South Foreland

“ The broad and beautiful Southland is peopled by about thirty million human beings (26,000,000 in 1900) , who constitute the “South” as a community conscious of a life separate in many respects from that of the North. What is there in these thirty millions which sets them apart? First of all is the sharp division into two races—two thirds of the people Whites and one third Negroes, which in uncounted open and obscure ways makes the South unlike any other country in the world. ”

“ In the last twenty-five years great inroads have been made on the Southern forests, and clearing is going on everywhere on a large scale. Nevertheless, a very considerable proportion of the Southern Whites and many Negroes still live in the woods, and have retained some of the habits of the frontier. Population is commonly sparse ”

“ It has grown amazingly, and is beautified by stately bouses and fine architecture, and would probably still be called the more desirable place of residence. But the south side has two great advantages—easy access to the business centre and to the great southern parks and pleasure-grounds. This latter would decide many to live there. The vast west side, with its lumber-yards and factories, its foreign settlements, and its population outnumbering the two other sections combined, is practically an unknown region socially to the north side and south side. ”

“ When, however, we have made all allowance for difference in climate, difference in traditions, total difference in the way of looking at life for a century, it is plain to be seen that a great transformation is taking place in the South, and that Southern society and Northern society are becoming every day more and more alike. ”

“ Upon the whole New Holland, tho in every respect the most barren countrey I have seen, is not so bad but that between the productions of sea and Land a company of People who should have the misfortune of being shipwreckd upon it might support themselves, even by the resources that we have seen. ”

“ This settlement contributed a new element to our national development and raised new national problems. It took a long time for the seaboard South to assimilate the upland section. We cannot think of the South as a unit through much of its ante-bellum history without doing violence to the facts. The struggle between the men of the up-country and the men of the tide-water, made a large part of the domestic history of the "Old South." Nevertheless, the Upland South, as slavery and cotton cultivation extended westward from the coast, gradually merged in the East. ”

“ Still, on any basis of comparison with the least wealthy states and sections of the North—whether it be made between the total population of equivalent groups or between the white populations only, leaving out of account the productivity of the Negroes, the South is below the national standard of wealth and progress; it grows constantly in accumulations and in productivity, but its yearly additions are less than those of the Northwestern states, and much less than those of the Northeastern states. ”

“ It seemed certain however that we stood in the richest province of South-west Australia, and one which so differs from the other portions of it in its geological characters, in the elevations of its mountains which lie close to the sea coast, in the fertility of its soil, and the density of its native population, that we appeared to be moving upon another continent. As yet however the only means I had of judging of the large number of natives inhabiting this district had been from their paths and warran grounds, but it was most probable that we should ere long fall in with some of them. ”

“ Borne down by colonial subjugation, monopoly, and bigotry, these vast regions of the South were hardly visible above the horizon. But in our day there has been, as it were, a new creation. The southern hemisphere emerges from the sea. Its lofty mountains begin to lift themselves into the light of heaven; its broad and fertile plains stretch out, in beauty, to the eye of civilized man, and at the mighty bidding of the voice of political liberty the waters of darkness retire. ”

“ The whole South is maintained in a frontier condition by the system which is apologized for on the ground that it favours good breeding. This system, at the same time, tends to concentrate wealth in a few hands. If there is wisdom and great care in the education of a family thus favoured, the result which we see at the North, under the circumstances I have described, is frequently reproduced. There are many more such fruits of frontier life at the South than the North, because there is more frontier life. ”

“ The South was never before so active and prosperous; and, rapidly as it is progressing, it will go on prospering with unabated vigor and enterprise, for it has entered upon a new era of prosperity and immense development of its material resources awaits it. In manufacturing and mining, as well as agriculture, immense opportunities are open to it; and before long the natural increase of its population will be largely added to by the white immigration that it needs. So the South has a bright and magnificent future. ”

“ In every discussion of Southern affairs an important thing to reckon with is a fixed belief that the South is the most prosperous part of the country, which fits in with the conviction that it has long surpassed all other parts of the world in civilization, in military ardor, and in the power to rise out of the sufferings of a conquered people. This belief is hard to reconcile with the grim fact that the South under slavery was the poorest section of the country. ”

“ The Southern assessed valuation of 1907 was 8.5 billions, of the Northern group 10.7 billions.
What makes these differences? It certainly is not because the South is deficient in natural resources, in fertility, in climate, in access to the world’s markets, in the enterprise of its business men. What is the reason for this discrepancy between the resources and the output of the South? Some of the Southern observers insist that the North is made rich through its manufactures. ”

“ The Southern emigrant to the North finds no door shut to him because he comes from elsewhere; his origin is interesting to the people he meets; and unless very violent in temper and abusive to the section of his adoption, he may criticise his home and set forth the superiority of the Southland without making enemies. ”

“ In ante-bellum times few Southerners traveled widely, except the comparatively small number of the richer young men who found their way to Northern colleges, or abroad. Until ten years ago it was difficult to hold Southern conventions and gatherings of intellectual men of kindred aims because people could not afford to travel. Now there is more circulation, more knowledge of the world, more willingness to see in what respects the South lags behind, a greater spirit of coöperation between Southern states, and with some people of other sections. ”

“ Most of the real Southern colonels are dead, and the others are too 204 busy running plantations or cotton mills to spend much time discussing genealogy, making pretty speeches, or talking about their honor. Not so many colonels are made as formerly, and one may travel far before he meets an individual who fits the popular idea of the type. He is likely to meet more men who are cold, hard, and astute, for the New South has developed some perfect specimens of the type whose natural habitat had been supposed to be Ulster or the British Midlands—religious, narrow, stubborn, and very shrewd. ”

“ South Australia is at present under a cloud, but the depression can only be temporary. A genial sun, a fertile soil, a healthy climate, with sheep, cattle, English colonists, and a Burra Burra mine, cannot but produce good fruits, although the dreams of empire of newly-fledged legislators may scarcely be realised. ”

“ At an epoch in the existence of an infant state, when the first settlers ought to consist of a few gardeners, a few shepherds, a few farmers, and a few mechanics, with half a dozen men of superior attainments and energy, and plenty of sheep and cattle, and when a village with a wharf was all the town needed, South Australia had nine square miles of building land, a bank, two newspapers, and a population of speculative gentlemen. ”

“ The Southern States have great advantages over the Northern in soil, climate, and situation; they have a monopoly of the tropical productions so greatly sought by all northern nations; they have superior facilities for the acquisition of wealth, and through that for the rapid increase of population. In some countries the advance of both is retarded by oppressive legislation. Of this the South cannot complain, as it will by and by appear. ”

“ The Northwestern states have more manufactures than the Southern, but they have more of everything, which indicates industry and prosperity. The obvious reason is that laborers in the South, both white and colored, are inferior in average productive power to Northern laborers; and the obvious remedy is to use every effort to bring up the intelligence, and the value to the community of every element of the population. ”

“ There are few districts in England and certainly none south of the Trent where old customs and queer legends persist with so much vitality as in these lonely combes and hollows. The effect of being out of the world is perhaps enhanced in these western Downs by the ring fence of dark woods through which we have to pass to reach the bare, wind-swept solitudes and lonely hamlets within them. The northern escarpment and southern flanks of the hills are clothed in vast forests of beech which add that grandeur to the great ramparts of chalk which the eastern ranges lack. ”

“ Much of the mountains is still in the colonial condition, but railroads, schools, and cities are powerful civilizing agents, and a people of so much native vigor may be expected in course of no long time to take their place alongside their brethren of the lowlands. The more prosperous South is too [Pg 38] little interested in these people, and is doing little direct civilizing work among them, in many districts leaving that task to be performed by schools founded by Northerners. ”

“ The South has two kinds of frontier,—that which has never been settled, and once thickly settled parts that have grown up to wild woods and wastes since the war. In old times the slave had a half-holiday on Saturday, which custom the colored brother still keeps up; and a more picturesque scene is not to be found than that presented by a town, say of three thousand inhabitants, where the county has seven colored people to one white. ”

“ Congress has representatives from every part of the country, including the South, whose votes are recorded upon national legislation. Railroads do not break bulk between North and South. Interstate commerce goes on unvexed between the one and the other. The Post-office department distributes its mail with impartiality on each side of Mason's and Dixon's Line. Prosperity in the North is accompanied by prosperity in the South, and a halt in the one means a halt in the other. Northern people meet Southern people, and find them friendly and charming and full of graceful and grateful companionship. ”

“ There is doubtless just the same thing in Northern places, if you look for it, but in the South it follows you. With all the aristocratic feeling classes are more mixed together, and it is a harder thing than in the North to sift your acquaintances. Still there is an upward movement in every stratum of society ”

“ These settlers of the Valley of Virginia and the North Carolina piedmont region—English, Scotch-Irish, Germans, Scotch, Irish, Welsh, and a few French—were the first pioneers of the Old Southwest. From the joint efforts of two strata of population, geographically, 6 socially, and economically distinct—tidewater and piedmont, Old South and New South—originated and flowered the third and greatest movement of westward expansion, opening with the surmounting of the mountain barrier and ending in the occupation and assumption of the vast medial valley of the continent. ”

“ Instead of a South devoted to agriculture and politics, we find a South wide awake to business, excited and even astonished at the development of its own immense resources in metals, marbles, coal, timber, fertilizers, eagerly laying lines of communication, rapidly opening mines, building furnaces, founderies, and all sorts of shops for utilizing the native riches. ”

“ The South as a whole, on any basis of material advancement, is below the average of other parts of the Union [Pg 339] and of several foreign countries; it is poor where it ought to be rich; it needs economic regeneration. ”

“ Far south it is even more isolated—only this generation has been born and brought up on the Coast. The old generation came from another world. There is a certain sense forced upon one of the smallness and feebleness of man, when brought face to face with the Forest—when from some hill-top you look out over that undulating sea of green-blue hills and valleys, all untrodden, all impenetrable, wherein is no open track or glade save only up the bed of a torrent. ”

“ That the openings which the South presents for Northern capital and industry are unsurpassed, has been sufficiently illustrated. With a capital of a few thousand dollars, and a personal supervision of his work, a Northern farmer, devoting himself to cotton-growing, may count with safety on a net profit of fifty per cent, on his investment. With a good year and a good location he may do much better. Through Tennessee 579and the same latitudes, east and west, he will find a climate not very greatly different from his own, and a soil adapted to Northern cereals as well as to the Southern staple. ”

“ The already huge colored quarters in some Northern cities were widely expanded, as whole counties in the South were stripped of their colored laborers. The race question, in its political and economic aspects, became less and less sectional, more and more national. The South was drawn into the main stream of national life. ”