South (region)

“ The South is a prosperous and advancing region on the highway to wealth, but advancing rather more slowly than other agricultural sections of the country, and in material wealth far behind the West and farther behind the Middle states and New England. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A Glance at the South.—There is something interesting, as you go through the South at the present time, in watching the progress of events. It is a region, speaking of it as a whole, that strikes the Northern man with many peculiarities. One is, where is the population that made that stern resistance to the Northern arms? The cities are all small; there are no villages; whence came that force that withstood us so many years, and withstood us with such might? And then again, you are struck with many things so different from what we find at the North. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The well-to-do part of the community, and it does it uncomplainingly, with its eyes open, gladly. The South likewise is educating the Negroes principally for the advantage of the white race, for the efficiency of the whole region in which the Whites have the greatest stake, and from which they derive the greater benefit, material and moral. ”

“ The privilege of the outside visitor to the South is to range far afield, to compare conditions in various states, and to make generalizations, subject to the criticism of better qualified investigators who may go over the same area of printed book and open country, but which have a basis of personal acquaintance with the region. ”

“ It is about the South, a particular part of the South, the rice-plantation coast of South Carolina. In this region, field and water and forest intermingle to form a strange, haunting scene, full of character and mystery. To dine with a neighbor here, one needs both the horse and the boat; travel has to be amphibious. ”

“ There are large districts in the south in which an industrious and enterprising man, with some capital, and acting upon correct principles, cannot fail to accumulate large gains in a comparatively short time, as long as the prices of the staples do not fall below what they may reasonably be expected to be for some time to come. A northern man has, besides, the advantage of being served by the laboring population of that region with greater willingness. ”

“ The South was then essentially a plantation region, producing one or two great staples that found a ready market in the world, but dependent for its implements of industry and domestic utensils upon the States of the North Mississippi Valley. ”

“ The region of the Great Valley he calls the Central region, and this is again subdivided into two parts—the Northern Central and the Southern Central—by the Ohio river and the southern boundary of Missouri and Kansas. The Atlantic division is also subdivided, by a line following the south boundary of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, into the North Atlantic and South Atlantic divisions. The Western or Cordilleran division is limited on the east by the eastern boundaries of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. ”

“ As a matter of fact, the frontier of the South extends some distance north of the region with which we are accustomed to associate it, and the real line of demarcation is a natural boundary fixed by certain well-marked geographical features and indicated by the distribution of certain animals and plants. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Nor will any slaveholder admit, for a moment, that Providence has scattered his gifts with a more sparing hand at the South than at the North. The richness of their soil, the salubrity of their climate, the number and magnitude of their rivers, are themes on which they delight to dwell; and not unfrequent is the contrast they draw between their own fair and sunny land, and the ungenial climate and sterile soil of the Northern and Eastern States. ”

“ We feel as though we had stood on the outermost edge and caught a glimpse of the wonder-land where nature is working her will in silence and darkness.
Some of the most picturesque and sublime scenery of the South may be found in the regions of Western Virginia, where nature in her wildest mood holds sovereign sway among her everlasting hills, clothed with majestic woods running down to the narrow valleys and winding lands which intersect the mountains. Here in these solitudes, scattered through these lonely regions, live a primitive people, leading a primitive life. ”

“ 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 North is rich, never so rich; the South is poor, never before so poor. The population of the North is nearly double that of the South. The industry of the North, in diversity, in forwardness and productiveness, in all the machinery and education required for manufacturing, is half a century in advance of the South. Churches in the North crown every hill, and schools swarm in every neighborhood; while the South has but scattered lights, at long distances, like light-houses twinkling along the edge of a continent of darkness. ”

“ Southern men are not favorably disposed towards Northern improvements in any department, no matter whether it be trade, commerce, or agriculture: hence they have no such farms South as they have North, even in portions of their country where the soil is equally susceptible of improvement. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Southern explanation is that the Northerner who settles in the South, within a few weeks discovers that the convictions of a lifetime on all Southern questions are without foundation; and he takes on the color of the soil upon which he lives. If it be true that the Southern man and woman in the North continues to feel himself Southern to the end of his days, while the Northern man in the South tries to identify himself completely with the community in which he means to stay permanently, perhaps there is some explanation other than the impregnability of the Southern position. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Of the four essentials to all industries, therefore, iron, wood, cotton and motive power, the South is abundantly blessed. Add to these a perfect climate and a fertile soil which yields every product of the temperate zone, and who shall deny to the South the primacy in the years to come? ”

“ I think one will search in vain history, ancient or modern, to find a likeness to the Old South, socially, intellectually, politically, or religiously. I do not wonder that romancer, poet, historian, and philosopher have gathered from it material and inspiration. As a matter of fact, the past decade has brought forth more literature concerning the Old South than the entire generation which preceded it. Its body lies moldering in the ground, but its soul goes marching on. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We take nothing from the Southern States that has not already been taken from the Northern. The South shall have just those rights that every eastern, every middle, every western State has—no more, no less. We are not seeking our own aggrandizement by impoverishing the South. ”

“ In its millions of acres of cheap lands the South has the advantage of an entirely new and undeveloped country, and has with this all the advantages and comforts and attractions of an established and advanced civilization. The South is in the main more healthful than any other part of the United States, its range of farm and garden products is greater, it offers better opportunities for profitable agriculture, and it is in all respects a section where life can be lived in greater comfort than at the North. ”

“ If we were to take the rich Eastern and Northwestern states, with their immense population, enormous manufactures (New York City contains over twenty thousand factories) , and vast transportation lines, the fact that the South is far behind the North in things both material and intellectual would stand out even more clearly. ”