Much like the more obscure figures she casts with far less sympathy to ostensibly hang the narrative. Above all, it really feels like a primer on why politics as usual remains, to this day, politics as usual, the same tactics alive in the twenty-first century as at the dawn of the country. And that’s the real tragedy here.

[Zach Turner · Rating 4 out of 5]

In trying to understand how the once great colony of Virginia became a state in desperation, Dominion of Memories should be on the list of books to answer your questions. Dunn shows how the issue of authority between the states and the federal government became a battling ground and an all-encompassing issue which spread through Virginia and the South.

[Justinmmoffitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're interested in how the political philosophies and decisions of George Washington, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson influenced Virginia, this is a good book for you. Particularly, if you have neglected history of Virginia in the 1830s and 1840s.

Largely, the thesis of the book is that slavery and Jeffersonian ideals led to Virginia's decline. White workers from the lower classes weren't willing to do what they considered "slave work", aristocratic leaders were more than keen to continue investing in land and slaves instead of manufacturing, and the state largely neglected infrastructure projects such as canals, roads, and railroads.

The book is disorganized and meanders more on the personal thoughts of Jefferson than I would have liked.

[Andrew Owens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dunn has researched the figures in this period thoroughly - a solid history of antebellum Virginia and discussion of slavery - tied status quo prevented alternate history. Particularly interesting is the early 1830s legislative meeting that sought to abolish slavery - close vote and the failure to abolish really set tone going into Civil War.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

The more I read about Jefferson, the less I like him. Somewhat unfairly pins the decline of the upper South on him, but still he doesn't come off well. Didn't learn a lot of new things, but I had just read What Hath God Wrought, so perhaps that's why.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

If Midnight in the Garden... is the micro-version of the South, Dominion of Memories: Jefferson, Madison, & the Decline of Virginia is the macro-version. Focused largely on the early nineteenth century, this book sets the stage for the American Civil War. Laying open the vast difference of opinion on the extent of state's rights even among the founding father's, one has the feeling while reading this that such bloody conflict had been inevitable for at least two generations. Further, reading of the state of Virginia's railways and roads (often impassable even to the best addresses), one sees the futility of the Southern cause: clearly, clearly, no army could move efficiently through this state, saddled as it was with unmatched railroads, muddy, rutted "roads" and a white population essentially at war with itself. (Not only in the traditional brother-against-brother sense of the Civil War: in Virginia, wealthy aristocrats from the Tidewater area had resisted so much as giving the vote to less wealthy whites from present-day West Virginia; the latter successfully created their own state in the midst of the Civil War after contemplating as much for decades.) In the end, I came away with the sense that the founding fathers were united only against the British, therefore, setting up a fledgling nation for inevitable internecine conflict.

[Miles Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting, confusing, problematic, unorganized, well-written, worthwhile hot mess of a book. It suffers from presentism and anachronism. It ends with a disjointed and seemingly out of place indictment of Virginians for not supporting the New Deal. Ultimately Dunn seems mad that Virginians weren’t nationalist or convinced about the important of en-masse industrialization. But she writes well and there enough interesting anecdotes to make it a good read. To her credit, she also uses literary sources.

[Michael Ginsberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting look at Virginia and how, after the founding generation of the US, Virginia faded from importance. It looks at the continued dependence on a slave-based economy and other failures of Virginia government that led it to fall from its perch as a dominant, perhaps the dominant, American colony and state.

[Brent · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hope that Jefferson was a better man than this book portrayed him to be. Recommended, especially for the portrait it paints of Jefferson's namesake grandson.

[Manray9 · Rating 3 out of 5]

The political leadership of Virginia during the period of decline shows many interesting parallels to the current GOP.

[Erin Fisher]

So far so good but too early to give an accurate rating.

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but, for one who lives in Virginia now, depressing. Once America's most prosperous and influential state, from the Revolution through the Civil War and beyond into Massive Resistance, the Old Dominion just slid down hill. An obvious Yankee (!), Dunn shows little sympathy with the pastoral ideal whose realization Virginians from William Byrd I to Thomas Jefferson through the Civil War saw as the purpose of Virginia society. Dunn seems to think that the only alternative to the big cities, roads and factories that started in New England and New York in the colonial era and then spread to cover the modern United States was, and is, backwardness.