Standing proudly before the white pillars of Alabama's statehouse, the South's most luminous white hope vowed defiance of the tyrannical Federal Government and resolutely reaffirmed allegiance to states' rights. The band played Dixie; the crowd roared its approval.
That was in 1861, and the hero of the inauguration was Jefferson Davis. The ritual has changed not at all. If Lurleen Wallace, standing in the same spot as Davis and taking her gubernatorial oath on the same Bible, felt any sense of inadequacy about sounding the same shopworn themeor even the slightest sense of deja vuher inaugural address last...
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