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The Old South 



THE OLD 




The geographic, economic, social, political, 

and cultural expansion, institutions, 

and nationalism of the 

ante-bellum South 

by 
R. S. COTTERILL 

Professor of Southern History, Florida State College for Women 




THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY 

Glendale, California, U.S.A. 

1937 



THE ARTHUR H, CLARK COMPANY 

AD rights reserved including the right to reproduce thii volume 
or parts thereof in any form 



3V 231*8 



Contents 

PREFACE 9 

THE SOUTHERN BACKGROUND 15 

The Face of the Earth 17 

The Oldest Inhabitants 37 

The Colonial Foundation 59 

EXPANSION OF THE SOUTH .,,... 89 

Expansion of the Tobacco Country ..... 91 

The Rise of the Cotton Kingdom . , . * , . 107 

Crossing the Mississippi . 129 

DEVELOPMENT OF SOUTHERN NATIONALISM . * , , 139 

The Beginning of Southern Nationalism . . . 141 

Sectionalism ,.**.. 1:51 

The Jacksonian Migration ,,*.... 165 

Trade and Transportation ....... 177 

A Decade of Discontent 187 

The Southern Movement, 1848-1851 . 201 

Building the Railroads . . . * . 215 

Cotton Is King *..,.*. 229 

.......*..,. 241 

Tm CULTVM OF THB Ou> SOUTH ...... 259 

Tfee S'Ocial ,*..*.,. 261 

Edwttion *..*.*..*.. 281 

Litcrttwre ,...*.... 293 

THI mn 315 

........... 333 

............. 345 



Maps and Charts 

PHYSIOGRAPHIC DIAGRAM OF THE OLD SOUTH . , . 21 

THE SOUTHERN INDIAN COUNTRY 55 

EXPANSION OP THB SOUTH 113 

INDIAN LAND CESSIONS . 169 

SOUTHERN RAILROAD APRIL, 1861 221 

SLAVEHOLDERS, 1860 . 274 



Preface 



Preface 

Until the past ten or fifteen years the history of the 
South was a vast terra incognita concerning which the 
American people were apparently content to be misin- 
formed or not informed at all. The West was discovered 
by Turner and exploited by his disciples, colonial his- 
tory was re-written on the basis of facts rather than 
patriotism, but the South remained neglected as a sort 
of Bad Lands of "rebellion" whose history could have 
no significance except as a warning. These latter days, 
however, have witnessed a revival of interest in the 
history of the South. U, B. Phillips, wielding a prolific 
and able pen, led the way* A voice crying in the wilder* 
for many years, he was finally joined by an increas- 
ing number of writers such as Abernethy, Coulter, 
Crane, Craven, Henderson, Owsley, and others* The 
result of their efforts has been the revealing of a new 
South, in which slavery was merely a "peculiar institu- 
tion 11 not the central theme* Their writings have 
accompanied by an awakening interest on the part 
of and laity, by an increase of courses in South- 

em history in colleges and universities, by a rejuvena- 
tion of historical societies in the South, and by a 
fust appreciation of the part the South has played 
in the building of the nation. The work is far from 
but it is ftr advanced to be summarized. 

Is tt no synthesis of Southern history, 

to be - hence this volume. As a pioneer 



12 THE OLD SOUTH 

undertaking, the chief difficulty in its writing has been 
that of organization. There have been no previous books 
to chart the way, no prior guides to follow. The writer 
has had to determine for himself what things to include, 
what to omit Arbitrarily, he has treated the colonial 
period merely as introductory, stressing only such fea- 
tures as seem to him essential to a proper understanding 
of the later period. In this later period, he has treated 
casually and incidentally those events so well known as 
to be discussed at large in general histories of the United 
States- He has had no desire to re-hash a story merely 
to make a book. The ambition throughout has been to 
relate as clearly as possible the story of the Old South ; 
if there be a central theme at all, it is the development 
of Southern nationalism, 

The bibliography contains only those titles which 
the writer has found in fifteen years of teaching South- 
ern history to be most useful for an understanding of 
the subject. Annotation has been limited, for the 
part, to things that are novel or in dispute. There 
little reason for bolstering accepted facts with 
to authorities* 

The writer has asked help only in the of 
nology and geology. He gratefully his 

indebtedness to Peter O. Brannon of the An* 

thropological Society for reading the 

chapter on "The Oldest Inhabitant*," and 10 
Gunter, State Geologist of Florid*, for a like on 

the chapter "The Face of the Bar tk lf la 
however, as in the others, the 
bllity for all sins both of and He 

wishes also to his tt F* L. 

Parson for first directing him into t of 



PREFACE 13 



history, and to W. T. Root whose counsel and encourage- 
ment has given him confidence in preparing this book. 

R. S. COTTERILL 

Tallahassee, Florida. 
June 24, 1935 



sP 



The Southern Background 



the Face of the Earth 

The oldest portion of the South Is a narrow strip of 
land now occupied by the eastern Appalachian moun- 
tains and the Piedmont Plateau to the east and south- 
east of them, 1 When the ancient Proterozoic seas spread 
over all the other land of the South, this region kept its 
head above water and, ,as far as can be judged from the 
testimony of the rocks, has not since been submerged. 
In its initial stage it was merely a high plateau; its 
mountainous character was gained at a much later time 
as a result of violent uplifting of the land and of erosion. 
In the second stage of its geological development, the 
land mass of the South widened to the east and south, 
establishing a new coast line far out to sea beyond the 
present line. The great interior area was covered by a 
shallow sea which, cut off from the gulf, had its con- 
nection with the Atlantic by way of the St Lawrence 
Valley, Missouri appeared momentarily above the 
as did bits of Kentucky and Tennessee, but 
quickly again and remained under the waves for 
In the course of time the Interior sea receded 
and are not at all on the of its 

or its going. It left the South in what may be 
the third of Its development. Tie great 

tt the of the old Appalachians re- 

out to the Atlantic around 
the West of this 

1 f & in 

4 



i8 THE OLD SOUTH 

appeared a strip of high ground that in the course of 
time was to be uplifted into the newer Appalachians 
of Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. 
West of the Mississippi the Ozark region of Missouri 
made its appearance. The interior sea was cut off now 
from the gulf by practically the extent of the gulf states, 
and drained northward to the Arctic as the valley sound 
did to the Atlantic. For several geological ages the shore 
line of these two inland seas oscillated back and forth, 
sometimes receding to form new land areas and at other 
times rising to overflow the entire land west of the old 
Appalachians. The final stage caine when violent con- 
vulsions of the earth lifted the present mountains into 
place and drained away the seas, leaving their residue 
in the shape of lakes scattered over the land. Then the 
contour of the South and its area were the as at 

present except that the coast line was still far out in 
the Atlantic and gulf of today* 

The geological creation of the South was out 

over three of the five great eras of the earth's history, 
Even since it took definite shape as a locality, it has 
subject to many changes, some of them revolutionary 
in character. Mountains have been levelled aid 
uplifted. The surface of the land has and 

distorted, with the effect of radically alter lag the 
of rivers and the location of lakes. There has at 

least one great inundation that 

two-thirds of the South, and an of 

lesser overflows. As a matter of fact, the arc 

still in progress, and the geological of the 

is still unfinished. 

For the purpose of description, the of 

may be conveniently divided into 
provinces. The outermost and 0! the 

is the Coastal Plain, a the 



THE FACE OF THE EARTH 



19 



and the gulf from the Delaware river to the Rio Grande. 
On the inner side of this is a region of high, hilly ground, 
called on the east the Piedmont Plateau, and assuming 
on the west a variety of names descriptive of its topo- 
graphical features. Encircled by the plateaus, as are the 
plateaus by the Coastal Plains, lie the mountains. A 
bird's-eye view of the South would reveal it as a succes- 
sion of terraces rising from the Atlantic, the gulf, and 
the Mississippi to the peak of the mountains. West of the 
Mississippi the configuration is repeated with the 
Ozark-Ouachita mountains taking the place of the Ap- 
palachians of the East 

Only a relatively small part of the Coastal Plain 
of the South is now above water; much the greater part 
of it is submarine. 2 The gentle slope of the plain con- 
tinues under the water of the Atlantic and the gulf for 
a distance of ifty to two hundred miles beyond the 
present coast line to a place where it drops precipitously 
into the abysmal depths* This line of the precipitous 
drop may be regarded as the original coast line of the 
South. Toward this line the ocean retreats after each 
inundation; from this line the ocean advances to re- 
the land. The present advancing sea has 
driven the old line far into the interior; one of the 
outstanding of Its advance is the "drowning" 

of in their lower courses, transforming 

Into sounds, and estuaries, This process is 

on the Atlantic north of the 
river, and on the gulf of the Apalachi- 

Bay and Bay^ Pamlico and 

the Potomac, Jame* y and RtppahtE- 
arc of the of advanc- 

ing In the of 

can be far out the 

> m 



2O 



THE OLD SOUTH 



of the ocean bed. The coast line not only shows evidence 
of present advancing seas, but also bears the marks of 
the ancient receding ones. Along the present coast line 
there runs a succession of terraces, some half dozen in 
number, the lowest being nearest the water and practi- 
cally at sea level, the others rising progressively higher 
into the interior. Each one of these was made by the sea 
as it stood for long ages at that particular level When 
it withdrew to the next lower level, it left its old bed 
in the form of the terrace that we now have. 

Just as the outer edge of the Coastal Plain is far out 
under the sea, so the inner edge is to be found far in the 
interior. The place where the plain meets the plateau 
is commonly called the "fall" line by reason of the fact 
that the Southern rivers pass from the plateau to the 
plain over rapids or falls. The fall line, of course f was 
the place where water power was most readily available, 
and consequently it became the location of prominent 
towns in the early days of white occupancy, 
in Maryland ; Washington on the Potomac ; 
burg, Richmond, and Petersburg m Virginia; 
Camden, and Columbia ia the Carollnas ; 
con, and Columbus in Georgia; Wetumpk% 
gomery, and Tuscaloosa in Alabama; the 

of the fall line. From Baltimore to the 

fall line roughly parallels the Atlantic 
receding gradually from the coaM as It 
of Montgomery it leaves the coast 
sharply to the north until it the it 

Mississippi, and follows it to the Ohio. The for 

this northward swing is that If Is the 

Mississippi river which, for the 

took definite form, remained the 

of Mexico, then extending up the of the 

river to Illinois. Crossing the the fill line 







r;rr*ON.l i/ ' ' 'V ; ';?, 

iw^!' ii ;//;' I; 



''.'' ,' ';.'/ ; '' : ," y ;' ; ' i 
//';i ; ; 'M.-.-H.'M'J'.' 




^r. 

*>; ''& f^^ISi-: 




THE FACE OF THE EARTH 23 

turns southward again, running through Carthage, Little 
Rock, Arkadelphia, Austin, and San Antonio to the Rio 
Grande. Geologists are not agreed on the origin of the 

fall line. 8 North of the Neuse river the tide of the ocean 
sweeps up the rivers to the fall line; south of the Neuse 

the fall line is above tidewater, 

The peninsula of Florida lies wholly within the 
Coastal Plain, as do Delaware, Mississippi, and Louisi- 
ana. It is the part of the South that has most recently re- 
arisen from the sea, and its topography shows the effect 
of its submergence. At the present time only about one- 
tenth of the peninsula is above water, and its elevation 
is so slight that a land-sinking of fifty feet would again 
send the sea over a great part of the state. Lake Okee- 
chobec in the southern part of the peninsula and the 
Okefenokec swamp on the Georgia line occupy depres- 
sions in the ocean bed when the land was under 
water* The overflow from the latter is responsible for 
the river which drains into the gulf, 
for the St Mary*s which empties into the Atlantic, 
The toil of the Coastal Plain is immigrant soil. The 
brought in by the sea in successive mun~ 
the underlying rock like blan- 
kets, arc inclined to think that the 

at have come in not as 

the of but as t of erosion In the 

of the In they are sandy 

the as the plain ap- 

proaches the and the It cannot 

be as the well- 

known t and 

up the Is one of the sec- 

of the It Ii one of the of 

* O. T* of tfet Full lint** In 

vat, xmu; yS* 



THE OLD SOUTH 



our history that the region which is the most exclusively 
agricultural is one of the regions that has the poorest 
soil. Its original fertility was quickly exhausted by the 
crude farming methods of the early white settlers, and 
at the present time the Coastal Plain remains agricul- 
tural only by the continued use of commercial fertilizers. 

The Coastal Plain, when the white men reached it, 
was covered with a practically unbroken forest in which 
the dominant tree was the long-leaf pine. Unlike the 
deciduous trees characteristic of the plateau, the pine 
restores to the soil very little of the fertility it extracts in 
its growth. This is largely due to the fact that the pine 
needles fall infrequently and contribute very little to soil 
growth when they decay. There were certain regions of 
the plain where the pines grew so thickly from soil so 
infertile that the name "pine barrens" came to be applied 
to them. Among such regions were Mississippi of 
the Pearl, southeastern Alabama, southeastern Georgia! 
and the zone of the fall line in the Carolinas* Near the 
coast a characteristic tree is the live oak, the utility 
of which in our history has been to enhance the 
and to serve as a support for the air-nurtured 
moss. The cypress is essentially a water tree, 
chiefly in the swamps and marshes, The 
has rivalled the mocking-bird as a source of 
for Southern poets. But the pine alone has 
the history of the plain and has Inluenccd the of 

events. 

The Coastal Plain has many 

along the edge of the waters from Norfolk, Virginia, to 
Apalachicola, Florida, is a narrow of 
the "flatwoods." Its general width is or 

thirty miles, although In North Carolina and 
its width doubles. It is a land of and of 
ing pine trees with a gradient of only one a 



THE FACE OF THE EARTH 25 

mile back from the coast line. It continues between the 
Tombigbee and the Pearl while at the latter river it 
changes its name to the Coastal Prairie and runs on to 
the Rio Grande. In Texas it is treeless. Behind the flat- 
woods lies the Inner Coastal Plain, which east of the 
Mississippi is subdivided into the Upper and Middle 
Plain. The former is separated from the Piedmont in 
Georgia and the Carolinas by a low range of sand hills. 

The Piedmont of the South includes all the region 
between the Coastal Plains and the mountains. It is of 
varying width as is the plain, increasing from fifty miles 
in Maryland to over a hundred in North Carolina and 
other places. As it circles south from North Carolina, 
it narrows until it reaches central Alabama, after which 
it widens rapidly to the Ohio. It is in two well-defined 
parts : that east of the mountains is called the Piedmont 
Plateau, while that west of the mountains is divided into 
a number of parts each with its own characteristic name* 
Most of the upland of the west Piedmont is included in 
what is generally known as the Highland Rim, which 
extends from the mountains on the cast to the Ohio and 
Tennessee rivers OE the west, enfolding within itself 
two great basins of lower ground, the Nashville region 
of middle Tennessee and the blucgrass region of Ken- 
tucky- In general, the topography of the Piedmont west 
Is by no so uniform as that of the mountains. 

The Piedmont is predominantly a hilly region f but the 

Upper Plain the fall line is hilly, too, and 

the chief the two is not in topography 

in The of the Piedmont is residual! formed 

in by the of the underlying rocks 

In the of the 

are are of red color, the par* 

of red in depending on the type of 

the soil Wett of the moun* 



26 THE OLD SOUTH 

tains, the soil is darker and is more fertile. The best 
soil of the entire Piedmont area, and of the entire South, 
is to be found in the two basins inclosed in the Highland 
Rim of the west It is formed by the decomposition of 
limestone rock and from it grew, and grows, the famous 
bluegrass. Originally these two basins were of the same 
elevation as the rim, but the steady decay of the rock 
through long ages has resulted in the sinking of the land 
until at the present time it approximates the level of the 
Coastal Plain. West of the Mississippi the Piedmont 
wraps itself around the Ozarks as it does around the 
Appalachians in the east 

The two Piedmonts east of the Mississippi have had 
quite different geological histories. The eastern region 
rose first from the seas and remained unsubmerged dur- 
ing the long ages while the remainder of the South was 
taking form. Since that time it has been under water at 
least once. The western region rose late from the sea 
and has been many times submerged since* Both 
west in the long eras during which they have been dry 
land have been subject to erosion which has at 
them down to base level Repeatedly uplifted, the 
of erosion on them is to be seen in their hilly 
Where the rocks were soft, the surface has cut 
to valleys ; where the rocks were hard, hills the 

tops of which measure approximately the 
tion of the entire region* Erosion Is the 

enemy of the Piedmont Dae to its the 

currents of the rivers are swifter here In the 
below, and the streams carry down with 
it has been estimated^ some fifty million tons of 
Some of this is deposited over the of the 

some of it is carried out to sea on the 

marine plain ; some of it is carried out the of 

* Rupert Vtao*, Mmrnm 0ftjrmj% / flip i0|. 



THE FACE OF THE EARTH 27 

the continental shelf and is dropped into the abyss of 
the sea. 

The forests of the Piedmont are made up, in the main, 
of deciduous trees, although there are many regions 
where the short-leaf pine is abundant. The hickory, oak, 
ash, elm, beech, and locust are the chief representatives 
of the Piedmont forests ; in Kentucky the tulip poplar 
was at one time so abundant as almost to characterize the 
state. The leaves of these trees, annually falling, have 
been an important factor in the soil growth of the region. 
The western Piedmont in historic times has never been 
so well forested as the eastern section, and in western 
Kentucky and Tennessee the land was a treeless prairie 
when the Europeans reached it 

The mountains are the core of the South. They enter 
the South from Pennsylvania, and run in a general south- 
western direction to central Alabama. They consist of 
two groups of parallel ranges separated from each other 
by a wide valley extending their entire length. The 
eastern range of mountains is called South mountain in 
Maryland, and the Blue Ridge in Virginia; in these 
two states the mountains are low and narrow and amount 
to little more than a single ridge. In North Carolina the 
mountains widen and become higher. The Blue Ridge 
continues here merely as a sort of sentry on the eastern 
front, while behind it pile up the ranges of the Great 
Smoky t the Unakt, the Iron,, and others. Here is to be 
found the highest mountain peak in the eastern United 
(Mt Mitchell, 671 1 feet)* From North Carolina 
the mountains run the tip of South Carolina, the 

of Georgia, and die out just within the 
line* The the conigura- 

tion of the wider in the north and narrow- 

ing as It It covers the half of Mary- 

land, all West Virginia, the cistern portion 



28 THE OLD SOUTH 

of Kentucky and Tennessee, and extends into northern 
Alabama. It is generally called the Allegheny in West 
Virginia, and the Cumberland in Kentucky and Ten- 
nessee. 

The two mountain ranges, like the two Piedmonts, 
have had different geological histories. The eastern 
range is much the older and is commonly referred to by 
geologists as the Older Appalachians, the name includ- 
ing the Piedmont to the east of it Both the Older Appa- 
lachians and the Piedmont were originally merely a high 
plateau, a portion of which was at a much later time up- 
lifted to form the mountains. As a matter of fact, a con- 
siderable part of this eastern mountain region has more 
than once been base-levelled and again elevated into 
mountains. The mountains to the west of the valley are 
much younger. Like those to the east, they at 

first merely as elevated plateaus, and 
on referring to them today as the Allegheny and the 
Cumberland plateaus, reserving the word mountain for 
the narrow escarpment that walls in the valley to the 
east Erosion levelled the plateau, inundation its 

sediment over it, and finally convulsions of the 
uplifted a portion of it into its present 
form- Continued erosion has had the of tip 

the plateau behind the mountains and 
much of it into a mountain region. The of 

the South have always been a barrier to 
by hindering communication and by to the 

tain people a separate set of of the 

lowland people, 

The Appalachian Valley Is an 

part of the mountain system. Due f to the 

of the limestone rock, its surface and it diet 

not appear above the water at the t$ tie re- 



THE FACE OF THE EARTH 29 

mainder of the plateau to the west of It, but remained 
for a long time as a long shallow sound draining into 
the Atlantic near Chesapeake Bay. It has apparently not 
been submerged since its first appearance. The valley 
enters the South from Pennsylvania, as do the western 
mountains to which it geologically belongs, runs across 
Maryland, Virginia, eastern Tennessee, the northwest- 
ern tip of Georgia, and ends near the mouth of the Coosa 
in Alabama. It is twenty or thirty miles wide in Mary- 
land and Virginia, widens to sixty miles in Tennessee, 
and narrows again through Georgia and Alabama, The 
valley is not by any means a level tract; in Virginia par- 
ticularly it contains many mountains of its own, which 
are merely remnants of the ancient surface where the 
rocks have resisted dissolution and the land conse- 
quently has not sunk. It is in Tennessee that the valley 
character of the valley is most apparent It has different 
names in different sections, such as Cumberland in 
Maryland, Shenandoah in northern Virginia, Holstoo, 
and Tennessee in Tennessee, and the Coosa in Georgia 
and Alabama. The northern valley in Virginia is drained 
by the Shenandoah ; the Tennessee and Coosa drain the 
southern section, It is crossed in Virginia by the James 
and Roaaoke eastward-bound and by the New flowing 
northwest The valley is, like the Nashville region and 
bluegrass Kentucky, a great limestone basin and it has 
the same soils and vegetation as the other two. 

West of the Mississippi the mountain system Is far 
less extensive than IE the east The Quarks cover Ar- 
kansas and Missouri between the two rivers which give 
names to the That part of the mountains south of 

the Arkansas Is called the Ouachita. They are neither as 
high nor as extensive as their eastern counterparts, and 
htve had no such influence on the history of the South. 



30 THE OLD SOUTH 

Historians have explained the name "Ozark" as being 
an American abbreviation of the French term aux Ar- 
kansas. 

In its long geological history, the land mass of the 
South has been subjected to a number of influences which 
have from time to time altered its surface beyond all 
recognition* Erosion has swept off great parts of Its ex- 
posed surface and redistributed them ; the seas have over- 
flowed great sections of it, pouring the blankets of scdi* 
ment upon it, filling up its river channels, altering their 
courses, and changing the entire contour of the sub- 
merged regions. The enormous weight of the northern 
ice-sheets in the glacial period caused the land at 
the South to warp and tilt and buckle in 
ion. Geologists today are able to detect a number of 
warpings of the earth's surface, running In 
in various directions* One line runs from Cincinnati to 
Cape Hatteras, and it Is thought that this 
buckling of the surface is responsible for the 
eastward extension of North Carolina tt the point 
Another runs from Cincinnati through to 

the Chattahoochee near the Alabama line; a fol- 

lows the summits of the mountains of the 
lachian Valley ; a fourth runs 

to the neighborhood of Memphis, t to 

the Tennessee in Its westward ; t the 

Mississippi a little above Memphis, 
sippi about fifty miles from the river, 
Alabama, and dies out lilt 

named is called the Lignitic of it li the 

Grand Gulf Ridge the 

era Mississippi and 
declining elevation until it diet out 
of the Potomac the cut ml 



THE FACE OF THE EARTH 31 

from a dividing ridge, and there are traces of ridges 
paralleling the coast in Georgia and eastern Alabama. 

The results of the varied disturbances of the earth's 
surface are to be observed in the river system of the 
South. Some ancient rivers have disappeared altogether, 
others have been beheaded, still others have had their 
courses reversed. The oldest river now existing in the 
South is probably the New-Kanawha; the channel it 
occupied has not been materially shifted since the region 
appeared first as dry ground. It now rises in the moun- 
tains of North Carolina, flows across the Appalachian 
Valley, through the mountains of West Virginia, and 
into the Ohio. There is convincing evidence that prior 
to the glacial period in the north, the Kanawha con- 
tinued across Ohio and emptied into Lake Erie. The ice 
sheets had the double effect of forming the present Ohio 
river across the ancient course of the Kanawha and thus 
cutting the latter stream off from its old mouth. The 
present Scioto, aow with reversed current running to 
the Ohio, was the ancient northern extension of the Kan- 
awha. The ice sheet had the same effect on the Allegheny 
and Monongahela, transforming them from a through 
stream running to the lake Into northern and southern 
tributaries of the Ohio* The Kanawha is the only river 
running north through the southern Appalachians ; the 
antiquity of the stream is shown by the depth of its gorge 
through the mountains. 

In the drainage system of the South the Tennessee 
flows around three sides of a parallelogram. It comes 
down the valley through Tennessee as if headed for the 
gulf; near Chattanooga It abruptly changes its course 
to the west with the irm intention^ apparently^ of Join- 
ing the Mississippi ; on the northeast corner of Missis- 
sippi it has a change of heart and turns north to the Ohio. 



32 THE OLD SOUTH 

Ttere can be little doubt that its present tortuous course 
represents the changes of many ages. Its tributaries, the 
Clinch and the Holston, start far up In the valley of 

Virginia; doubtless the ancient Tennessee continued on 
down the valley across Georgia and Alabama^ following 
the course of the present Coosa until It drained into the 
gulf. The elevation of the earth's surface on the Augusta- 
Memphis line was probably the force that threw it out 
of the valley and deflected It to the Mississippi, The 
elevation of the Lignitic Ridge may have turned It away 
from the Mississippi and caused It to a northward 
course to the Ohio. That its valley course was the ancient 
one may be Indicated by the fact that after leaving the 
valley it receives no single tributary of any importance. 
As it stands today it is the largest of the Southern 
east of the Mississippi, and its tributaries Into 

every eastern state of the South below the 
except Florida. 

Land warping aad tilting has apparently In- 

fluenced the courses of the Alabama There arc 

Indications that in ancient times the the Talla* 

poosa, the Cahaba, and the Tombigbee "through** 
rivers, each emptying into the gulf in its 
nel. The tilting of the land cut the of 

off from the gulf and united the 

bama. The course of the 
sent the ancient channel of one of 
before it was delected to its 

There are many In the of 

where the headwaters of a by 

another. 1 Such a is An ex* 

ample of this is the was an 

insignificant creek t of lie 

J. 0. Lt 0orc% art tMr l 

ifaffamm, vol. L, Sj* 



THE FACE OF THE EARTH 33 

valley, while the Rappahannock, Rapidan, and Rivaana 
crossed the valley at right angles above it. As the valley 
sank the Shenandoah pushed its headwaters further and 
further south until it finally ate its way into the channels 
of the transverse rivers and beheaded them, appropriat- 
ing their upper courses to itself and leaving them with 
their sources in the Blue Ridge; it had, in effect, driven 
the three rivers entirely out of the valley. At the present 
time it is reaching out for the James with the same fell 
intent. Geographers consider the New and the French 
Broad as pirates of ancient lineage. There are traces in 
North Carolina of a once mighty river which, formed 
near Ashville by the junction of a confluent from south- 
west Virginia and another from southwest Carolina, ran 
southwardly through the mountain gaps and down the 
channel of the present Santee to the Atlantic. But the 
New beheaded its northern tributary and the French 
Broad its southern, and today there are no traces of the 
river left except the wiad gaps through the mountains 
where it formerly flowed. At present a slow, silent war 
is being waged between the New and the Roanoke. Their 
headwaters already interlock and in the fullness of time 
it may be expected that one of them will suffer beheadal. 
The Ohio river succeeded in diverting the Mississippi 
from its course. The two rivers once joined somewhere 
south of Memphis after running parallel courses from 
Cairo f separated by only the narrow Crowley's Ridge* 
Tributaries of the Ohio ate their way through this ridge 
and tapped the current of the Mississippi with the result 
that the latter river left its ancient bed and transferred 
itself bodily to the Ohio channel. 

A moat unusual of river diversion In very modern 
times has occurred In Louisiana* Here, on account of the 
fragile soil, the banki of the Red river on tibe outside 



34 THE OLD SOUTH 

of the river bends caved in, choking the river for many 
miles with an accumulation of earth and trees. Thus 
were formed the "rafts" that effectually blocked the 

navigation of the Red for hundreds of years. These rafts 
caused the waters of the river above them to overflow 
and thus forced the river into a new channel below Alex- 
andria; its old channel is indicated by a succession of 
bayous far inland. 

"History, not geography, made the solid South/ 1 says 
a recent writer on Southern geography/ In geological 
development, in topography, in soil, in vegetation, and 
drainage, the South is composed of a variety of prov- 
inces. Neither is it a unit in the matter of climate. U, B. 
Phillips in his Life and Labor of thi Old 
nizes four climatic zones in the South. In the 
states the growing season lasts for six month ; in North 
Carolina and Tennessee and Arkansas, in 

the upper part of the gulf states and In 
eight months; and along the gulf 
It is the long growing season of the that 

atones for the comparative infertility of the soil 
makes it a great cotton-growing region; the 
South, with a climate less has in Its 

basins of Virginia, Kentucky, a 

soil that makes it the idetl of 

the United States. 

On the gulf coast of the the 

rarely goes below freezing the 
rarely above 100 ire 

mitigated almost invariably by and by the 

high, pelting rains which are of 
No part of the South the 

waves that are common In the 

/ jfcr *l* 



THE FACE OF THE EARTH 35 

the north. Humidity is very low and sunstroke is practi- 
cally unknown. The mountains fail to serve as a barrier 
against the northern blizzards in the winter, with the 
result that brief periods of uncomfortable cold are likely 
to visit the South every winter ; in no part of the South is 
cold weather of more than a few days duration. Unre- 
constructed Southerners have been known to say that the 
South has no cold weather except what is imported from 
the North, and to ascribe all climatic inclemencies to the 
failure of secession- The upper South differs from the 
lower South more in its winters than in its summers. 
Passing from the Southern state of Kentucky in January 
to the Southern state of Florida is like going into another 
world. 

A striking characteristic of the South, especially the 
far South, is the absence of gray days. It is a rare day 
indeed that the sun does not shine, and certain Southern 
newspapers have emphasized the fact by giving away 
an edition of the paper each day the sua fails to appear. 
The eternal sunshine makes for an outdoor life and has 
had a great influence in determining the culture of the 
South. It has contributed to the growth of men as well 
as vegetation. It has, perhaps, discouraged the develop- 
ment of art and literature. On the other hand, it has 
promoted toleration and given to Southern people a 
certain cheerfulness and hopefulness that only great 
catastrophes can take away. 



The Oldest Inhabitants 

Most of the Indians living in the South at the coming 
of the white men were comparatively recent immigrants 
or even tourists. Four families were represented : Siouan, 
Algonqulan, Iroquoian, and Muskhogean, and in addi- 
tion a number of broken tribes, some of which ethnolo- 
gists are unable to classify. They were all Indian, and 
as such had many things in common, Including animos- 
ity. But they also presented many dissimilarities and 
differences of a family and tribal nature, 

The Siouan Indians were the oldest Inhabitants of 
the South, and are entitled to be called natives/ This 
family of Indians apparently had their "original" homes 
in the South whence most of them, In prehistoric times, 
migrated gradually to the northwest across the Missis- 
sippi, partly in pursuit of the receding buffalo, partly 
in flight from Algonqulan, Iroquoian, and Muskhogean 
foes. Only scattered remnants were lingering In the 
South when the Europeans arrived. The most Important 
of these were the Cattwba, living on the river of that 
name 10 North Carolina. Their number was estimated 
in 1670 at 7,000; by 1775 they had shrunk to 500* They 
had no friend in the South, and every Indian hand was 
them* Their Choettw-given name, Ca~ 
ttwba, be translated "untouchable," and 

their Algonquian-given Sioux, "ad- 

der*" Both the in which they were 



* Jm*t T4r TWIw f tk* At* J Butittlii no. $% 

Bureau of 



38 THE OLD SOUTH 

held by their neighbors. The Santee Indians in South 
Carolina belonged to the same family, and far away in 
Mississippi the Biloxi, in complete isolation from their 
kinsmen, clung obstinately to their ancestral home. 

The Sioux seem to have reached their greatest de- 
velopment in the South as a coast people, and to have 
relied on fish as their principal food. A fish economy 
does not make for unity, and for this reason the Sioux 
were at a disadvantage in meeting the invasions of other 
Indian tribes who had developed a more centralized 
government and a more compact method of settlement 
based on a corn economy. When the Catawba first came 
under observation they had been pushed back from the 
coast and had become agricultural. They had several 
peculiarities such as head flattening, a custom of domes- 
ticating animals, and of building their houses with 
foundations* The antiquity of their culture was evi- 
denced, perhaps, by the prevalence of female chiefs, 
divorce, and professional prostitution. 

The Algonquin were apparently the most In- 

dian immigrants into the South, as was shown by the 
fact that they had not penetrated far. They 
tially northern Indians, and the Mason and 
between them and their Southern was the line of 
the Ohio, Kanawha~New t and Roaaoke They 

were, in fact, practically limited to Virginia 
land, and their chief representatlve f the 
federacy, was the first Indian tribe the 
tered and the first they destroyed. The 
the most widely diffused family of In 

America, but in the South they to 

headway against the vicious, although 
tility of the earlier immigrants^ the 
gee, and the native the Sioux, of 

characteristics were the of 0ae of 



THE OLDEST INHABITANTS 39 

the head, of tattooing tribal marks on the right shoulder, 
of using a vegetable substitute for salt, of prohibiting 
divorce, and of using poison as a method of promoting 
demises. 

The Iroquoian family had two members in the South, 
the Tuscarora and the Cherokee. The Tuscarora formed 
the spear-head of Iroquoian advance into the South. 
There were three divisions of them, one of which bore 
the name Tuscarora, "hemp-gatherers," and gave the 
name to the entire tribe. The Tuscarora villages lay in 
eastern North Carolina, chiefly along the Neuse river, 
but they dominated the entire territory between the Cape 
Fear and the Roanoke. Although separated from their 
kinsmen in New York by several hundred miles of 
Algonqman territory, and constantly harassed by the 
other Southern Indians, they maintained their position 
until their power was broken in a war with the Caro- 
linians in 1712, after which they rejoined the parent 
group of Iroquois in New York, Their most inveterate 
foe was their Southern relative, the Cherokee* 

The Algonquin, Sioux, and Tuscarora in the South 

were comparatively weak people early destroyed or 

driven out by the advance of the white men- But with 

the Cherokee we come to one of the four major tribes 

of the which by strength and position held their 

white force and chicanery for a long 

of time. Like the Tuscarora the Cherokee were 

but unlike the Tuscarora their presence in 

the was the remit not of invasion but of flight 

In a they had been driven south 

(If we ctn the legends) by a combination 

of Iroqtjois as a penalty for attacking the 

with the Iroquois had an alliance/ 

* */ tkt Gktr*k**> Nineteenth Annual Rupert of Ae Halted 

f it i, it. 



40 THE OLD SOUTH 

Traces of their northern residence remain in the name 
of the Allegheny river and mountains, reminiscent of the 
term "Alligewi," which was what the Delaware called 
the Cherokee. The Cherokee fought a long-drawn-out 
defensive war as they slowly retreated across Ohio, 
building, it is thought, the great defensive works on the 
Scioto and the Little Miami. South of the Ohio they con- 
tinued their retreat down the Warriors' Trace through 
Kentucky, and down the banks of the Kanawha river 
into the valley of Virginia. Forced still further south, 
they finally came to a stand and maintained their posi- 
tion behind the Tennessee river, which was commonly 
known among the Indians as the Cherokee, or Hogohe* 
gee river - the latter term obviously a cockney ized cor- 
ruption of Alligewi, 

The Cherokee were the mountaineers of the South, 
They located their villages in the river valleys of the 
Carolinas, of northern Georgia, and southeastern Ten- 
nessee. In North Carolina they lived chicly the 
banks of the Tuckasegee; in South Carolina, the Keo- 
wee ; in Georgia, the Tugaloo, Tallulah, and 
in Tennessee, the Hiwassee and Little 
of their villages were on the last-mentioned The 
traders made two divisions of them, the Lower Chero- 
kee who lived in Georgia and the Carolinas, the 
Upper Cherokee who lived on the of the 
Tennessee* The latter were commonly the 
hill Cherokee. This division, purely ; 
the ethnologists classify them as Upper t and 
Lower, according to the of 
chief town of the tribe was on the 
see. Their original or "foundation" In the 
seems to have been Kituwfaa (In 
Carolina) on the Tuckasegee, the 
okee were quite or 



THE OLDEST INHABITANTS 41 

tawas" by the northern Indians. Cuttawa was one name 
for the present Kentucky river along whose banks the 
Cherokee at one time lived on their long flight to the 
South. The term Cherokee is a corruption of their Choc- 
taw-given name, Tsalagi, which means "cave men" and 
which had reference to the numerous caves in the moun- 
tain country which the Cherokee inhabited. Alligewi 
has the same meaning, as does Monteran, the name by 
which they were known to their Catawba foes. The 
Cherokee called themselves Ani-Yunwiha which is very 
like the modern American slang term, "what a man." 
Practically every Indian tribe in the South had a name 
of the same subdued meaning, 

The Cherokee numbered something like 15,000 peo- 
ple in colonial times, living in thirty or forty villages - 
the number both of people and villages changing from 
time to time* They claimed all the land north to the 
Ohio and the Kanawha ? and since the northern Indians 
claimed everything down to the Tennessee there was 
sufficient overlapping of claims to form the basis of a 
permanent and fairly vigorous war* Eastward they 
claimed as far as the tributaries of the Tennessee ex- 
westward they quite generally ackaowl- 
the Chicktsaw claim to the country beyond the 
in Its northward course* Their bitterest 
their the Iroquois of New 

York tad the Tuscarora of North Carolina. The latter 
on the but the New York 

of the apparently never forgot the 

and the 

When not 

the the 

of old with the Algonquin 

of The 

ti tie and old It 



42 THE OLD SOUTH 

"the common road to the Cuttawa country." With the 
Chickasaw, the Cherokee were commonly In a state of 
peace and sometimes of alliance. With the Creeks to 
the south of them they were always at war, the feud 
between the two tribes originating in the appropriating 
of Creek land by the Cherokee upon arriving in the 
South, and being handed down from generation to gen- 
eration in both tribes as a precious heirloom. 

The Creeks, with the Choctaw and Chickasaw, made 
up the Muskhogean family of Indians whose territorial 
possessions almost exactly coincided with the later "cot- 
ton kingdom" of the South, east of the Mississippi, The 
Creeks, alone of the Southern tribes, bore a non-Indian 
name, and they secured it by reason of the fact that the 
first of the tribe with which the Carolinians came in con- 
tact were then living on Ocheese (Ocmulgee) Creek In 
Georgia. 9 Following the Yemassee war of 1715, 
Ocheese Creek Indians moved west, rejoining their 
brethren on the Chattahoochee, and taking their 
with them. The name thereafter was applied to the con- 
federacy of Indians living in Georgia and Alabama. The 
English commonly made two divisions of the 

Lower Creeks living on the Chattthoochcc the 
Flint, and the Upper Creeks living on the the 

Tallapoosa and the Alabama- The was 

geographical, and ethnologists 
divisions of the tribe, Alabama, Hitchiti, Yuchi f and 
Muscogee. Of these the first two 
dialects quite different from the and 

the third an entirely different the 

cogee contemptuously "Stinkard*" It It 

that the Alabama and Hitchiti 
migratloiii of the md the 

* V. W* CrftMt w Of lla ol 01 At In 

i v, 



THE OLDEST INHABITANTS 43 

Muscogee were more recent Immigrants who over- 
whelmed their forerunners and incorporated them Into 
their confederacy. One of the many migration legends of 
the Muscogee represents them as originating in the 
mountains of Mexico, of migrating from a region grown 
volcanic, of fighting their way across the Mississippi, and 
of entering Alabama and Georgia from the north. Place 
names in eastern Tennessee indicate that the Muscogee 
occupied that country prior to the arrival of the Chero- 
kee. The nucleus of the Muscogee invasion was a group 
which on Its arrival In the South separated into the two 
towns of Coweta and Cusseta, which were therefore 
looked upon as "foundation" towns. By force and, ac- 
cording to persistent Indian tradition in the South, 
f raudj they succeeded in bringing the HItchiti and Ala- 
bama Into a union with themselves, originating the Creek 
confederacy which by Indian tradition had its begin- 
ning on Ocmulgec river, and, as ethnologists think, was 
in process of formation when De Soto went through the 
South* The Yuchl were not Incorporated until almost 
the time of the American Revolution. They were recent 
Immigrants Into the gulf region, their first homes In the 
South, as far as can be learned, being in Tennessee on 
the Cumberland, 10 They were always on suspiciously 
friendly with the Shtwaee with whom> In fact, 

Identified. 

The had 00 far Itself until 

in the colonial period. The term Muscogee Is not 

a and Is not Its 

Is ts as its origin, but the most likely 

Is It Is a **fwamp w 

It by the t a labor-saving 

to all their whom they 

** K* JEtariy t / All NttfMw, 

m* 71, 01 it 7* 



44 THE UJLO bUU 1 il 

could oaly refer to previously by the names of the several 
divisions. The Creeks were about equal in number to 
the Cherokee, but far superior to them, and all other 
Southern Indians, in the organization of their govern- 
ment The confederacy came to have a common a capi- 
tal" at Tukabahchee on the Tallapoosa river in Ala- 
bama, In time of peace each division and even each 
town had a habit of going its own way, but in war the 
confederacy was able generally to bring its whole 
strength to bear against its enemies. Both by position and 
by organization the Creeks were prepared to play the 
same part in the South that the Iroquois did in the North. 
They controlled the two most strategic rivers of the 
South, the Alabama and the Chattahoochce, and were 
in easy distance of the Tennessee, Had the coming of the 
white men been delayed a half-century, the 
would probably have subjugated the entire South. 

Their territorial claims ran from the Atlantic to the 
Tombigbee. The Florida Indians east of the 
cola were not members of the confederacy, although the 
Apalachee were of Muskhogeaa stock* Northern 
bama they contested fitfully with the tnd 

northern Georgia unceasingly with the With 

the Chickasaw they were normally at due 

to the traditional friendship between that tnd the 
foundation towns, Cusseta and Cowcta ; the 
kee they were almost always at war; the 
they cherished a carefully nurtured 
probably had its origin in the of 

lands by the Muscogee when first to the 
The Creeks were the of In- 

dians to white influence, tad the list to ta 

white rule. One characteristic 
other Southern Indians was of til 



THE OLDEST INHABITANTS 45 

the head, leaving only a narrow ridge on top as a sort 
of crest 

The Choctaw were a branch of the Muskhogean stock 
who seem to have entered the South from beyond the 
Mississippi at a considerable period before the other 
divisions. There are traces to indicate that anciently 
they occupied practically all the gulf coast and joined 
the Siouan littoral on the Atlantic. This is indicated by 
the fact that most of the tribal names given by the Span- 
iards were Choctaw names. The Creek invasion of the 
South drove a wedge to the coast, forcing the Choctaw 
west of the Tombigbee, and the main body of the Sioux 
north of the Santee. The Choctaw in historic times lived 
in Mississippi, locating their towns mostly on the Pas- 
cagoula and Chickasawhay rivers. They had some twenty 
thousand people and were the most numerous of the 
Southern tribes- They had about fifty towns divided 
into four, later three, sections. Their Southern towns 
were so completely differentiated as to form a distinct 
ethnic tribe* Kowehchito in the central group might be 
called the "capital" of the tribe. 

The Choctaw differed in many respects from the other 
Southern Indians. They were the most sedentary of them 
all, depending on agriculture for a living. Although 
they were the most numerous of the Southern tribes 
they had the most circumscribed territory, being limited 
to the southern half of Mississippi and that small portion 
of Alabama west of the Tombigbee* They rarely went 
beyond their own borders to wage an offensive war, and 
grouped their towns with reference to defense against 
the Creeks on the and the Chickasaw on the north* 
The tribe held together precariously with constant 
wrangling tod sometimes civil war among the different 
groups of towns* Early observers noted unique 



46 THE OLD SOUTH 

among the Southern Indians, the Choctaw people were 
unable to swim, and they offered the unsatisfactory ex- 
planation for this that there were no streams in the 
Choctaw country. The real reason probably was that the 
Choctaw were afraid of snakes, as they undoubtedly 
were. This same dread of snakes caused them to build 
their corn-cribs on high posts. The Choctaw were the 
darkest of Southern Indians as the Cherokee were the 
lightest. Alone among Southern Indians they wore their 
hair long, and for this reason gained the by which 

they were commonly known among the Indians! "Pans- 
f alaya" - long-haired people. The most evident 
characteristic of the Choctaw was the artificial 
tion of the head, caused by placing weights CM the 
in infancy and thus flattening it It has 
that the name Choctaw may be from the 
for "flat head." The practice of head wts 

ably derived from their ancient Siouan 
it was a practice of the Catawba and wts 
among other Muskhogean people* It is 
probable that most of the peculiarities of the 
were of Siouan derivation* 

The third member of the in the 

South was the Chlckasaw. They the 
of the four major tribes of the In 

times numbering more than five or six 
They had about a dozen III 

Mississippi on the headwaters of the and 

bigbee. Their "literary 11 wti 

that of the Choctaw, the dif- 

fered considerably. The tn 

both tribes was that they the 

sippi as one people, tad that 
the Chlckasaw the n 



THE OLDEST INHABITANTS 4? 

of a quarrel. This seems to be the first recorded case of 
secession in the South. What the cause of the quarrel 
was can only be conjectured, but it possibly had to do 
with Choctaw susceptibility to Siouan influence, since 
the Chickasaw had none of the characteristics that have 
been noted among the Choctaw. But the animosity con- 
tinued after the cause was forgotten and in historic times 
the Choctaw and Chickasaw were inveterate enemies. 
The latent hostility of these two closely related tribes 
was increased in colonial times by the fact that the Choc- 
taw were allied with the French while the Chickasaw 
were firm friends of the English, 

Their hunting grounds included all Kentucky and 
Tennessee west of the Tennessee river ; east of the Ten- 
nessee their claims overlapped the Cherokee claim from 
the Duck to the Elk, In proportion to their number, 
their land claims were greater than those of any other 
Southern tribe. They were generally on good terms 
with both Cherokee and Creek, although continually 
harassed by the Choctaw. That in spite of their weak- 
ness in numbers they held their own so well was partly 
due to their bravery, which was proverbial throughout 
the Indian South, and partly due to the fact that an 
Indian war was rarely pushed to a decision. Even at 
that, it seems probable that the Chickasaw escaped ex- 
tinction only by the timely arrival of the English. 

In addition to native and immigrants in the 
South, account be taken of one tribe which can only 
be ts tourists. The in out of 

Southern Indian history In t his 

to an They 

from the North and the only of family 

that was to the of the 

Their in the 



48 _ THE OLD SOUTH _ __ 

in Kentucky and Tennessee on the Cumberland river, 
on which they lived so long that the river acquired the 

name Shawnee. A group of them settled on the Savannah 
river near Augusta sometime prior to 1680, where they 

smote the natives lustily, appropriated their lands, and 
gave their own name to the river. After some twenty-five 
years of possession, the Charleston people drove them 
out as common nuisances, whereupon many of them 

moved to Pennsylvania, travelling leisurely and giving 

their name to creeks and springs and villages all 

the Southern frontier* Their Cumberland brethren in 

the meantime had cooly appropriated land OE the Ten- 

nessee, and for their reward had 

their homes by a rare alliance of the 

Chickasaw. Some of the Shawncc f both of the 

group and of the Cumberland group, in the 

South, taking refuge with the and living con- 

stantly on the move due to their for 

up trouble wherever they went We 

near the Coosa^ oa the Chattahoochcc, and so far 

on the Apalachicola as to be in of the gull 

of the Cumberland group, 

made a settlement on the 

Eskippakithikij and in the 

face of raids from the on the and 

quois on the north until the of the In- 

dian war/ 1 A group of to 

occupy their old in bit the 

ing Chickasaw harried 

the Creeks* 

The sudden and nf the 

Shawnee were a of to the 

other Southern as a 



Bftdmr, Tit I** tfi 

la Film Club ?tt 4 f jg, 



THE OLDEST INHABITANTS 49 

with powers of invisibility and other supernatural at- 
tributes. Except when engaged in some maladroit at- 
tempt to appropriate the hunting ground or the village 
site of someone else, they seemed to have lived on terms 
of amity with Cherokee, Chicksaw, and Creek. By the 
latter they were highly esteemed and there are many 
traces of the influence they exerted on Creek affairs. 
They gave them their name, Muscogee, and perhaps 
even the ceremonial name of their capital, Tukabahchee, 
Their southern wanderings gave them their own name, 
Shawnee, which means "southern." 

The Indians of the South, whatever their tribe or 
family, had many common customs and characteristics. 
They were all village Indians living in towns usually 
located on some stream, sometimes giving the name to 
the stream, sometimes deriving the name from it. The 
towns were of all sizes and character, but in each tribe 
they were formally classified either as "white" towns or 
"red" towns, the former being the towns devoted to peace 
and the latter those devoted to war. In each tribe there 
were towns which served as cities of refuge to which 
mistreated Indians might flee for protection against 
their persecutors. These towns were considered sacro- 
sanct and there was no greater sin known among the 
Indians than the violation of protection. 

Within their villages the Indians lived in houses care- 
fully constructed and designed to be durable. Each 
family ts a rule had two houses, a summer house which 
was little more than a pavilion and only designed to 
ward off the rain and the sun, and a winter house more 
, strongly built, with adobe walls and a thatched roof 
held on by logs. These latter houses were called by the 
white traders "hot houses" because they were kept heated 
to a high temperature. They were occupied chlely 
by the and Infirm* In the winter houses It was the 



50 THE OLD SOUTH 

practice to build the north wall stronger and thicker 
than the others. Quite generally the houses were painted. 
A man always built a new house when he married ; after 
his marriage it became the property of his wife. Within 
the house the beds were a built in" around the walls and 
raised some distance from the floor so as to escape the 
visitation of fleas, which among the Indians were ever 
present and always carnivorous. During the day the 
were used as chairs in pretty much the way as in 

college dormitories of today, 

All the Southern Indians were agricultural, the 
Sioux and the Choctaw most of all. The principal 
crop everywhere was corn, of which had 
varieties including popcorn. They pump- 

kins, squash, tomatoes, sweet and and 

what surplus they had at the cud of the 
stored away in cribSj of which had 

Around each village were the lay 

the garden strips of the Individual It the 

custom to make the planting a but 

after that etch family and in 

strip, A certain amount of the the 

storehouse* which was a of the and 

under the care of the but 

it was of Inferior quality* The 
pipe smokers^ but use of was for 

ceremonial ptrpotei. the of the 

Indians became wit to 

remove their to site. tic 

Creeks an site was at t 

hattee," old town* tre 

In Georgia and and ate la has 

the state capital. 

The Indians of the 10 



THE OLDEST INHABITANTS 51 

the white people had no domestic animal except the 
dog. The Sioux made numerous experiments in do- 
mesticating animals, but apparently without utilitarian 
purpose. The dog of the Southern Indian was primarily 
a watchdog, useful in preventing surprise, but not used 
as a draft animal and hardly used at all in hunting. From 
the Spaniards the Indians secured hogs, cattle, and 
horses. They were slow to adopt cattle raising because 
of the difficulty of protecting the cattle, and because 
they were reluctant to eat the flesh of a sluggish animal 
for fear they would assimilate the spirit along with the 
flesh. Because of the wooded character of the South, the 
horse never played such an important part in Indian 
economy there as it did on the western plains. Horses 
were little used in war, not at all in hunting, and only 
at a very late period as a beast of burden. In the latter 
capacity he was chiefly appreciated by the women, for 
whom he substituted in many respects. The razor-back 
hog, however, aroused considerable enthusiasm among 
the Indians because of his valor as a scavenger, his abil- 
ity to take care of himself, and the high edibilities con- 
cealed beneath his uaamlable exterior. 

The clan system of social organization was universal 
in the South, The term "clan 1 * had much the same mean- 
ing among them as our word kinf oik, each claa roughly 
consisting of a man and his kinsmen. Relationship, how- 
ever, was reckoned through the mother only. Each clan 
had a distinctive name, which served the purpose 
of identification as do our own family or 

The fottr chief tribes of the South pretty the 

set of the number rarely 

than six or in a tribe, the a 

much number. The clan cotninonly 

of ts aid hit the 



52 THE OLD SOUTH 

Wind was common. The different clans had different 
social positions much as our families have; the Winds 
of the Creeks were as aristocratic as the Randolphs of 
Virginia. Political privileges quite commonly went 
along with social standing among the Indians as with 
ourselves. It also formed the basis of their rivalry in 
their amusements and games. 

Government among the Indians was pretty much the 
same throughout the South. Each town of a tribe had 
its peace chief and its war chief. The peace chief 
selected generally on a basis of social standing, the office 
commonly being confined to certain clans. He was 
spokesman for his tribe in foreign affairs, supervised the 
communal labor and communal property, and presided 
over the town council which held daily meetings to 
adjust disputes and to make local ordinances. The 
chief was chosen on merit for a particular war f but If 
he proved worthy it was the custom to continue la 
office year after year. The peace chief commonly 
sented his town in the tribal council which annually, 
generally the first of May, although there was 
a second meeting in September* The Indians 
of time by seasons. The Cherokee were the 
aticians of the South, having up to 

one hundred, whereas the other by 

Inter-tribal trade and 

developed among the Southern is 

evidence of a merchant 
from tribe to tribe unmolested* aa 

item of commerce. It at the salt 

numerous throughout the South, by off the 

In huge clay kettles. The had a cif 

these springs for the location of and 

to have the chief salt of the 

Chocttw of the 



_ THE OLDEST INHABITANTS _ 53 

springs in Noxubee county, Mississippi. The Cherokee 
were the chief pipe makers of the South, fashioning 
them of steatite and clay and carving fantastic designs 
on bowl and stem. The Cherokee also supplied the other 
tribes with mica. From the gulf and Atlantic coast shells 
of many kinds were carried into the interior. Baskets, 
nets, mats, clay dishes, wooden spoons from the gum 
and tulip trees, skins of various animals, ochre for color- 
ing, flints for arrows and garden tools, beads, and many 
other articles were carried over the Indian roads and 
traded from tribe to tribe. Much of it found its way 
north through the agency of the Shawnee who made 
their town at Eskippakithiki, Kentucky, into a fair town 
for the interchange of commodities. 

The prevalence of Inter-tribal trade led to the de- 
velopment of an inter-tribal language. Of course, the 
Muskhogean tribes had very similar languages, and lin- 
guists have given the opinion that Hitchlti, Alabama, 
Choctaw, and Chkkasaw could understand each other 
in their respective tongues. What little is known of the 
Caloosa language in the Florida peninsula indicates that 
it was a dialect of the Choctaw. Choctaw, in fact, seems 
to been the most widely diffused of the Southern 
and so quite naturally become the basis of 
tie language. This was a sort of "pigeon" Indian, 

up of words from each family tongue with Choc- 
taw predominating. It was commonly called "Mobil- 
ian," and the of It was practically universal 

the South. 

In from tribe to tribe and from town to town, 

the the network of which over- 

the South; In fact they probably origi- 

nated a of The Indian villages were 



>* W, E* Ffntlf */ 4kf Annual He- 

of (*W-ifS) 7*9. 



THE OLD SOUTH 



located on these roads, although in many cases the roads 
were undoubtedly placed to connect the villages, In- 
dian roads were commonly narrow in passing through 
the forests, rarely being more than two feet wide; those 
that were later converted into pioneer roads by the white 
settlers always had to be widened. It was the narrow- 
ness of the roads that led to the Indian custom of travel- 
ling single file. The main roads had innumerable detours 
and by-paths, so that it was often difficult to keep on the 
right path. Such crafty woodsmen as Thomas Walker 
and Daniel Boone lost their way in the Kentucky moun- 
tains when trying to follow the Warriors' Trace from 
Cumberland Gap to the bluegrass. 

There were four main-travelled highways leading 
from the South to the North, three of which converged 
on Circleville, Ohio, The easternmost of the four might 
well be called the Siouan Highway since it ran 
the heart of the ancient Siouan country. Starting 
Savannah, it crossed the river at Augusta, theft ran 
through Columbia and up the Watcrce to the 
towns, skirted the headwaters of the North Carolina 
rivers, and came out at Bermuda Hundred on the 
North of the Catawba this road was called by the 
traders the Occaneechi Path because it 
an Indian town of that name on the 
Farther west was the Valley Road the 

lower end of the valley on the Coost river in 
through the Cherokee villages, aad on up the 
and Shenandoah to the Potomac ; one off 

at the New river and ran up the 
the Ohio, and went on to Ctrcleville. The 
Trace was a transverse sit 

running by way of Columbia, the and 

Cumberland Gap to the of the and 

up that stream to Ctrcleville. The 




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THE OLDEST INHABITANTS 57 

of the back country showed this road and labelled it 
a the common road to the Cuttawa country." A fourth 
highway ran from Circleville to Nashville where it 
forked, one branch going by way of Chattanooga to 
Augusta, and the other by way of Muscle Shoals to 
Natchez, 

The chief east and west roads lay, as was to be ex- 
pected, in the Coastal Plain, The greatest of these was 
the Creek Path which ran from Charleston through 
Augusta to Milledgeville where it divided, one fork 
going through the towns of the Creeks, and on to Pon~ 
totoc among the Chickasaw, the other going to Mobile 
and St. Stephens, Another great road was that which 
started at Savannah, ran to Pensacola, Mobile, Natchez, 
through Louisiana, and across Texas to the Rio Grande, 



The Colonial Foundation 

The three major European nations which contested 
for possession of the present United States made their 

entrance into it through the Southeast. They came in by 
the back door. For the Southern Coastal Plain, whether 
its origin be erosive or marine, was geologically the 
youngest part of the South, and Indian civilization 

faced not the Atlantic but the Pacific. Neither nature 

nor native opposed to the incoming European on the 
gulf and Atlantic any such resistance as might have 
been expected on the Pacific. That the French and the 

Spaniards never spread beyond the coastal fringe of the 
South was due, in the last analysis, not to the obstacles 
they met, but to the fact that they viewed their posses- 
in te South merely as appendices to their other 
domains.|To the English, on the other hand, the South 
appeared the most valuable portion of the continent, and 
they desired It not as an annex but as a home. It was the 
English, thercfore f who inherited the South, and they 
did not inherit it through meekness* i 

the South was the part of the United States first 

to be and to be was due to its proximity 

to the of operations in the Caribbean and 

the gulf. It is that Vespucci was the 

to sec the of the South, and that 

he on his of 1497-1498, Florida 

em the of 1500; thir- 

teen De it a For a half ecu- 

It t while 



6o THE OLD SOUTH 

and De Soto wandered through it in search of treasure 
not to be found, and Villaf ane followed Ayllon in vain 
attempts to make settlements. Thereupon the Spaniards 
washed their hands of the inhospitable land where death 
and not riches lay in wait for the explorer. From this 
time on Florida to the Spaniards was merely a mass of 
land bordering the gulf stream which bore their treasure 
ships homeward bound from the gull That they did In 
1565 make a settlement at St. Augustine was not due to 
any appreciation of Florida, but to a desire to protect 
the gulf stream from the intruding French* 

The La Florida of the Spaniards included practically 
the entire South east of the Mississippi, but 
occupation did not keep pace with Spanish In- 

terested chiefly in the coast line, they little 

to penetrate into the interior, but from St. 
as a center pushed their stations northward the 

Atlantic into Guale (Georgia) 
South Carolina) In these efforts the the 

soldier worked together in such close It 

is a matter of doubt whether the the 

church or supporting it In 1633 the 
their zeal westward along the gulf the 

chee country, to be followed some 
by the soldiers, who established Ft at the 

present Tallahassee* Economics, ts well at 
politics, entered into this fur 

lachee was the granary of Florida and 
had long traded with It and tic 

8t Marks river* Although ex- 

tended to the Apalachicola San 

remained the fortification the 

of the century when was like St. 

Augustine, to anticipate the 
* Spanish Florida, like and 



THE COLONIAL FOUNDATION 61 

Florida, was exotic. It was in the South but not of it 
It was less a colony than an outpost of an empire, and it 
never received any considerable immigration from 
Spain. Imperialistically it faced outward to the sea and 
the gulf ; only the missionaries made any effort of im- 
portance to penetrate inward, and they were received 
by the Creeks with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. The 
consequence was that Spanish Florida exerted very little 
influence on Southern affairs, and may be said to have 
lived a life to itself. 

The fisherman and the pirate pointed the way to 
English settlement in America. After the failure of Gil-; 
bert in Newfoundland, Raleigh planned a colony for thd 
Southern coast, which had secured great publicity 4 as 
a region where the English subjects, euphemistically 
referred to as "sea dogs," were wont to assemble with the 
object of securing a better economic distribution of the 
cargoes of Spanish treasure ships. Raleigh intended his 
colony for the Chesapeake: that it went to Roanoke 
Island was not due to his direction and that it perished 
there was not due to his neglect It is well to remember 
that the southern Atlantic coast region after 1565 pos- 
an atmosphere decidedly lethal for enterprises of 
non-Spanish nature. 

The lost coloay left behind it a mystery and a name* 
The Virginia of Sir Walter Raleigh was all those a re* 
barbarous lands, countreys and terri- 
tories not by any Christian prince or 
In the charter of 1606 the English government 
the to the region between the thirty- 
and the forty-fifth parallels, and in 1609 restricted 
it to t territory running up 

the two north and of 

aad to the Pacific 

tad - 1 Virginia in- 



6a THE OLD SOUTH 

terpreted as fixing her northern boundary by a north- 
west line. In this not uncomfortably restricted area the 
London Company planted a colony in 1607 which for 
twenty-five years remained the only promise^ and a 
feeble one, of English colonization in the SoutbrArir 
surviving disease, famine, war, and maladministration, 
this colony had by 1633 become a thing of value which 
it was worth the while of the English government to 
protect Accordingly Maryland was founded as a 
"mark" state on the northern frontier, with powers of 
government conveniently centralized for prompt use 
against an aggressive New Netherlands and, it is not 
impossible to think, against a surly New England, 
Maryland was to include that portion of Virginia north 
of the Potomac and as far west as the headwaters of that 
stream. The eastern boundary was the Atlantic and the 
northern the old northern boundary of Virginia which 
was now re-defined as a line "which lieth under the 
fortieth degree of north latitude from the Equinoctial^ 
where New England is terminated" - a definition dis- 
tinctly prejudicial to the claim of Virginia that her 
northern boundary ran northwest Out of this restricted 
domain Maryland later lost that portion of the eastern 
shore which is Delaware, and was forced to exchange 
her northern boundary "under the fortieth degree" for 
the present Mason and Diion line. This traditional line 
between North and South is practically the line 
Virginia and New England as defiaed in the 
of 1609. 

Maryland was never called upon to fulfill her 
mission as a mark colony, but it soon developed an im* 
portanceof its own. For thirtyyears Virginia and 

land constituted the South. Both to the 



THE COLONIAL FOUNDATION 63 

king during the Civil War and both experienced under 
Cromwell the first Southern reconstruction. With the 
restoration, Virginia had to undergo a second a rend- 
ing n in the formation of Carolina. Maryland had di- 
minished the Virginia domain only by a narrow section 
whose length was merely the length of the Potomac; 
Carolina cut off a region more than two degrees wide 
running from ocean to ocean. 

The name Carolina had been fastened on the map in 
1629 when a grant had been made of the region between 
thirty-six and thirty-one to Sir Robert Heath. But the 
grant lapsed for lack of settlement on the part of the 
proprietor, although people from Virginia had moved 
south to establish the colony of Albemarle, and in 1663 
the same territory under the same name was re-granted 
by Charles II. Two yem later the grant was enlarged 
to thirty-six thirty on tk% north and twenty-nine on the 
south. The northern exten^b&^as made apparently to 
include the Albemarle people and the southern bound-! 
ary was placed below St. Augustine apparently for the 
purpose of forcing a compromise line from the Span- 
iards. It had this effect s for In 1670 England and Spain 
agreed each to recognize the possessions of the other as 
they then stood. At this time England had no settlement! 
south of Albemarle and Spain none north of the Savan- 
nah. The Carolinians never admitted that their charter 1 
limits were affected by the treaty of 1670; they con*; 
tinned to claim to twenty-nine and to extend their settle- j 
ments south as the Spaniards withdrew. Spanish reces* '*. 
slon was brought about chieiy by Indian hostility which 
estimated was not altogether without Inspiration 
from Charleston. 

Carolina was a unit only from 166$ to 1670 while It 



64 THE OLD SOUTH 

consisted entirely of Albemarle; after the founding of 
Charleston, Carolina became the Carolinas. Distance 
and difference of interests separated Albemarle and 
Charleston, and the proprietors recognized the element 
of disunity by maintaining separate governments for 
"our colony northeast of Cape Fear" and "our colony 
southwest of Cape Fear." The unnatural experiment 
of a common governor was made from 1691 to 1712, but 
was found impracticable and a return was made to the 
old arrangement. So little connection did the two colo- 
nies have with each other that they did not even unite 
in revolt. For ten years after the king took over the 
southern region the northern remained under the pro- 
prietors, and this fact finally forced the abandonment 
of the fiction of a Carolina. The names North Carolina 
and South Carolina, long in common use, now became 
legal designations. The boundary between the two was 
established by a joint commission, 1735-1746. 

Into these colonies from Delaware Bay to the Savan- 
nah river for 125 years came the people who made the 
South. It may be noted first of all that they were almost 
exclusively English; of those "lesser breeds without the 
Law" mentioned by a later English poet there were 
practically none. Some French Huguenots came to the 
South, chiefly to South Carolina, but they were quickly 
assimilated by the English mass and, although they may 
have enlivened, they certainly did not leaven the lump, 
A great number of Germans came in and settled on the 
frontier, particularly in the Shenandoah Valley but 
they, too, were absorbed and exerted no influence in 
changing the ideals of the English majority. The Scotch- 
Irish were, of course, neither Scotch nor Irish, but down- 
right Englishmen whose migration to the South was 



THE COLONIAL FOUNDATION 65 

circuitous and delayed. They brought with them to 
America no characteristics appreciably different from 
those of the Englishmen already here, The colonial 
South was overwhelmingly English and it will be found 
that the later South never changed in this respect 

The incoming English were middle class people, poor, 
and of common stock; in this respect there was no es- 
sential difference between the English who went to the 
South and those who went to the North. The disparate 
legend that the South was settled by dissolute adven- 
turers and by wealthy aristocrats has lived lustily in 
our history and it dies hard. The myth of the "adven- 
turers" is due partly to the scoldings of John Smith in 
his books on Virginia, Partly it is due to a change in the 
meaning of the word; the present adventurer is a gam- 
bler, but the adventurer of colonial dictionaries was 
simply an investor. There was probably about the same 
number of bad characters in the Southern immigration 
as ia the Northern, As for the aristocrats, there were no 
more of them in the colonial South than in the colonial 
North, and the number in either section was negligible. 
John Winthrop and George Washington were equally '} 
distant from the English nobility* Both North and 1 '' 
South were settled by people who had made their living 
in England by hard toil and did not change their ways 
upon coming to America. The only difference between 
North and South in this respect was that in the latter 
the reward of toil was greater* 

The most essential difference between the Immigra- 
tion into the South and that into the North lay la the 
motive. In the North the dominant note of the move- 
ment Is that of escape; one might without in- 
justice describe the Northern is 



66 THE OLD SOUTH 

from a political, economic, or religious battlefield in 
Europe. There is practically none of this in the South. 
No Southern community was settled by people fleeing 
from religious persecution. The statement so often re- 
peated that Maryland was founded as a refuge for 
Catholics has no foundation in fact, as is shown, among 
other things, by the refusal of any considerable number 
of Catholics to take refuge there. The Huguenots, it h 
true, were refugees, but they were few in number and 
made no definite impression on Southern ways. The 
colonial South was overwhelmingly Protestant but it 
was not the kind of Protestantism that had taken an 
active part in religious controversy in England, and 
consequently it was not a persecuting Protestantism in 
America. There was a certain dislike for Catholics in 
all parts of the South, and an even more certain disdain 
of Puritanism, but for the most part Southern people in 
colonial days and afterward were indifferent to religious 
controversies and theological disputations. 

Neither were the immigrants to the South refugees 
from an economic battlefield. Every Southern colony 
began its existence as a proprietary, and in every case 
the proprietor exerted himself to further immigration 
since it was upon settlement that the value of his hold- 
ings depended. To a very great extent the immigration 
to the South was a promoted immigration. It was made 
up of people whose poverty had not sunk into pauperism 
and who were quite able to keep their heads above the 
economic waters in England* They had to be Induced 
to come to America; it was a pull and not a puih 
started them. In this connection some reference 
be made to one of the most widespread misapprehensions 
in the whole range of American history: the of 

the indentured servants. History has insisted on giving 



THE COLONIAL FOUNDATION 67 

a modern meaning to the seventeenth century "servant," 
as it has to the seventeenth century "adventurer." But 
the servant of that time was merely one who contracted 
to learn a trade from a master workman. 18 If the servant 
worked as a craftsman or in the skilled trades he was 
called an apprentice and his indentures were called 
articles ; if the articled apprentice worked in the field of 
husbandry or the unskilled trades he was called a servant 
and his articles were called indentures. In neither case 
was there any question involved of social or economic 
status any more than there is today in the case of one 
becoming a bank clerk or a bond salesman* Apprentice- 
ship was merely the conventional method of learning a 
trade preparatory to starting in business. As a matter 
of fact, apprenticeship was considered a privilege for 
which the apprentice customarily paid a good round 
sum. In the case of the indentured servant who came to 
America to work, the feature of payment was actually 
reversed, the master workman (the planter) paying the 
cost of passage for the apprentice as an inducement for 
him to enter the apprenticeship. Instead of the servant 
being driven to America by poverty, he was actually 
paid to come. That someone else paid his passage was 
not so much an evidence of his poverty as of his reluc- 
tance. Imaginative writers have drawn many fantastic 
conclusions from the supposititious lowly condition of 
the indeatured servants. Some have in them the 
origin of the mountaineers of the South, even of 

the "poor white trash." There is overwhelming evidence 
that working out their apprenticeship in the con- 
ventional manner, they their in 
the economic and social of the South to 

* Ju tf In eft* 



68 THE OLD SOUTH 

that of their neighbors, often became members of the 
colonial legislatures, and not infrequently became plan- 
tation owners in their own right. In a very real sense 
every settler who came to America before 1619 was an 
indentured servant bound to the London Company. The 
Pilgrims were indentured servants of the London mer- 
chants who paid their expenses to America. 

The consequence of all this was that no inferiority 
complex was included in the luggage of the English Im- 
migrant to the South. He was not a beaten man fleeing 
from an economic, political, or religious battlefield. 
Because he was unbeaten he was confident, tolerant, 
sane, individualistic. The aggressiveness of the Southern 
people was to display itself on every page of our history 
prior to the War between the States. They led the way 
in exploring and settling the West, they furnished the 
Declaration of Independence, and initiated the move- 
ment for a constitution ; they directed the government of 
the United States for seventy years. They brought oa the 
uncanny War of 1812, and the iniquitous War with 
Mexico. Their aggressiveness not uncommonly degen- 
erated into arrogance which had its part in stirring up 
enemies for them. 

The English immigrants to the South were a provin- 
cial people ; most of them, it would be safe to say, had 
never been beyond their shire limits while they lived 
in England. Upon entering the South they came into an 
environment that was completely new to them; even the 
solid ground beneath their feet and the skies above their 
heads bore strange and bewildering aspects. Out of the 
impact of their hereditary ideas and practices 
this new environment came the South - with an English- 
man of a somewhat different kind to inhabit it 

To the Englishman the forest of the Coastal Plain 



_ THE COLONIAL FOUNDATION _ 69 

came as a shock and a surprise, for at home the forest had 
dwindled almost to the point of disappearance. The 
forests of the South were omnipresent 1 * The tang of 
the pine forests travelled far to sea and commonly met 
the immigrant long before the land itself came into view. 
This was particularly the case if there were forest fires 
burning and the wind blowing off-shore. When the set- 
tler landed he found before him practically all the trees 
he had known in England and many new ones. The oak ? 
ash, elm, poplar, and beech he had had at home in some 
variety or other and in his first days in America they 
must have presented the appearance of old friends, little 
bits of England in a strange land. Cedar and pine were 
new, as were the cypress, locust, hickory, walnut, and the 
live oak of the far South- He found the dogwood and 
the mulberry which he had known at home, and the 
chinquapin and magnolia of which he was ignorant. 
He found peach trees and crabapple trees and plum trees, 
growing wild and he hurried to domesticate them* The, 
; persimmon tree and the sassafras were new to him md\ 
| it was long before he was able to put them to their proper ; 



But although the forests filled the immigrant with 
wonder, they did act fill him with awe. He speedily 
made himself as much at home in the forests of the South 
as he had in England, and as time went on 

ctrae to look upon the forests as a part of the natural 
order of to such an that he became sus- 

picious of any of country was unforested* Yet 
the an to him* He had 

to a the soil, if he lied at all, and 

before the could be the land hid to be 

cleared* no undergrowth In the 

it 



TO THE OLD SOUTH 

forest of the Coastal Plain, the clearing of the land was 
a slow and laborious work to which the settler brought 
no English experience. Captain John Smith tells how 
the first settlers blistered their hands swinging their 
axes against the tough wood of the Virginia trees. la 
course of time the settlers learned the Indian method 
of girding the trees and of burning them down. But 
throughout the colonial period and for a long time after- 
ward much of the demand for labor in the South was 
due to the necessity of clearing the land. 

The forests of the South were apparently without 
end, but after all they were tangible things against 
which the settler could pit his brain and brawn ; with 
the climate he had to make the best terms possible. In 
England the winter had been the longest time of the 
year and the summer had been merely a season in which 
he got ready for the next winter. In the South the sum** 
mer was so much longer than the winter as practically 
to constitute the entire year. It was not only more pro- 
longed than the English summer; it was much hotter. 
The result was that the settler had to reorganize his life 
on a summer basis. He had to adjust himself to it, and 
the process brought about many changes in his diet, his 
house, his crops, and his manner of living. 

The Southern house is the result of an evolution* The 
first house of the immigrant upon arriving was com- 
monly a primitive structure with earthen walls and a 
thatched roof. 15 As soon as possible he supplanted it 
with one of wood, built in traditional English f asfaion 
by setting up a palisade of slabs against a framework 
built around four posts, and surmounted by the English 
thatched roof. The log cabin which would to be 

the most natural house for a forest people made its ap- 

l^Fiske Kimball, Domestic ArckUtctmre / Ifar Ammcttn Ctfonkf * t/ 
tk* Marty jR*>*JrV, $-53, 



THE COLONIAL FOUNDATION 



pearance as a result of contact with the Swedes oa the 
Delaware. Once adopted, however, It sooa came into 
universal use. Following this came the frame house, 

often a structure of hewn logs covered with weather- 
boards; this became the typical house of the well- 

to-do, as the log cabin was of the poorer class. In 

England the houses had been largely of rock, but rock 
was not to be had on the Coastal Plain, and wood was 
everywhere. Brick-making began early in the coloaies, 
but brick houses were rare, although brick chimneys 
were as a rule on the frame house, supplanting the stick- 
and-mud affairs which characterized the log cabins even 
until the War between the States. The widespread idea 
that many colonial houses in the South were built of 
brick imported from England is entirely without found- 
ationtr^English 91 brick was a brick of a certain pattern 
whether made in America or England. After the house 
was built the settler was compelled to build a fence 
around it, and for this purpose it was impossible to use 
the English hedge either to inclose the lawn or to la- 
close the tilled fields. The Southerners early adopted the 
"worm" fence, finding good use for the hickory trees 
of the country in rails. When they posts 

they found that the durable of all wood for 
this purpose the 

Not did the in the South have to 

use for his from he 

in but he was by the to 

Its He It off the 

so that the air get it t 

It OR or The of it, 

or was a hall the full 

of the or at end 

so to ill the air In the 

to it The 



THE OLD SOUTH 



heat v& responsible for the elevation of the house and 
for the hall ; the sunshine forced the building of porches. 
The Southerner looked upon doors and windows as the 
eyes of a house, and the porch as the eyebrows which 
shaded them. No Southerner, if he could avoid it, would 
suffer the rays of the Southern sun to beat against the un- 
protected walls of his house. He built porches not only 
in front, but on all sides of the house, and much of the 
indoor life of the Southerner was spent on his porches. 
Consequently, it was on the designing and ornamenta- 
tion of the porch that the artistic talent of the Southern 
architects was displayed. Sometimes the result was 
happy and sometimes not, but in any case the house was 
a radically different thing from the houses of England. 
The climate was responsible for a new architecture. The 
furniture was different, too, for the colonial carpenters 
and cabinet makers liked to work in walnut, which was 
not to be had in England. The cedar tree which the In- 
dians regarded with superstitious awe because of its 
aromatic tang, early became a favorite wood for the 
construction of cabinets, closets, and chests. Poplar in 
Virginia and Maryland, and pine in the Carolinas be- 
came the chief source of weatherboarding and of the 
shingles which at a very early date entirely supplanted 
the thatch as a roofing material. 

In England the immigrant had been an eater of beef 
and mutton and flour bread, and a prodigious drinker 
of beer. His new environment changed his diet in a 
variety of ways. Mutton disappeared entirely from the 
bill of fare, for sheep were too shy and timid to thrive in 
a forest country where wolves, wildcats, and other 
of prey abounded. Cattle were early imported from 
England, but owing to the absence of grasses on the 
Coastal Plain cattle raising was difficult and the 



THE COLONIAL FOUNDATION 73 

fed cattle rapidly deteriorated. The roast beef of old 
England did not accompany the immigrant to the South. 
Pork supplanted beef on the colonial bill of fare, for 
the hog could fend for himself in the Southern forest, 
finding his own food and holding his own against the 
wild beasts. The Southerner supplemented this meat 
diet with venison and wild turkey, and with sea foods 
such as oysters from salt water and mussels from fresh- 
water, and with fish of astonishing variety. But the hot 
climate forced him to lessen his meats. The new world 
introduced him to a great array of vegetables ; as a mat- 
ter of fact, it might almost be said that vegetables came 
into the world along with the settlement of America. 
He was acquainted with the "Irish" potato before he 
left England, but the Indian sweet potato now sup- 
planted it in his affections - so much so, that the term 
potato in the South came to mean the sweet potato. He 
learned from the Indian the virtues of the tomato, the 
squash, and the pumpkin. The latter never became the 
favorite pie material of the South as it did of New 
England. 

Flour bread was abandoned by the immigrant even 
more completely than mutton was* Wheat would not 
grow well anywhere in the Southern Coastal Plain, 
showing a tendency to all stalk and no grain* 

The that one of the earliest diet changes 

in the South from flour to corn bread, which 

the the Indians. Corn bread, it has 

is one of the highly concentrated 
of nourishment to and Is to 

of the to which 

were due 10 the of this 

new The the Indians til the 

of he to ett it ts 



74 THE OLD SOUTH 

grits, as hominy, as roasting ears, and many other forms. 
He even improved on his Indian instructors when he 
worked out a way of making it into whiskey. 

At home the English laboring man had been a hard 
drinker, using beer as his favorite beverage. But beer 
was not to be had in America, and the settler suffered 
grave discomfort thereby. He tried hard to improvise a 
substitute. For a while he thought the sassafras tree could 
be utilized for beer, but the result from boiling the roots 
was only tea, after all. He had great hopes of the persim- 
mons for a while, but they, too, disappointed him. He 
was finally forced to the use of water, and it may be that 
the change of beverage, as well as the change of diet> 
affected his stamina and outlook on life. 

The immigrants to the South were, it may well be 
believed, a hardy people, but in their new home they 
encountered a number of new diseases with which they 
were long unable to cope. One of these, and the most 
persistent one, was malaria, so named because it was 
supposed to be caused by the bad night air. As a matter 
of fact it does originate in the night air, but it re- 
mained for modern science to ascertain that it was not 
the night air but the mosquito that flies by night that 
was its cause. The mosquito is by no means confined to 
the South, but the long summers ia that section give It 
greater opportunity for action than elsewhere. Quinine^ 
the prime remedy for malaria, had been discovered, but 
its use against the disease was unknown* The Coastal 
Plain of the South swarmed with mosquitoes, and they 
spread havoc among the inexperienced Englishmen- 
The disease of malaria was deadly to the newcomers, 
They later gained a certain amount of immunity by 
reason of the fact that they carried the latent 
always in their systems. One effect of the South on the 
Englishman was to make him a malarial person. 



THE COLONIAL FOUNDATION 75 

Typhus was much more deadly to the early settlers 
than malaria was. The settlers secured their drinking 
water whenever possible from springs, and these were 
often polluted. They often drank from the streams, and 
these were even more likely to be tainted. The immi- 
grants knew how to dig wells because they were familiar 
with them in England, but they lacked stone for walling 
the wells, and springs were everywhere. Bad water and 
the night mosquito caused more deaths in the early South 
than all the other causes combined. In later times the 
Southerner fought typhus at its source and practically 
destroyed it; as for the mosquito, the most adequate at- 
tack the South has yet worked out is to retreat behind 
screens at nightfall. \ 

One of the major novelties the new world had in store 
for the Englishman was the American Indian. The im- 
migrant had never seen anything like him in England. 
But of all the forces in the new environment, the Indian 
had the least effect in bringing about changes ia the 
English habits and customs; he was far less influential 
than the forest and the climate. The prevailing attitude 
of the immigrant to the Indian was one of contempt 
He had no inclination to dignify him by picturing him 
as an imp of darkness or as a child of the devil inhabit- 
ing a land whose ruler was the prince of the powers of. 
the air. On the contrary, he was Inclined to classify hiiri 
with skunks and weasels and other animals of a lower; 
order than human, and the common term for an Indiatf 
IE the colonial South was "varmint" In his self-con^ 
fidence the settler underestimated the Indian and occa\ 
sionally paid the penalty of his misjudgmeat in blood, 
as in the Virginia and the Carolina wan 

the Tuscarora the Yemtssee. Yet It must 
be opposition of the Indians of the Coastal 

to' the very it Is a mtttcf 



76 THE OLD SOUTH , 

of wonder that such a small body of men could settle 
down upon a continent and hold it with so little loss. 
Little effort was made in the colonial South to Christian- 
ize the Indian or to civilize him. Notwithstanding the 
politic union of Rolfe and Pocahontas, intermarriage 
with the Indian was practically unknown. The English- 
man was not above learning from the Indian what the 
Indian had to teach - new foods and crops, forest lore, 
etc. He traded with him from the beginning, buying 
his hides and pelts in exchange for trinkets, strong 
drinks, and even firearms. He reasoned that with fire- 
arms the Indians would be better hunters, and in his 
confidence he was quite indifferent to the prospect 
that the arms might sometimes be turned against the 
whites. Every colonial legislature enacted laws against 
the selling of firearms to the Indians, and enacted them 
in vain. The first settlers in Virginia wore armor when 
fighting the Indians, but the coat of mail could not long 
survive in a Southern climate* 

The most inveterate Indian traders in the South were 
the Virginians and the South Carolinians. As the tribes 
thinned around the first settlements, the traders of these 
two colonies went further and further afield in search 
of profits. The Virginia traders turned South rather than 
West at first, due to the fact that a great Indian path led 
south from Bermuda Hundred on the James. They 
followed this path south to the Roanoke where they 
found the Indian town of Occaneechi, and for 
time this village marked the limit of Virginia trade* 
They called the road the Occaneechi Path. In time they 
followed the path still further south and came into con- 
tact with theTuscarora and Catawba* The bolder spirits 
went even further across the mountains of the Carolina* 



_ THE COLONIAL FOUNDATION _ 77 

into the villages of the Cherokee. 16 The easier road to 
the Cherokee down the valley of the Holston was not 
found until 1673, an( l did not come into any considerable 
use until toward the latter part of the colonial period. 
As for the Charleston traders, they began to trade west- 
ward with the Indians almost as soon as the roofs were 
on their houses. Their chief trade was with the Creeks, 
whom they first found living on Ocmulgee river. In 
pursuance of this trade they penetrated into Alabama, 
and by 1700 had reached the Chickasaw on the banks 
of the Mississippi. The South Carolinians traded not 
only in peltry but in slaves, most of whom they sent on 
to the West Indies. This practice of buying Indian slaves 
had the effect of making Indian wars more frequent and 
of encouraging the taking of captives rather than of 
scalps. In the early years the Charleston traders neg- 
lected the Cherokee because their main villages were 
"overfull, " across the mountains. After the coming of 
the French to the South served to check English pene- 
tration to the west, the Charleston people turned more 
and more to the Cherokee trade. Here they came into 
conflict with the Virginia traders, and the resulting 
rivalry between the two colonies led to many conflicting 
policies and many exhibitions of disharmony. 

The natives of America would not produce the native 
products, and therefore the English sent out colonies. 
Gold was by no means absent from the thoughts of the 
promoters of colonization, but their chief purpose was 
fixed on more prosaic things such as the production of 
lumber, potash, wine, silk, and other things of the kind* 
The colonies were not originally designed as agricul- 



"Vifftittk and the Indian, 

Bt*t TtfiXMtwe 1 Society PnMkMkn^ m* 4 |ai. 



THE OLD SOUTH 



tural colonies ; agriculture, to reverse Jefferson's phrase, 
was to be a handmaiden to commerce. Under the London 
Company, Virginia made strenuous efforts to carry out 
this home-made program; after her failure no other 
Southern colony attempted any other form of industry 
than farming. Farming in Virginia first took the form of 
attempting to raise the crops with which the colonists 
had been familiar in England. It failed, and the lesson 
of the Virginia failure saved the other Southern colonies 
much useless labor. As a matter of fact, Virginia for its 
first twenty-five years might well be viewed as a great 
experimental station in colonization. 

Every Southern colony had two chief crops* and 
neither of them was an English crop. Everywhere one 
of these crops was a food crop and that food crop was the 
one to which the Englishman, of scanty vocabulary, ap- 
plied his old home term "corn." Corn had the place in 
the South that wheat had held in England; here the 
English farmer broke with English tradition, but only 
in the selection of his crop. He was still following the 
tradition that the main business of farming was to pro- 
duce food. It was when he began to produce staple 
that he broke entirely with his English experience) for 
the English farmer produced for consumption, not for 
sale. The beginning of tobacco in Virginia and its 
to Maryland and North Carolina Is one of the 
known parts of our history, and the story not be 
repeated. The story of the rise of rice in South 
is almost equally familiar* It needs only to be out 

that the raising of these two staple crops to 
in the South a zest it had never had IE it 

made the farmer a commercial factor, and 
cultural problems that were previously la the 

western world. 

Farming In the South became an to 



THE COLONIAL FOUNDATION 79 

such as it had never been elsewhere. There was a market 
for the staples at all times and over a period of years 
inequalities in the market prices could be depended on 
to right themselves. The Southern colonists who had 
been poor men in England, whose relatives and ances- 
tors had been poor, were not slow to take the novel 
opportunity, now presented them, of gaining wealth. 
First of all they demanded land, and, fortunately, land 
was to be had almost for the asking. First by the head- 
right system and, in the eighteenth century, chiefly by 
purchase for a nominal sum, they built up their small 
farms, piece by piece, to great plantations. There was 
much fraud and corruption in the land office, as was to 
be expected in an institution whose administration was 
largely in the hands of the easy-going county authori- 
ties. The English government admitted the right of the 
Indian to the soil, and the colonial charters were con- 
strued as asserting only the right of preemption. But 
Indian land was easily alienated in time of peace and 
always forfeited in time of war, and the result was that 
the land came into the hands of the colonists quite as 
fast as they desired it. The fact that everywhere through- 
out the South the land was held subject to quit-rent, and 
that the validity of ownership depended on the payment 
of this rent, appeared to Southern people only in the 
light of a legal casuistry. They paid the quit-rent when 
they must, evaded it whenever possible, and in any case 
held the land as their own. In England the settlers had 
not been land owners, but land tenants. In England land 
ownership had been a badge of respectability possessed 
by few. In the South it was still a badge of respectability 
but it was in the reach of everyone. Few things added I 
more to the self-esteem of the Southern colonist than 
his ownership of land, 
But if large estates meant the possibility of great crops, 



80 THE OLD SOUTH 

it also meant the certainty of great labor. The English 
farmer at home had never done such back-breaking 
work as was entailed in the production of rice and to- 
bacco. And the cultivation of the crop was easy in com- 
parison to the drudgery of clearing the land. The most 
insistent demand of the farmer and planter was for 
labor. It was useless for a farmer to ask help of his neigh- 
bor, for his neighbor was also a farmer and was also in 
search of assistance. The planter, in his need, had re- 
course to his English experience and made a trial of 
applying the apprentice system of the trades to the hum- 
bler field of husbandry. Apprentices the indentured ser- 
vants were in reality, for no amount of farming experi- 
ence in England would be of any use to them in the 
South. Old farmers had to learn a new art of farming* 
But the indentured servant was not the answer to the 
planter's prayer for the reason that his apprenticeship 
soon came to an end, and the custom or law that made 
him a landholder at the end of his service made him at 
the same time a competitor for labor. Permanency, not 
skill, was the quality that was most needed in a labor 
supply for the South, and the only possible solution 
slavery. In Virginia and Maryland the settler adopted 
slavery slowly and reluctantly as a thing alien to til his 
English experience and repulsive to his English ; 

South Carolina adopted it more readily since it 
already familiar to that large element of Its population 
drawn from the West Indies. 

The three things ~~ staple crops,, the large tad 

negro slavery - which later came to be as 

characteristic of the South as a section 
origin in colonial times. Of the two it be 

noted that tobacco was a farm crop as well ts a 
tion cropy and that it was produced by rich and 



THE COLONIAL FOUNDATION 



alike, with and without slavery ; rice, on the other hand, 
was exclusively a plantation crop only to be produced 
by men wealthy enough to own slaves for the actual 
work of cultivation. The small farms at all times out- 
numbered the large, and the greater per cent of the land 
acreage was in the hands of the poor people. Finally, 
the proportion of slaveholders was small, never amount- 
ing to more than one-fourth of the adult population. 

Since the Southern settlers produced staple crops they 
had to sell them. Although the English government had 
not envisaged these crops as an aim of colonization, it 
recognized their value and encouraged their produc- 
tion. Tobacco was given a monopoly of the English 
market by the exclusion not only of Spanish tobacco but 
of English tobacco as well. Upon this action depended 
the prosperity of Virginia and Maryland, for their 
tobacco was inferior to the Spanish tobacco and could 
not compete with it in the open market. Colonial to- 
bacco, however, never was restricted to the English mar- 
ket, although legally it could leave the empire only by 
way of England. From rice the English revenues could 
expect little since it found its chief market in the Scandi- 
navian countries, and in Portugal and Spain, from which 
places it quickly expelled its Egyptian and Braziliaa 
rivals. From 1704 to 1730 it was required to go through 
England on its way out to market, but after that date it 
was allowed to go directly from America to any point 
south of Cape Finisterre, To rice, as to tobacco, the 
English government gave a monopoly of the English 
market The preferential treatment given to Southern 
products was due, of course, to the fact that thty did not 
compete with English products (except mildly in the 
case of tobacco) and that they brought much revenue 
to the English customs. 



82 THE OLD SOUTH 

English ships were attracted to the South because of 
the great profits to be made in the carriage of the South- 
ern staples. Their presence discouraged the development 
of shipbuilding in the colonies while an even greater 
discouragement was the superior profits to be made in 
farming. 17 The vast forest resources of the South went 
untouched for shipbuilding, notwithstanding the per- 
sistent efforts of the English government to promote it, 
The English ships were able to make their way far in- 
land on the estuaries and up the drowned river channels 
of the Southern Coastal Plain to the very doors of the 
colonial planter and to load tobacco and rice from the 
plantation wharves. For this reason no ports developed 
in Virginia, In Maryland the absence of deep rivers led 
to the growth of Baltimore as a port for concentration 
and distribution, and in South Carolina a similar cause 
developed the port of Charleston. The method of ship- 
ping made it inevitable that the middleman who handled 
the commerce should reside in England* The colonial 
planter sold his products in England and bought his 
products there through a merchant whom he never saw 
and from whom he was separated by the entire width 
of the Atlantic. Inevitably such a system resulted in the 
planter's running in debt These debts were carried 
along from year to year and haaded down from 
generation to another as a family heirloom* 

From the moment of their landing on the 
coast, the immigrants began expanding into the 
The spread of the Virginians was mainly to the north 9 
moving from river to river until 
reached the Potomac, The planters tried to 
plantations, as far as possible, on the 
so that ships could come to their door, but as as 

"Braee, te**om*e Mutory &f FiVjwiw* in th* rot, 

\ 435* 



THE COLONIAL FOUNDATION 83 

1700 settlements were reaching out into the Piedmont 
Two eccentric bits of expansion in Virginia carried 
settlers eastward to the "Kingdom of Accomac" and 
southward to the Albemarle : the latter movement, the 
Virginians insisted, owing its chief inspiration to the 
peace officers. In Maryland the chief direction of ex- 
pansion was northward along the bay, resulting in the 
founding of Annapolis and Baltimore, but, as in Vir- 
ginia, there was a stream of immigration which crossed 
the bay and made homes on the eastern shore. la North 
Carolina the settlements hugged the shore until the 
driving out of the Tuscarora in 1712 made it safe to 
settle into the interior. From this time settlement moved 
up the valleys of the Roanoke, Neuse, and Cape Fear 
until stopped by the pine barrens near the fall line. In 
South Carolina settlement spread from the Charleston 
nucleus north and south along the coast Only along the 
Santee and the Savannah was there any considerable 
movement into the interior. 

Virginia was the only colony whose tidewater people 
expanded westward beyond the mountains. Early in 
the eighteenth century people found their way through 
the water gaps and wind gaps of the Blue Ridge and 
made homes for themselves in the valley beyond. For 
the most part this overflow from eastern Virginia into 
the valley went into the lower valley following the course 
of the Roanoke-Stauntoa, and settling on the upper 
courses of the New (which they called Wood's) river, 
the HolstoE (which they named Indian) river, and the 
Staunton. The lower valley was filling slowly but surely 
when the Germans and the Scotch-Irish came pouring 
into the Shenaadoah region from Pennsylvania. These 
newcomers, as their host increased, followed tlie valley 
southward until they came to the Stauntoa* Tfee valley 



84 THE OLD SOUTH 

of this stream deflected them eastward through the Blue 
Ridge and down into the Piedmont of the Carolinas, It 
is possible that history has exaggerated the importance 
of the Germans and the Scotch-Irish and has laid too 
much stress on the differences between them and the 
people of the tidewater. The Scotch-Irish, the most 
numerous element, were of the same English stock as 
the tidewater people and were in no respect different 
from them in their point of view or their ideals. They 
were largely Presbyterian, while in the tidewater the 
Anglican church was the established form of worship ; 
but in neither section did religion sit so heavily on the 
people as to direct their energies or determine their 
Actions. Land was as easily obtained in the valley as in 
the tidewater, and the Scotch-Irish were as avid for its 
possession as were the eastern people; before coming to 
America the Scotch-Irish had been tenants just as the 
eastern people had been, and when they came to have the 
opportunity of land ownership, they reacted to it Just 
as the eastern people did. Big estates were built up in 
the valley with the same readiness and by the same 
methods as in the tidewater. The valley people began 
the pursuit of wealth by the cultivation of tobacco, they 
adopted slavery and the system of indentured servants* 
and it is quite evident from the records that there no 
appreciable difference between tidewater and valley in 
respect to the distribution of wealth. The OEC 
difference between east and west in colonial Virginia 
that the west did not have an easy to for 

its products and the east did. The Idea the 
of German and Scotch-Irish settlements on the 
promoted unity and nationalism only be 
as a fantasy* In the Carolieas the Scotch*Irish 
separated from the eastern people by a 



THE COLONIAL FOUNDATION 85 

region which in some places had a width of eighty miles. 
It was a much more effective barrier between east and 
west than was the Blue Ridge in Virginia. In the Caro- 
linas, too, the soil of the Piedmont occupied by the new- 
comers was inferior to that of the tidewater, while in 
Virginia the valley had a soil that was much more fertile 
than the land of the east The consequence was that in the 
Carolinas the two sections had a difference of interests 
based on a difference of crops and even of occupations, 
while in Virginia the difference was almost entirely one 
of access to markets. The penetration of the tidewater 
people into the lower valley of Virginia, the coming of 
the Germans and the Scotch-Irish into the valley of 
Maryland, the upper valley of Virginia, and the Pied- 
mont of the Carolinas, established a new frontier for the 
South. But it was not a unified frontier ; there were at 
least three frontiers, each with its own peculiar prob- 
lems and interests, and none of them having more in, 
common with the others than with the tidewater regions. 
From the Mason and Dixon line to the Savannah 
river the English advanced into the interior of the South 
without hindrance except for brief, although bloody, 
conflicts with the Indians, Charleston had always been 
open to a flank attack from Florida, but as time went on 
and the attack was not delivered, Charleston became as 
contemptuous of Spanish power as of Spanish claims. 
From the beginning Florida was on the defensive, 
Charleston on the offensive. In Queen Anne's War a 
handful of Charleston men with a host of Creek allies 
invaded the Apalachee country, destroyed Indian towns 
and missions, carried off, killed, and scattered the In* 
dians, forced the abandonment of Ft San Luis, and re- 
duced the Spanish power In Florida to practical im- 
potence, Spain continued to hold the coast with her 



86 THE OLD SOUTH 

garrison at Pensacola and at the newly established Ft 
San Marcos but she was no longer a power to be feared. 
The South was the stage for Anglo-French rivalry 
from the time the French made their settlement at Bi- 
loxi until they finally withdrew in 1763. The Charleston 
people were the aggressors in the early stages of this 
rivalry, and with their Creek allies they seemed for a 
time to have fair prospects of meting out to Mobile the 
same destruction they had inflicted on Apalachee, The 
Yemassee war saved the French. As a result of this war 
the disgruntled Creeks withdrew from the English 
frontier to the Chattahoochee country, and from this 
time forth held themselves neutral between English and 
French. 18 They even permitted the French to establish 
Ft Toulouse at the junction of the Coosa and Talk- 
poosa in the very heart of the Creek country. Because 
of this attitude of the intervening Creeks, the Anglo- 
French conflict in the South took on the aspects of a 
stalemate. Both nations tried to extend their influence 
over the Southern Indians; the French secured the 
Choctaw as allies while the English retained the friend- 
ship of the Chickasaw. Neither could make any headway 
with the Creeks, and the Cherokee were too far removed 
from the scene of conflict to display much interest After 
the Yemassee war the English and the Preach directed 
their policies along different lines. England 
to consolidate and extend her power of the Chatta- 
hoochee; France endeavored to the corridor of the 
Mississippi Valley open so aa not to 
Louisiana and New France* In pursuance of her 
England established the military colony of not 

as a buffer state against Florida but at a 
against Mobile. Georgia was out of 

^ Crane, Tk* Swtkirm tnai&r, 1*5. 



THE COLONIAL FOUNDATION 87 

lina; it lay between the Savannah and the Altamaha, 
with northern and southern boundaries extending from 
the heads of these rivers to the Pacific. The determina- 
tion of the head of the Savannah entailed what was 
probably the weirdest boundary dispute in American 
history. Presumably after the founding of Georgia, 
South Carolina continued to claim the region south of 
the Altamaha to the twenty-ninth parallel, since that 
region was included in her original charter limits and 
had not been taken out by an English authority. 

In her efforts to keep open the line of communication 
with New France, Louisiana enjoyed a fair measure of 
success. New Orleans was founded, and forts were built 
at Natchez and Memphis. A station was built at Nash- 
ville, then called French Lick, and another at Muscle 
Shoals. The chief impediment to the success of this 
program was the hostility of the English-loving Chicka- 
saw. In an effort to subdue them, the French incited the 
Choctaw to war, led expeditions into the Chickasaw 
country from Mobile and even from New France, and 
established Ft. Tombecbe on the middle course of the 
Tombigbee river* The Chickasaw took terrible punish- 
ment, but they were not subdued, and they continued 
throughout the colonial period a potent threat to French 
communications. 

English and French spent nearly a half-century 
strengthening themselves for a decisive struggle in the 
South, only to find that when the struggle finally came 
the decision was given, not in the South, but in the North. 
The fate of Louisiana was decided not by the conquest 
of Louisiana but by the conquest of New France; the 
annex fell with the house* The result of the French and 
Indian Wat was to relieve the English colonies in the 
South from future danger as far as the French and Span- 



88 THE OLD SOUTH 

iards were concerned. This was a cause for rejoicing. 
Over another result of the war the Southern colonies 
were far from having a feeling of exultation, for the 
war had had the result of alienating some three- fourths 
of their territory by cutting down their western bound- 
ary from the Pacific to the Mississippi. 



Expansion of the South 



Expansion of the Tobacco Country 

Notwithstanding their confidence and assurance, the 
Southern people were slow in occupying the vast regions 
so lavishly granted in the colonial charters- For a time it 
had seemed likely that the aggressive South Carolinians 
would quickly extend their frontier to the Mississippi, 
but Creek and French intervened to bar the westward 
way which geography had left so invitingly open. The 
race was not to be to the swift. It was left to the Vir- 
ginians and North Carolinians first to establish them- 
selves on the "western waters/ 5 although in so doing 
they had to overcome the mountain barriers of the Alle- 
gheny and the Cumberlands* 

As the eighteenth century turned to its decline, the 
westernmost frontier of the tobacco country was firmly 
fixed in the great valley. Westward from their homes 
down the length of it, from the Pennsylvania border to 
the forks of the Holston, the settlers could see the steep 
mountains which, like a veritable wall, hemmed them 
in. They knew something of the mountains and the 
passes through them - Cave (Cumberland) Gap, Pound 
Gap, the gorge of the New-Kanawha, and the narrow 
valley of the Potomac. These highways to the "west- 
ern waters 11 had been found by hunters, and the restless 
farmers, although there was land a-plenty in the valley 
to be had almost for the asking, were beginning to turn 
their thoughts to follow them. It was inevitable that the 
marshalling and ordering of this prospective migration 
should be the work of the land speculator* The original 



92 THE OLD SOUTH 



settling of the South, and the westward movement to the 
mountains had been promoted by land speculators. Lord 
Baltimore, the Carolina proprietors, and even the Lon- 
don Company could justly be so classed. The northern 
neck of Virginia was a huge speculation on the part of 
Lord Fairfax, and in the valley itself settlement was 
hastened by the granting of nearly a million acres of 
land to four individuals. The land speculator in South- 
ern history was the entrepreneur of the westward move- 
ment He fixed the time, chose the destination, and de- 
termined the routes. 

It seemed in 1750 that the first transmontane expan- 
sion of Southern people was destined for the northwest 
The Ohio Company chartered by England was given a 
conditional grant (1748) within vague limits on the 
Ohio. An extended preliminary survey by Christopher 
Gist having convinced the company that the Potomac 
river gave easiest access to the west, it fell vigor- 
ously to work building forts on the Potomac and 
Monongahela and connecting them with a road* But 
just as settlement was preparing to follow the hunter 
and explorer, the French and Indian War put an end 
to the activities of the company. But if it had not planted 
a colony beyond the mountains, it had, tt popu- 

larized a road; the Potomac river route 
to become the most used of the roads to the At 

practically the same time another group of 
united in the Loyal Land Comptny, 
another road, sending Dr. Thomti 
Cave Gap and over the Warriors 1 Trace the 

mountains In search of test the 

trail in the mountains tnd the of his 

was to discourage tny the 
had of nsiag the gap in 



EXPANSION OF THE TOBACCO COUNTRY 93 

While the French war raged, the valley had all It 
could do to defend Itself. Any westward movement that 
might have developed with the return of peace was ef- 
fectively discouraged by the Proclamation of 1763 pro- 
hibiting settlement west of the headwaters of rivers 
running into the Atlantic. It is not to be supposed that 
the common people had any regard for the proclama- 
tion, but the speculators were estopped by it, and without 
the entrepreneur migration hesitated. The royal order, 
however, was designed to quiet the Indian, not to hinder 
expansion, and almost as soon as the new line was estab- 
lished, Sir William Johnson, the superintendent of 
Northern Indians, and John Stuart, superintendent of 
Southern, began seeking Indian consent for a dividing 
line farther west Royal instructions were so powerfully 
reenforced by pressure from the speculators that in 1767 
by the Treaty of Hard Labor with the Cherokee, a new 
boundary was agreed to from the head of the Savannah 
to the mouth of the Kanawha. From Chiswell mines on 
the New it sloped northwest and southwest, thus opening 
up a great amount of new land to the west of the proc- 
lamation line. In 1770 by the Treaty of Lochaber, Stuart 
moved the dividing line in Virginia still further west 
to the meridian through the mouth of the Kanawha, 
which line when it came to be surveyed, abandoned the 
meridian and ran most amazingly down the Kentucky 
to the Ohio which by the Treaty of Ft Stanwix in 1768 
had been agreed upon as the southern and eastern limit 
of the Indians of the northwest 

Thus the proclamation line was bent far westward 
in Virginia and millions of acres of transmontane land 
made available for settlement. Thereupon the hungry 
speculators girded up their loias and advanced in mass 
formation to the banquet The Loyal Company, the vet- 



94 THE OLD SOUTH 

erans eager for their promised bonus, and various mem- 
bers of the Virginia council petitioned Virginia for 
grants which in the aggregate amounted to some seven 
million acres. To the Crown went the petitions of the 
old Ohio Company, of a Mississippi Company (led by 
Thomas Walker and Patrick Henry) , and of a Penn- 
sylvania organization called the Grand Ohio Company, 
which modestly asked for all the area between the Mo- 
nongahela and the Kentucky, where it proposed to es- 
tablish a new colony to be called Vandalia* The pro- 
moters of this enterprise had sufficient influence in 
British politics to gain the favor of the Crown, and only 
the outbreak of the revolution prevented the consum- 
mation of the scheme. 

The period, 1770-1775, might well be termed the war 
of the speculators. Royal orders reserved the region 
between the Kanawha and the Kentucky to the Vandalia 
promoters and to the Virginia veterans* There was prec- 
ious little land elsewhere to be had, for east of the 
Kanawha Virginia settlers had already taken possession, 
and west of the Kentucky the Cherokee title legally 
still ran. The speculators applying to America an 
opinion of the British chancellor relative to India ? 
to seek from the Indians the land cessions refused 
by Virginia and the Crown* 18 la 1774 a group of 
from the Monongahela country drifted the Ohio, 

ascended the Kentucky, and 
on Cherokee land. This was the Irst 
west of the mountains* Its origins tre a 

ible supposition is that it was by the old 

Company. It was the 

from the Ohio Indians. la 177^ it 

was at once swallowed up in the new 
colony, 

** G. W. la at* *. K 4 M* 



EXPANSION OF THE TOBACCO COUNTRY 95 

Transylvania colony was the great rival of Vandalia. 
It promoter, Richard Henderson, was the most ambi- 
tious, the most energetic, and the most successful South- 
ern entrepreneur of the westward movement Maturing 
his project slowly, he had employed James Robertson 
to plant an outpost in 1768 on Watauga river in the val- 
ley of Tennessee, which should serve as a base for further 
penetration of the west. 20 The next year he had sent Dan- 
iel Boone across the mountains to explore the land be- 
ond. Boone's report gave Henderson an accurate idea of 
the location of the best lands, and assured him of the 
utility of the westward route over the gap and the War- 
riors' Trace, both of which were now to be rescued from 
the disfavor in which they had lain since the Walker at- 
tempt Organizing the Transylvania Company, he 
bought from the Cherokee in February, 1775, the land 
from the Kentucky to the Cumberland-Tennessee di- 
vide and by another purchase secured the gap and its 
approaches east and west This purchase initiated a col- 
ony and rehabilitated a road, 

Into his new Transylvania colony in the spring of 
1775 Henderson led the vanguard of his colonists and 
established his capital at Boonesborough on the south ] 
bank of the Kentucky. Harrodstown submitted to the! 
new order of things, and St. Asaph was settled by Vir- 
ginians at the present Stanford. In the summer, repre- 
sentatives from these towns gathered at Boonesborough, 
formed themselves into a legislature, and made laws 
for the budding commonwealth. A land office was 
opened under the direction of a Virginia county sur- 
veyor, and Henderson, having definitely established Ms 
colony, prepared to take steps to have it recognised by 
the Crown. The coming of the revolution put an end 
to his hopes* 



* P. Abtmttfiyv Frvrn Pnmtur to Pbu&tfam m r^fmm*, cbtfter 



96 THE OLD SOUTH 

In 1775 Virginia, which had remained largely in- 
different to the anti-British agitation of the preceding 
twelve years, threw herself whole-heartedly into the 
revolutionary movement, and her influence gave it the 
necessary impetus to bring success. There can be little 
doubt that this action of Virginia was motivated by a 
desire to retain her western domain, and that she acted 
under pressure from her land speculators. The Quebec 
Act of 1774 had detached from her all the northwest; 
Vandalia was on the point of taking away the Southern 
back country as far as the Kentucky- Transylvania, 
with fair prospects of recognition by the Crown, would 
include the remainder to the Cumberland* It is small 
wonder that under these provocations Virginia became 
a convert to the cause of liberty and struck promptly 
for independence. Only in independence could she re- 
tain her western lands* One of the leading land specu- 
lators of Virginia became commander of the Continental 
army, another wrote the first constitution of Virginia! 
a third became her first state governor* Following her 
assumption of sovereignty, Virginia moved swiftly to 
regain her western territory. Both Vandalia Tran- 
sylvania were disregarded in the creation, 
1776, of Kentucke county, including all Virginia ter* 
ritoiy south of the Ohio from the Sandy to the 
Tennessee, The next summer a army 
Rogers Clark was sent the Ohio to a 

conquest of the Northwest aqd the 
of the Quebec Act* 

Kentuckc county life i of 

about four hundred, all of hid 

from the valley the gap and the "Wilder- 

ness** Road to establish in the 

of the Kentucky river. to the of the 



EXPANSION OF THE TOBACCO COUNTRY 97 

sylvania land office, most of the people were living 
west of the Kentucky and held their land from Tran- 
sylvania. Until Transylvania should be formally out- 
lawed, all land titles west of the Kentucky were uncer- 
tain and immigration consequently discouraged. In 
1779, however, the Virginia assembly reached a decision 
in which, while denying the legality of Henderson's 
purchase, it recognized the validity of Cherokee sale. 
There immediately followed several things of impor- 
tance ; Virginia passed a definite land law for Kentucky, 
an increased migration got under way from the valley, 
and Richard Henderson, finally disappointed in Ken- 
tucky, now turned to Tennessee. 

By the land act of 1779 old settlers were confirmed 
in their possessions and new settlers were offered land 
at two dollars (Virginia currency) an acre. The great 
migration following this act, and partly due to it, gave 
Kentucky a population of twelve thousand by the end of 
the revolution. Kentucky, which had been looked at 
askance in the early days of the revolution because of 
its exposed condition, now took on the attractions of 
relative security as Cornwallis's army moved through 
the South* The revolutionary migration included also 
many Loyalists seeking in the west an escape from the 
perfervid attentions of their patriotic eastern neighbors. 

As long as there were any hopes of regaining his Ken- 
tucky lands, Henderson seems to have overlooked the 
possibility that his purchase extended into Tennessee. 
A survey of the Virginia-Carolina line in 1779 having 
revealed that such was the case, he proceeded at once to 
establish a new colony on his yet unconfiscated lands. 
He employed his old agent, James Robertson, to lead out 
the first colonists to the Cumberland where at the old 
French Licks there was begun on New Year's day, 1780, 



98 THE OLD SOUTH 

a settlement which later grew into Nashville* 21 The trail 
which Robertson opened down the Cumberland long 
served as a road to western Tennessee just as the Wilder- 
ness Road did in Kentucky. Other settlers came in by 
the Tennessee and soon Henderson came in person 
after forwarding supplies from Boonesborougbu Thus 
through the agency of Richard Henderson, the tobacco 
country expanded into western Tennessee, as it had done 
into eastern Tennessee and Kentucky. 

Neither Kentucky nor the Cumberland settlements 
took any part in the revolution ; both suffered consid- 
erably from Indian attacks, sometimes spontaneous and 
sometimes inspired. On three occasions Indian bands 
large enough to be called armies moved against Ken- 
tucky and each time the expedition was organized by 
Canadian officials and led by Canadian officers. But 
the palisaded forts of the settlers were all but impreg- 
nable, and after each invasion the Kentuckitns retali- 
ated by carrying fire and destruction to the Indian 
villages in Ohio whence the attacks came* The Cum- 
berland settlements suffered chiefly from the Cherokee 
whose undiscriminating wrath had been aroused by 
encroachments on their lands in Tennessee* The 

Cherokee had been encouraged by Superintendent 
Stuart to remain neutral m the revolution, but 
saries from the Northern Indians had 
in 1776 to a war in which they terrible 
and ended only at the price of a 
this Virginia and North to 

live among them: their the 

remembrance of recent to 

nominal peace for the en* 

croached southwards to fie la 



EXPANSION OF THE TOBACCO COUNTRY 99 

tion with the British invasion of the South the Cherokee 
again prepared for war in 1780, only to have their 
villages burned by the militia returning from King's 
mountain. The more remote towns, however, kept up 
a desultory war for several years, their vengeance strik- 
ing impartially both the valley and the Cumberland. 

Against the Indians the Kentucky and Cumberland 
settlers protected themselves by palisaded forts through 
whose portholes they could use the long-range Virginia 
rifles with telling precision. The location of these forts 
was generally determined by the presence of springs, 
since a water supply was absolutely necessary both in 
war and peace. Only in the event of Indian attacks, 
actual or anticipated, did the settlers remain within the 
forts; at other times they were, perforce, busy in the 
field or hunting. The valley took along its crops, as it 
did its rifles, when it crossed the mountains, but during 
the revolution there was little opportunity to grow 
anything but corn. The soil of Kentucky and the Cum- 
berland was the soil of the valley and the same bluegrass 
grew from it, but the raising of live stock had to await 
the coming of peace, as did the cultivation of tobacco. 
There was the same game as in the valley, the buffalo 
being quite common in the west although it was prac- 
tically extinct in the valley. Like the valley, the new 
localities had their salt "licks." It might be said that 
the valley men in crossing the mountains had moved 
their homes without changing their environment 

With the close of the revolution the stream of immi- 
gration swelled to a torrent* The Ohio river, now safe 
for travel, began to supplement and then to supplant 
the Wilderness Road as a route of migration. Boats 
took the place of pack horses and wagon, and the source 
of immigration shifted from the lower valley aad Nortfi 



too THE OLD SOUTH 



Carolina to the upper valley, Maryland, and Pennsyl- 
vania. Inevitably, little towns began to appear along the 
Ohio at the places where boats landed passengers and 
cargo for the interior; Limestone (Maysville) was 
one of these places, Louisville another. Along the roads 
developed from these landings, other little towns came 
into existence as camping places for the wagon trains 
moving into the interior. Lexington, in the heart of the 
bluegrass, grew into importance as the converging point 
for all roads, and soon the Limestone-Lexington Road 
became the best settled region of Kentucky with Wash- 
ington, Mayslick, Hopewell (Paris), and Millersburg 
attesting its prosperity. Another line of towns followed 
the Lexington-Louisville Road. Most of the old "sta- 
tions" disappeared. Settlement moved out of the Ken- 
tucky river valley into the northeast along the Licking 
and to the southwest toward the Green- Land specula- 
tion, dormant during the war, again became rife, One 
of the most persistent of the speculators was John Filson, 
a Pennsylvania teacher, who in 1784 published his 
Kentucky, a topographical description, to which he 
added an autobiography of Daniel Boone. As a land 
sales propaganda the book had no but it 

gave Boone an importance in history no 
research has been able to diminish. 

In Tennessee, also, immigration the 

encouraged by the speculators, chief of whom Wil- 
liam Blount* He and his In 1783 
the North Carolina to for 1! Ten- 
nessee lands, a in the 
angle of the French and and a 
tary reservation on 
at this time declared With 



EXPANSION OF THE TOBACCO COUNTRY 101 

of the law, the speculators hurried their agents into 
Tennessee and secured the lion's share of the four mil- 
lion acres available. This done, they persuaded the leg- 
islature to cede Tennessee to the United States (1784) 
in order that they might secure protection against the 
outraged Cherokee. 

Under similar circumstances, Virginia in 1784 made 
a cession of the northwest territory which it claimed 
under its charter, lost by the Quebec Act, regained by 
Clark's conquest, and had been holding for six years 
as Illinois county. Following these cessions, separatist 
movements developed in both Kentucky and Tennessee. 
In Kentucky the separatist movement originated ap- 
parently in nothing more fundamental than the incon- 
veniences of government administration from beyond 
the mountains; and separation was requested as a pre- 
liminary to joining the Union. To this request Virginia 
assented with a heartiness not altogether flattering, but 
the non-action of a dilatory congress in admitting the 
new applicant prevented separation until 1792. At that 
time Kentucky became a state -the first of the new 
tobacco communities to reach its majority. 

In Tennessee the separatist movement ran a different 
course* There after the act of cession the people of east 
Tennessee took the initiative, as congress had provided, 
in forming a state. The movement was dominated by 
speculators hostile to the Blount group, and these, fear- 
ful that their lands would be confiscated, influenced 
North Carolina to repeal its act of cession. Thereupoa 
the new state of Franklin revolted against North Caro- 
lina, but had the ill-luck to choose as its leader one of 
the Blount group, John Sevier. The governor of North 
Carolina was another of Blounfs associates, Richard 
Caswell, and between Sevier aad Caswell, there ensued 



102 THE OLD SOUTH 

a farcical war of three years duration in which Caswell 
struggled to preserve an outward appearance of ani- 
mosity without coming to blows, and Sevier strove to 
extricate himself from rebellion without losing the favor 
of his constituents. The "war" came to an end when 
Samuel Johnson, succeeding Caswell as governor, had 
Sevier arrested and reasserted authority over the "state 
of Franklin." 

In both Kentucky and Tennessee during this period 
the separatist leaders conducted with the Spanish au- 
thorities at New Orleans an arduous, but highly incon- 
clusive, flirtation which historians have been wont to 
call the "Spanish conspiracy*" In Kentucky the court- 
ship was initiated by James Wilkinson for the ostensible 
object of securing for Kentucky the navigation of the 
Mississippi closed by Spain since 1784, To secure this 
Wilkinson (for a consideration) undertook to detach 
Kentucky from Virginia and join her to Spain. Under 
modern investigation the once-formidable "conspiracy" 
has dwindled to a successful effort on the part of Wilkin- 
son to raid the Spanish treasury, and an ambition on 
the part of Spain to anticipate invasion from Kentucky. 
In Tennessee the iirtation originated by Blount, 
Sevier, and allied speculators an outlet 

the Tombigbee for the products of a colony 

at Muscle Shoals; it was continued as a to 

Spain's influence la prevention of Indian 
the western settlements, and put to its use In 
North Carolina into a of Yet 

when the final was was 

fort for the speculators, the In the 

Hopewell Treaty of 1785 had to the 

all their Tennessee the 

Henderson purchase* 



EXPANSION OF THE TOBACCO COUNTRY 103 

Kentucky became a state in 1792; Tennessee was or- 
ganized as the "Territory South of the River Ohio" 
in 1790. One had a population of 75,000; the other of 
35,000. Under statehood the population of Kentucky 
was chiefly confined to its old limits of bluegrass and 
"Pennyrile" until 1797, when the Virginia military res- 
ervation west of Green river was thrown open, after 
which western Kentucky filled up rapidly to the Ten- 
nessee; beyond this was unceded Chickasaw territory. 
Henderson was laid out at the mouth of Green river in 
1795 on land granted Richard Henderson in 1779 by 
Virginia when Transylvania was confiscated. Smith- 
land came into existence at the mouth of the Cumber- 
land, as a port of transshipment for the Nashville region. 
Little towns sprang up along the "Kentucky Road" 
from Danville to Nashville, and Russellville was es- 
tablished in 1795 as the westernmost town in Kentucky. 
In 1 800 Kentucky made her first general land law, under 
which public land was placed on sale at twenty cents 
an acre* Kentucky was prosperous with an increasing 
commerce carried on almost entirely on the Ohio. Im- 
ports of all description came down the river from Pitts- 
burgh while her exports, chiefly of tobacco and hemp, 
unable to go upstream to market, had to take the long 
downstream trip to New Orleans. The chief discontent 
in Kentucky was with the constitution of 1792, which 
had been a curious mingling of liberal and conservative 
features. It was the first of the Southern constitutions to 
provide for suffrage and office-holding without property 
qualifications, but it had made governor and senators 
elective, through an electoral college, and Judges ap- 
pointive through the governor. The electoral college 
was probably the result of Maryland influence, while 
the selection of Judges through appointment was prac- 



THE OLD SOUTH 



tically universal throughout the United States. The 
constitution provided for its own amendment in seven 
years, and consequently in 1799 Public opinion forced 
the abandonment of the electoral college and the selec- 
tion of governor and senators by popular vote. 

Meanwhile the "Territory South of the River Ohio" 
was organized with William Blount as governor and 
John Sevier and James Robertson as brigadier-generals. 
Washington, in appointing these men, was in no doubt 
about their record in speculation and "conspiracy," 
Blount was also appointed superintendent of Southern 
Indians, an office which had been created in 1789 but 
had little significance up to this time. In 1792 the United 
States gave the superintendent assistants by appointing 
agents to reside among the Creeks, Cherokee, and Chick- 
asaw, James Robertson being the agent to the last-named 
tribe. All the Southern Indians were under Blount's 
supervision, but as the Chickasaw were traditionally 
friendly, and Creeks and Choctaw under Spanish In- 
fluence, his arrangement was limited practically to the 
Cherokee. Even thus his duties as superintendent 
vastly more arduous than his duties as governor, for the 
Cherokee were sullen and discontented en- 

croachment on their land tad the towns Chat- 

taaooga were openly hostile. There was mili- 

tary force in the territory to but 

was forbidden to the for of 

into conflict with the so the 

negotiations then la and the 

United States* In 1791 he a the Cttero* 

kec by which he a of a 

from the Clinch to aid the 

of the Tennessee, it 

Block House and at and in the 



EXPANSION OF THE TOBACCO COUNTRY 105 

United States began its policy of securing Indian friend- 
ship through trade management by establishing a gov- 
ernment trading post at Tellico Block House. Not- 
withstanding the constant Creek and Cherokee depre- 
dations, the population of the territory rapidly in- 
creased. What little land there was in the territory 
cleared of Indian title was practically all reserved by 
the act of cession for the revolutionary soldiers of North 
Carolina, and when this proved insufficient, the soldiers 
settled on Cherokee land in defiance of the Hopewell 
Treaty. By 1794 there was sufficient population in the 
territory to entitle it to a legislature and a delegate in 
congress. The next year the officials of the territory 
counted sufficient people to merit statehood, made a 
constitution, elected state officials, and demanded ad- 
mission to the Union as the state of Tennessee. After 
some objection to the informality of this procedure, con- 
gress in 1796 admitted Tennessee, with John Sevier as 
governor, William Blount, senator, and a newcomer, 
Andrew Jackson, representative. 

Kentucky and Tennessee were established communi- 
ties. Both were tobacco states finding their market in 
New Orleans. Both depended on the East for their im- 
ports, Kentucky and west Tennessee receiving them 
down the Ohio by boat, and east Tennessee down the 
valley by wagon. The Wilderness Road remained the 
chief overland route for immigrants to Kentucky, a 
road down the valley reached Knorville in 1792, and in 
1795 a wagon road was opened along the French Broad 
through the mountains, superseding the old Morgaa- 
ton-Watauga Trail. The road from Southwest Poiat 
to Nashville (secured la the treaty of 1791 ) was opeaed 
ia the same year, takiag the place of the old way through 
the gap aad dowa the CumberlaadL A mail route from 



106 THE OLD SOUTH 

Richmond reached Rogersvilie in 1792, was extended 
to Knoxville in 1794 and on to Nashville in 1797. Mail 
went to Kentucky down the Ohio and from Rogersville 
over the Wilderness Road to Danville. Kentucky had a 
half-dozen newspapers of which the first and most in- 
fluential was The Kentucky Gazette, started at Lexing- 
ton in 1787 by John Bradford. In 1798 The Palladium 
began publication at Frankfort Washington and Paris 
also had their newspapers, The Mirror and The Rights 
of Man. In Tennessee, The Knoxville Gazette began 
its existence at Rogersville in 1791. These papers were 
all weeklies, although some of them had semi-weekly 
editions, and their circulation was limited. Illiteracy 
was widespread in the West and the numerous "academ- 
ies" made little progress in furthering the cause of edu- 
cation. But in Transylvania Seminary at Lexington, 
Kentucky had the humble beginning of a school des- 
tined to become shortly one of the best institutions of 
learning in the United States. 



The Rise of the Cotton Kingdom 

The settling of the transmontane region coincided 
with the American Revolution in which six Southern 
colonies transformed themselves into independent states, 
and two others, East and West Florida, were rewarded 
for their loyalty to England by passing into the hands 
of Spain. Delaware and Maryland went through the 
war unscathed, but Georgia and South Carolina were 
overwhelmed by British armies, and North Carolina 
and Virginia experienced invasion which brought them 
to the verge of ruin. The last four states emerged from 
the war with heavy debts, with a paper currency almost 
worthless, and with their staple crops in a condition of 
complete despondency. 

The Southern states during the confederation period 
were, consequently, in no mood to meet congressional 
requisitions or to observe the treaty provisions respect- 
ing the restoration of Tory property and the payment 
of p re-revolution debts. They all, indeed, expressed a 
willingness to grant congress the tariff powers it re- 
quested, and Virginia and North Carolina made land 
cessions whose monetary value was far in excess of the 
requisitions they were unable to pay. But exhortations 
to observe the treaty were addressed in vain to the planter 
to whom the prospect of debt cancellation had been 
one of the chief appeals of revolution and to whom the 
restoration of Tory property meant a higher burden of 
taxation* With a property tax so high as to seem ruinous 
to a people Mthteirto virtually untaxed, and with export 



io8 THE OLD SOUTH 

and import duties, the Southern states materially re- 
duced their public debt during the Confederation. They 
reduced their paper money to manageable proportions 
by redemption, by refunding at low rates of exchange, 
and by repudiation. In the intervals between struggles 
with their economic problems they found time for a 
certain amount of social legislation. Virginia, following 
the revolutionary example of the other states, disestab- 
lished the church, all the states abolished primogeni- 
ture, and all but South Carolina and Georgia abolished 
the slave trade. These were the two regions in which 
slave labor was essential in the production of rice, and 
which had lost most heavily in the slaves carried away 
by the British. 

Except in the rice districts, Southern opinion by 1795 
was turning very definitely against slavery and the an- 
tagonism was based, not on humanitarian, but on eco- 
nomic grounds. The overwhelming majority of the 
2,000,000 Southern people was agricultural, and 
Charleston and Baltimore were the only towns of more 
than 10,000 population. But slave labor could be profit- 
ably employed only in the production of staples, and 
of the two staples of the South, rice was restricted to a 
very narrow area. Tobacco could be grown as far south 
as the Piedmont of Georgia and South Carolina, but by 
1795 its cultivation was unprofitable in the tidewater 
on account of soil exhaustion and in the back country 
because of lack of transportation facilities* Unless the 
South could find a new staple slavery would be doomed, 
or else the South would be forced into an extensive pro- 
gram of soil fertilization and internal improvements to 
aid the tobacco grower. 

What happened was that the South obtained a new 
staple through the invention of the cotton gin. The South- 



THE RISE OF THE COTTON KINGDOM 109 

ern farmer had long known the suitability of soil and 
climate in the far South for cotton growing, and he had 
so far worked out the principle of the gin that Whitney 
deserves the name of patenter, rather than inventor. 
Cotton quickly took its place as a staple complementary 
to tobacco, not competitive, for the two crops were radi- 
cally different in their soil and climatic requirements. 
The first conquests of "King Cotton" were the upland 
regions of South Carolina and Georgia, the inhabitants 
of which had hitherto eked out an unsatisfactory exis- 
tence by cattle raising, by a production of food crops, 
and by a desultory cultivation of tobacco. This was 
followed by a demand for new lands which resulted in 
cotton extending its area of cultivation to the Missis- 
sippi as tobacco had already done. 

To the entire region west of the Savannah, from Ten- 
nessee to the thirty-first parallel, Georgia had a claim 
based on her charter, the Proclamation of 1763, and the 
treaty with South Carolina in lySy. 28 Spain claimed 
by conquest in the revolution the region south of the 
Tennessee and west of the Flint and Hiwassee. 24 The 
United States had a claim to an indefinite area in the 
west by reason of the peace treaty which named the 
thirty-first parallel as her southern boundary. In her 
claim was included the South Carolina cession of 1787, 
which was supposed to be an area about fifteen miles 
wide bordering on Tennessee ; a geological survey later 
showed that this cession was so described that its south- 
ern bottadary actually ran north of its northern boun- 
dary I M To an unbiased mind it would seem that Spain 



basis of Georgia's claim to western land is elaborately set forth in 
American State JPaptrs, Pnblic Lands? vol. I, 34-67. 

2* A. F< WMtaker, The Spanuh^American Frontier: //?-J7p5, 68. 

25 It 8. Cofterllt, "The Sotiti* Carolina Land Cession of 1787," in 
Valley Historical Jfanno* rol xn 



no THE OLD SOUTH 

had a valid title to the region west of the Chattahoochee 
and south of the Yazoo since this was a part of the West 
Florida which Great Britain ceded her (without nam- 
ing its boundaries) in 1783, that Georgia had a valid 
title to the remainder, and that the United States had 
no title at all. From 1783 to 1795 Spain, actually in pos- 
session of all the old British West Florida, defended 
herself against the United States by diplomacy, intrigue, 
and Indian alliance, while Georgia occupied herself 
with actual settlement in the east and attempts at set- 
tlement in the disputed territory. 

By the Treaty of New York in 1790 the Creek bound- 
ary was moved westward from the Ogeechee to the Oco- 
nee river. In the new lands thus opened, settlers began to 
take up farms under the Georgia headright system 
which gave each head of a family 200 acres of land 
with 50 acres additional for each member of his family, 
the total amount not to exceed 1000 acres. Under this 
system the immigration to Georgia was so great that 
her population doubled in ten years, the settlers coming 
chiefly from Virginia and North Carolina. Much more 
spectacular than the rush of settlers, however, was the 
rush of speculators, 26 Taking advantage of pliable or 
corrupt governors, they secured grants of 29,000,000 
acres east of the Oconee, which was three times the 
amount of the total acreage. In the frontier county of 
Montgomery, with a total acreage of 400,000, their 
grants amounted to over 7,000,000 acres, A speculation 
of somewhat different form was that of Elijah Clarke 
who attempted to set up a "republic" on the Indian land 
beyond the Oconee. 

Fraudulent as the "Pine Barren Speculation" was, 
it was at least accompanied by some actual settlement, 

5. McLendon, Hutory of th$ Public Domain of Gforffi& t 4oio6. 



THE RISE OF THE COTTON KINGDOM in 

which could not be said of the western speculation. Land 
speculation had first laid its hand on the southwest when 
in 1784 Georgia created Houstoun county in the bend of 
the Tennessee at the behest of a group whose leading 
members were William Blount, John Sevier, Richard 
Caswell, and John Donelson. 2T But the rise of Franklin 
prevented the speculators from securing settlers, and 
Houstoun county collapsed. The next year Georgia cre- 
ated Bourbon county, 28 embracing the Natchez region, 
but only 130 grants had been made therein when 
the county was abolished in 1788. It will be noted 
that Houston county was created on territory then 
claimed by South Carolina and Bourbon county on 
territory occupied by Spain. In 1789, coincident with 
the pine barren frauds in the east, speculation was re- 
sumed in the west when three companies - the South 
Carolina Yazoo, the Virginia Yazoo, and the Tennes- 
see - bought some 20,000,000 acres comprising the Ten- 
nessee Valley in Alabama and all Mississippi north of 
Natchez. Patrick Henry was the leading spirit of the 
Tennessee Company. When the companies attempted 
to make payment in the now outlawed Georgia ^cur- 
rency, Georgia cancelled the grants. The last specula- 
tion came in 1795 w ^^ t ' ie sa ^ e to ^ our companies 
Georgia, Georgia Mississippi, Upper Mississippi, and 
Tennessee - of practically the entire region west of the 
Coosa, amounting to 50,000,000 acres for $500,000. This 
fraud was too glaring even for the Georgia people and 
the next legislature, with superior virtue, annulled it 
In 1795 Spain, fearing English resentment over the 
French-Spanish Treaty of 1795, made her peace with 

27 A. F. Whitaker, "The Muscle Shoals Speculation," in Mississippi Valley 
Historical Jbtrfow, vol. xili, 365-316, 

28 Whitaker, The Spanish-American Frontier: 1783-1795, 5$-5& 



ii2 THE OLD SOUTH 

the United States, agreed to the treaty of San Lorenzo, 
and retired south of the thirty-first parallel. 29 The 
United States now had a free hand in the Southwest and 
adopted a more vigorous policy looking to the ultimate 
settlement of the region. To the superintendency of 
Southern Indians, now vacant since the Territory South 
of the River Ohio had lapsed, she appointed Benjamin 
Hawkins who chose to reside among the Creeks with 
subordinate agents among the other three tribes. The 
trading posts at Colerain (Georgia) and Tellico Block 
House, tentatively established in 1795, were made per- 
manent the next year and private traders among the 
Indians were required to have licenses from the United 
States. In addition to the forts in Tennessee, she estab- 
lished Ft. Wilkinson on the Oconee, Ft Pickering at 
Chickasaw Bluffs (Memphis), and Ft. Adams on the 
lower Mississippi near the Spanish line* Having thus 
made provision for handling the Indian problem, she, 
in 1798, took the step of erecting Mississippi Territory, 
limiting it to the region south of the Yazoo and west 
of the Chattahoochee ; to this region the title of the 
United States was good since it had been taken away 
from Georgia and added to West Florida in 1764* 
Georgia had offered to cede this territory to the United 
States in 1788 on terms which the latter refused. But 
Mississippi Territory was isolated and practically in- 
accessible except through Georgia land so that the 
United States was now forced to secure a Georgia ces- 
sion on Georgia's own terms. By the Georgia Compact 
of 1802, Georgia ceded to the United States all her land 
west of her present western boundary oa condition that 
the United States pay her $1,250,000 from the first net 
proceeds of the sale of land, that she validate the British, 



THE RISE OF THE COTTON KINGDOM 115 

Spanish, and Georgia grants (under Bourbon county), 
that she make compensation to the Yazoo companies 
of 1795, ^at she establish a land office in the cession 
within a year, and that the region be made a state when 
it should have a population of 6o,ooo. 80 The United 
States also ceded to Georgia that part of the hypothetical 
South Carolina cession of 1787 which theoretically lay 
within the new restricted limits of Georgia. 

There being now no reason to the contrary, the na- 
tional land system was extended to the territory (1803) 
and the territory extended northward to Tennessee 
(1804). There were already in 1800, 8,850 people in 
the territory (of whom 3,489 were slaves) some of whom 
had land titles from Great Britain, Spain, or Georgia, 
others merely squatters with no titles of any kind. The 
population was chiefly in two centers, around old St. 
Stephens on the Tombigbee and Natchez on the Mis- 
sissippi, both regions having been cleared of Indian title 
by the Choctaw cession of 1765 to England. The two 
communities had little intercourse with each other since 
the only means of communication was the old McClary 
Path through the forest Consequently, two land offices 
were set up, at St. Stephens for the district "east of the 
Pearl" and at Washington, near Natchez, for the dis- 
trict "west of the PearL" 

During the four years these two land offices spent in 
investigating claims preparatory to the selling of land, 
the United States busied itself with the Indian affairs 
of the territory. Hawkins was reduced to the rank of 
Creek agent, and Governor Claiborne was given the 
title of superintendent of Southern Indians. Government 
trading posts were established at Chickasaw Bluffs and 
St. Stephens, Ft Dearborn was built at Washiagtoa 

80 McLendon, o# dfc, iop. 



n6 THE OLD SOUTH 

and Ft Stoddart on the Mobile river, and treaties were 
made with the Indians securing land cessions and per- 
mission to open roads through the Indian country to 
the older-settled communities. The Choctaw went 
through the formality of confirming to the United States 
the two areas previously ceded to England, and in 1805 
ceded the section of southern Mississippi connecting 
the two. In 1806 the Cherokee made a cession of the 
Muscle Shoals region. From the Choctaw and Chicka- 
saw the United States obtained (1801) the Natchez 
Trace from Natchez to Nashville, and from the Creeks 
in 1805 permission to open from Ft Stoddart to the Oc- 
mulgee a way which came to be known as the Federal 
Road. 

Land sales began in 1807 anc ^ continued slowly until 
by the opening of the War of 1812 about 500,000 acres 
had been disposed of. In 1809 the Tennessee Valley land, 
where Madison pounty had been created the preceding 
year, was placed on the market, but the land office for 
this turbulent region was located at Nashville until 
1817. The census of 1810 gave the territory a population 
of 40,352 of whom 17,088 were slaves. The drift of im- 
migration was decidedly to the Tennessee Valley, which 
contained the best land and which was accessible to the 
Georgia people by the Georgia Road and to the valley 
people of Tennessee and Virginia by a spur of the Cum- 
berland Road. Twickenham (Huntsville) was laid out 
in 1809 as the seat of Madison county and quickly de- 
veloped into a prosperous town. The Natchez region 
received most of its immigration down the Mississippi 
from Kentucky and Tennessee; the Natchez Trace did 
not have much significance as an immigrant road until 
after the War of 1812* The most backward region of the 
territory was east of the Pearl where practically all 



THE RISE OF THE COTTON KINGDOM 117 

the land cleared of Indian title was held under foreign 
grant or was pine barren. The Tombigbee section was 
practically inaccessible until the Federal Road became 
an immigrant route after the War of 1812. 

It is evident from the number of slaves that Missis- 
sippi Territory was a planting community from the 
beginning. Cotton, in fact, had been cultivated by the 
Indians even before the revolution, and the United States 
in 1 80 1 established a gin for them on the upper Tombig- 
bee at a place which thereafter was called Cotton Gin 
Port. 31 Cotton found its way to market chiefly through 
New Orleans, and the industry was sufficiently de- 
veloped by 1808 to protest against the embargo. The 
planter from the Piedmont of Georgia and Virginia 
built his pretentious home, laid out his estate, organized 
his slave labor, and as far as possible duplicated in the 
wilderness the life he had lived in the east. Partial con- 
tact, at least, was maintained with the older communities 
by a mail service opened in 1 803 over the Natchez Trace. 
The Federal Road was intended to be a mail route but 
only letters were carried over it prior to the War of 
1812. 

An analysis of the census figures shows that the immi- 
gration to Mississippi Territory was slight before the 
war. Partly this was due to its inaccessibility, chiefly to 
the competition of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia. 
In Kentucky public land was selling for twenty cents 
an acre, while in Tennessee most of the land was being 
taken up on military warrants since by the act of cession 
these had to be satisfied before the United States 
could sell land, a condition which resulted in the United 
States selling no land at all. Available land was plentiful, 

81 George J. Leftwlch, "Cotton Gin Port and Gaines Trace/' in Mississippi 
Historical Society Publications f vol. VH, 263-270. 



n8 THE OLD SOUTH 

however, for the Cherokee in four cessions (1804-1806) 
had given up the greater part of their hunting grounds 
in middle and western Tennessee. 

The chief competition, however, came from Georgia. 
For twelve years after the treaty of 1790 no Indian 
cessions had been made in Georgia and the Georgia dis- 
content with this inactivity was evidenced by the pro- 
vision for Indian removal in the Compact of 1802. Ap- 
parently this provision had immediate effect, for by 
treaties in 1802 and 1804 the United States secured from 
the Creeks the area between the Oconee and Ocmulgee, 
and additional land from the Cherokee in the northeast. 
This land Georgia granted to actual settlers on a lottery 
system giving each man who drew a lucky number 202^/2 
acres and a double amount if he was the head of a family. 
For these grants the state exacted no payment except 
an inconsiderable fee. The result of this liberal policy 
was the attraction of so many immigrants that in the 
decade 1800-1810 Georgia increased its population from 
162,686 to 252,433. From its position Georgia inter- 
cepted much of the migration which otherwise might 
have gone to the territory. The capital was placed in 
1804 on the frontier line at Milledgeville. Georgia was 
at this time the best cotton producing district in the 
South and the crops had ready access to market dowa 
the Savannah, Oconee, and Ocmulgee. The rice-growiag 
coastal district lived a life of its own cut off from the 
interior by a vast pine barren. 

The War of 1812 was of importance to the Southwest 
for two things, neither of which was directly connected 
with the war itself. One was the conquest of Spanish 
West Florida between the Pearl and the Perdido and 
its addition to Mississippi* The assertion of our claim 
to West Florida as a part of the Louisiana Purchase 
had been followed in 1810 by the occupation of the 



THE RISE OF THE COTTON KINGDOM 119 

region west of the Pearl, consequent to a "revolution" 
there, by the government of Orleans Territory. When 
Orleans Territory became the state of Louisiana in 1812 
this part of West Florida was included in it, while about 
a week later the part east of the Pearl was annexed to 
Mississippi Territory, although it was left in the pos- 
session of the Spaniards. In 1813, ostensibly moved by 
the fear that England was preparing to use the Spanish 
forts on the gulf, the United States sent General James 
Wilkinson with a small force to take Mobile. The pru- 
dent, although strongly dissenting, Spanish garrison 
withdrew, deriving what comfort it was able from the 
assurance of the United States that the claims of Spain 
to the region would be the subject of future negotiations. 
The formerly land-locked Mississippi Territory now 
bordered on the gulf. 

The other feature of the war period of importance 
to the Southwest was the Creek uprising, Indian affairs 
in the South had been competently, and even honor- 
ably, handled in the decade preceding the war. The 
agents, Hawkins among the Creeks, R. J. Meigs among 
the Cherokee, and Silas Dinsmore among the Choctaw, 
were able men who in representing the United States 
did not fail to protect the interests of their charges. The 
factor at St. Stephens, George S. Gaines, was a potent 
force for good among the Choctaw, and John McKee, 
agent at different times to Cherokee, Choctaw, and 
Chickasaw, and between times a roving commissioner 
for the United States for all Southern tribes, had great 
influence throughout the South. In each tribe the Agents 
had been successful in attaching some of the chiefs to 
the cause of friendship between white men and red; 
Pushmataha, chief of the Choctaw, was perhaps the 
ablest of these. 

In the Creek uprising the agents were able not only to 



120 THE OLD SOUTH 

hold their tribes steady in friendship to the United 
States, but to secure their aid. Even the Lower Creeks, 
among whom Hawkins lived, joined the United States 
forces against the Upper Creeks. These Alabama towns 
had been led to revolt by their sympathy for the Shaw- 
nee to whom they were united by ancient ties of friend- 
ship, the origin of which is even today something of a 
puzzle to ethnologists. Under the direction of Pinckney, 
three armies closed in on the Creeks, by way of the 
Coosa, the Black Warrior, and the Creek Path, and 
Andrew Jackson leading the Tennessee militia gave the 
belligerents the finishing blow at the battle of Horseshoe 
Bend. 

The War of 1812 was followed by a westward move- 
ment which historians are accustomed to call the "Great 
Migration. 55 From the upper South the low price of 
tobacco, due to the loss of the British market through 
war, trade restrictions, and West Indian competition, 
brought about an exodus of farmers on the marginal 
lands to the Northwest for the raising of food crops, to 
Kentucky and Tennessee for hemp, and to the Southwest 
for cotton. An accompanying migration from South 
Carolina and eastern Georgia limited itself to the newer 
cotton lands of the Southwest In the five years after 
the war the Great Migration in the South transferred 
several hundred thousand people to the West, caused the 
erection of two territories, the admission of three states, 
and, indirectly, the purchase of Florida. 

The Great Migration was the cause, accompaniment, 
and result of the vast Indian land cessions of the period. 
Alabama fared the best with cessions which cleared the 
entire state except for a strip along the Georgia bound- 
ary ; Mississippi fared the worst gaining only the Tom- 
bigbee Valley, Georgia secured all the vast tract south 



THE RISE OF THE COTTON KINGDOM 121 

of the Altamaha and advanced beyond the headwaters 
of the Ocmulgee to the Chattahoochee. Kentucky and 
Tennessee gained the land west of the Tennessee. The 
treaties in which these cessions were secured were monu- 
ments of iniquity without precedent in American his- 
tory. The Creek revolt had so thoroughly revealed the 
weakness and dissensions of the Southern Indians that 
thereafter the United States felt it unnecessary to treat 
them with any degree of consideration. The abandon- 
ment of the Cherokee trading post prior to the War of 
1812 was now followed by that of the Chickasaw and 
Creeks ; the Choctaw post, moved up to the river from 
St. Stephens to old Ft. Confederation, remained open 
till 1821. Hawkins had died in 1816, James Robertson 
died, and Silas Dinsmore retired in 1813. Only Meigs 
and John McKee (now Choctaw agent) remained of 
the pre-war era, and they were helpless before such In- 
dian despoilers as Andrew Jackson, Governor McMinn 
of Tennessee, and Governor Mitchell of Georgia. Con- 
sidering the character of these men, it is a source of 
wonder the Indians retained as much land as they did, 
Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee sold their land 
themselves; in the Mississippi Territory the land was 
sold, of course, at the government land offices. The three 
offices at Nashville (for north Alabama), St. Stephens, 
and Washington had continued open throughout the 
war, selling land ia continually dwindling amounts un- 
til in 1815 it reached a low level of 27,000 acres. In 1816 
the sales at these three offices jumped spectacularly to 
490,000 acres. In 1817 the Nashville office was moved 
to Huntsville, and a new office was opened at Milledge- 
ville, Georgia, for the Creek land of Alabama; the sales 
that year at the four offices reached 600,000, and in 1818 
700,000. In 1819 the Milledgeville office was moved to 



122 THE OLD SOUTH 

Cahaba, Alabama, and the sales reached a new high 
total of 2,278,045 acres. A slackening of immigration 
due to the panic of 1819 caused a great decrease of land 
sales the next year. In the five years following the war 
nearly 5,000,000 acres of land were sold in Alabama 
and Mississippi. Much of it was bought by companies 
of speculators or by individual speculators, of whom 
Andrew Jackson was an example. They forced up the 
price of land at the auction sales from a minimum of 
$2.00 to six and eight times that amount. The wildest 
speculating and the highest prices prevailed at Hunts- 
ville. At the end of the decade the people of Alabama 
found themselves with a land debt of over $10,000,000. 
The lands on which these installments were in arrears 
technically reverted to the United States, but the land 
law of 1820 extended the time of payments. For many 
years this land debt was a social and economic hardship 
to the Alabama people. Speculation had been made 
easy by the fact that money was plentiful in the shape of 
bank notes issued by the local banks of Huntsville, St. 
Stephens, and Mobile, of the bank notes of some seventy 
Kentucky and Tennessee banks, and of the Yazoo scrip 
issued by the United States in payment of claims by the 
Yazoo companies of 1795. 

Southern Alabama was settled chiefly by Georgians 
who bought their lands at Milledgeville and came in 
over the Federal Road. They established a number of 
towns such as Selma, Montgomery, Cahaba, Clai- 
borne, and Conecuh, and built up a cotton planting 
aristocracy as a basis of the "Georgia faction" in local 
politics. Georgians were numerous in the Tennessee Val- 
ley of Alabama, too, since the Georgia Road led them 
thither as easily as the Federal Road did tO' south Ala- 
bama* But the Tennesseans were even more numerous 



THE RISE OF THE COTTON KINGDOM 123 

and the whole Muscle Shoals region became virtually 
a part of Tennessee except for an unnatural boundary 
line. Huntsville, the leading town of the region, retained 
the flavor of its Georgia founders, but Decatur at one 
end of the shoals and Florence and Tuscumbia at the 
other were made up of Tennesseans. Middle Alabama 
was occupied chiefly by Virginians and South Caro- 
linians, with their chief town, Tuscaloosa, retaining the 
Indian name of the Black Warrior, on which it was 
located. A picturesque venture in this region was the 
founding in 1817 of Demopolis on the Tombigbee by 
a group of Napoleonic exiles purposing to build their 
prosperity on the cultivation of vineyards. The black 
belt of Alabama, along the Alabama and Tombigbee, 
was passed over by the settlers of this period because 
they were distrustful of its unfamiliar black soil. The 
population of Alabama at the end of the Great Migra- 
tion was still grouped in the two localities in the Tennes- 
see Valley and south of the Alabama. An arduous inter- 
communication was kept up by way of the Black War- 
rior and Jones Valley, and byway of the Tombigbee and 
Gaines's Trace. Gaines's Trace had been opened in 1810 
by the government factor at St. Stephens in an effort 
to secure supplies for his trading post without paying 
duties at Mobile. 

Mississippi experienced no such growth as did Ala- 
bama, partly because the Indian cessions there were 
smaller, and partly because Alabama intercepted the 
immigrants. The valleys of the Pearl and Tombigbee 
received most of the settlers, resulting in the develop- 
ment of Jackson, Canton, Meridian^ and Columbus. A 
number of little towns developed along the lower course 
of the Natchez Trace. The "Military Road" cut by 
Andrew Jackson, 1817-1:819^ from the place wlierfe die 



i2 4 THE OLD SOUTH 

trace crossed the shoals south through Columbus to 
Madisonville on Lake Pontchartrain, was useful both 
as a post route and an immigrant road as far south as 
Columbus, but was never of material service south of 
that point. 82 

The Chickasaw cession of 1818 in western Kentucky 
and Tennessee became a cotton growing region centering 
around Memphis (another real estate development of 
Andrew Jackson), Jackson, and Columbus. As a matter 
of fact cotton growing established itself in all the south- 
ern region of Tennessee and vied with tobacco as the 
staple crop. In Georgia the new cessions became cotton 
lands. Macon on the Ocmulgee was founded in 1821 ; 
a Creek cession of that year opened for white settlement 
the area between the Ocmulgee and the Flint, 

The mails reached Georgia down the old fall line 
road from Washington to Macon, but not until 1 827 was 
there a regular mail service over the Federal Road 
through Alabama to New Orleans, The territory con- 
tinued to get its mail through the valley road to Knox- 
ville, thence through Huntsville, Tuscumbia, and over 
the Natchez Trace. Mail came from the Ohio region 
over Zane's Trace to Maysville and thence through Lex- 
ington to Nashville and over the trace to its destination, 
All these roads were immigrant roads as well as mail 
routes. The numerous rivers of the south took on an 
added usefulness as the steamboats made their appear- 
ance in the wake of the migrations. Steamboats were 
running on the Tombigbee as far up ts Demopolis by 
1819, up the Tennessee to Florence by 1821, and: up the 
Oconee to Milledgeville in i$ig* m 

* W, A. Lore, "Central Jackson's Military Road," In Mississippi Historical 

Society Publications f vol. XX, 40$** 17. 
** T. P. Abernethy, Ftrmetfo* P^ried in Ml&Mmn> ffrg-zfyf, dtap ter 



THE RISE OF THE COTTON KINGDOM 125 

The rush of immigration to Mississippi Territory in- 
creased the agitation, begun even before the War of 
1812, for admission to the Union as a state. Congress, 
rather than the territory, desired a division into states, 
and Georgia's consent to this, a violation of the Compact 
of 1802, had been secured in 1812, but the coming of 
war had caused the matter to be deferred. The natural 
division would be by a north and south line separating 
the mutually antagonistic Tombigbee and Mississippi 
settlements in such a way that each would have a part 
of the gulf frontage between the Pearl and the Perdido. 
The division in 1817 made the west portion of the terri- 
tory a state with the retention of the name Mississippi, 
while the eastern portion became the Alabama Terri- 
tory. 

Alabama began its territorial existence in the "second" 
stage with a former senator from Georgia as governor, 
and with a house and council meeting at St. Stephens, 
which was an assertive city of about fifty houses. Since 
it was not intended, however, that St. Stephens should 
remain the capital, the legislature at its first session 
appointed a committee to choose a permanent seat of 
government. To the second session the committee recom- 
mended Cahaba, but the Tennessee Valley members 
of the legislature forced a compromise to the effect that 
the capital should be at Huntsville until suitable build- 
ings should be erected at Cahaba. As a matter of fact, 
St. Stephens remained the capital throughout the exist- 
ence of the territory. The Great Migration was at its 
peak when Alabama became a territory, and so fast did 
the population increase that in one year the territory 
was asking admission as a state. The cbtange of status in 
1819 did not Involve a change of name. 

The two new states of the cotton kingdom adopted 



126 THE OLD SOUTH 

constitutions differing in many respects from those of 
the Atlantic states from which their people were drawn. 
Neither Alabama nor Mississippi had a property quali- 
fication for voting, both elected their governors as well 
as their legislatures by popular vote, and both appor- 
tioned their legislatures on the basis of free white in- 
habitants. Both followed the practice, then universal in 
the South, of having judges and state administrative 
officials appointed by the legislatures. Mississippi im- 
posed a property qualification for legislators and gover- 
nor. Alabama provided for amendment by legislature, 
and Mississippi by a convention. 

In 1820 Mississippi had a total population of 75,448 
of which 32,814 were slaves, Alabama 144,317 with 
47,439 slaves, Georgia 340,987 with 149,656 slaves, 
South Carolina 502,740 with 258,475 slaves. In all, the 
cotton kingdom had a population of more than 1,000,000 
of which nearly one-half was slave. In 1820 the cotton 
crop amounted to 160,000,000 pounds and was selling 
at an average price of seventeen cents a pound. This was 
a decline of almost 50 per cent from the high prices of 
1816, but it was still high enough to enable the cotton 
growers to make enormous profits. 

As the Great Migration impaled itself on the panic 
of 1819 and came to an end, the area of the South was 
increased by the "purchase" of Florida* The seizure of 
West Florida west of the Pcrdido had been accom- 
panied by the assurance to Spain that her rights therein 
would be the subject of future negotiations, but as a 
matter of fact it had been incorporated In the three 
states of Louisiana, Mississippi! and Alabama, and so 
was inalienable. Jackson's invasion of Florida in 1817 
was in harmony with, if not Inspired by, the pressure of 
Georgia and Alabama frontiersmen against the Florida 



THE RISE OF THE COTTON KINGDOM 127 

boundary. The resulting purchase perhaps reflected 
more the government's desire to remove a European 
neighbor than it did an appreciation of Florida re- 
sources. 



Crossing the Mississippi 

When in 1803 the United States, somewhat to its own 
surprise, purchased Louisiana, it acquired a territory 
which already had a white population of 50,000. The 
people were for the most part French, relics of the years 
before 1763 when France had given Louisiana into the 
reluctant hands of Spain. Three-fourths of the French, 
perhaps, lived in and around New Orleans ; there was 
a small settlement at Natchitoches on the Red; a few 
families at Arkansas Post on the Arkansas ; a popula- 
tion of 1 200 at St. Genevieve, the shipping port of the 
leading mining region of the present Missouri; and the 
nucleus of a city at St. Louis. During the last years of 
the Spanish regime the presence of free land and the 
nearness of the New Orleans market attracted an in- 
creasing number of Americans who settled at Cape 
Girardeau and New Madrid. Although Louisiana ex- 
tended northward to Canada, practically the entire body 
of settlers, French and American, lived in the southern 
portion between the Missouri and the gulf. They were 
in two groups: along the Mississippi in the present 
Missouri, and south of the Red in the present Louisiana. 
The country from the Red to the St. Francis was prac- 
tically devoid of white people. 

The dominant Indian tribe in the southern portion of 
the purchase was the Osage, whose villages were located! 
on the river of the same name. Their power was the 
result not of their number, which was less than 5000, 
but of their possession of arms and horses* With these 



130 THE OLD SOUTH 

two advantages they destroyed the Quapaw, the original 
occupants of the region between the Arkansas and the 
Red, and the Caddo who lived in the northern part of 
the present state of Louisiana. In 1802, as a result of 
tribal dissensions, a portion of the Osage left their vil- 
lages in Missouri and established a new town in the 
present Oklahoma near the junction of the Grand and 
the Verdigris with the Arkansas. The chief influence, 
perhaps, of the Osage on the history of the region was in 
forming a barrier against the fierce plains Indians to 
the west In addition to the Osage there were several 
hundred Cherokee, Creeks, Choctaw, and Chickasaw 
living in the present Louisiana and Arkansas in 1803. 
Louisiana came to the United States with its bound- 
aries undefined and its character unknown. In March, 
1804, the unwieldy mass was divided on the line of the 
thirty-third parallel, the southern portion being called 
the Territory of Orleans, and the northern the District 
of Louisiana. The territory included not only the area 
west of the Mississippi but also that part of the purchase 
"which lies south of the Mississippi Territory" - in 
other words, West Florida as far east as the Perdido ; 
the western boundary of Orleans was specified as the 
"western boundary of the said cession." As a matter of 
fact, West Florida, being in actual possession of Spain, 
was only "constructively" a part of Orleans until the 
revolution of 1810 gave Governor Claiborne an oppor- 
tunity to occupy the portion of it west of the Pearl. And 
wherever the "western boundary of the said cession" 
may have rightfully been, the watchful Spaniards kept 
their hold on Texas and forced the territory to observe, 
if not to acknowledge, the Sabine as the western limit of 
its jurisdiction. Orleans began its existence in the second 
stage with a legislature meeting at New Orleans. The 



CROSSING THE MISSISSIPPI 131 

District of Louisiana was placed for the time being un- 
der the authority of the governor of Indiana Territory, 
and Governor Harrison and his judges had enacted six- 
teen laws for the inhabitants before the ungrateful bene- 
ficiaries of his care were able by their petitions to secure 
a separate government In March, 1805, the District of 
Louisiana was made into the Territory of Louisiana, but 
the population of 10,000 (of whom 1,200 were slaves) 
had to be content with the first stage of territorial gov- 
ernment James Wilkinson, of Spanish conspiracy fame, 
was the governor until he was called to New Orleans to 
deal with the hypothetical conspiracy of Aaron Burr. 
The capital of the territory was St. Louis. 

Having purchased Louisiana and made provision for 
its government, the United States took steps to ascertain 
what it was. The inevitable lines of penetration were 
the three rivers, the Missouri, the Arkansas, and the 
Red. Lewis and Clark made their well-known expedi- 
tion up the Missouri, 1804-1806. At the same time, Gov- 
ernor Wilkinson sent out Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike 
in search of the headwaters of the Arkansas and Red. 
Pike ascended the Missouri and Osage, crossed to the 
Arkansas which he followed to its source in Colorado, 
turned south to find the Red, and either by accident or 
design found the Rio Grande instead, where he was 
promptly taken captive by the Spaniards. However, 
prior to his capture, he had detached Lieutenant Wil- 
kinson, son of the governor, to return to the Mississippi 
by way of the Arkansas so that that stream was explored 
notwithstanding the Pike fiasco. The Red river, also, 
was explored for 600 miles in 1806 by the Freeman 
expedition before it was turned back by the Spaniards 
near the southwest corner of Arkansas. Since Lewis and 
Clark as well as Pike had pushed their journeys into 



32 THE OLD SOUTH 

territory claimed by Spain, it was perhaps not unnatural 
that the latter should consider the explorations of the 
United States to have other purposes than the promotion 
of scientific knowledge. The exploration of the Red, 
whatever the purpose, revealed the fact that its course 
at the south was blocked by the Great Raft in northern 
Louisiana, and at the west by Spanish hostility; conse- 
quently the Red river region was avoided by the early 
settlers. The exploration of the Arkansas made known 
the great length of the river and the wide extent of its 
tributaries, the Canadian and Cimarron on the south 
and the White, Grand, and Verdigris on the north. Since 
the Arkansas was navigable to the Verdigris, it became 
the common road for early traders and settlers. 

Louisiana had been acquired primarily because it 
flanked the Mississippi river; congress was slow to rec- 
ognize its possibilities for settlement. In 1804 Orleans 
Territory was divided into two land districts with com- 
missioners at New Orleans and Opelousas to register and 
adjudge claims under Spanish and French grants. For 
the Territory of Louisiana one set of commissioners at 
St. Louis was deemed sufficient The grantees were slow 
in registering their claims, and after twelve years of 
effort the commissioners in both localities were con- 
strained to close their records with the task unfinished. 
Until these claims were settled no land could be sold, 
but as a matter of fact the interest of the United States 
in the Louisiana Territory at this time was chiefly con- 
cerned with its possibilities as a place to which the east- 
ern Indians might be removed. In 1805 government 
trading posts were established at Natchitoches on the 
Red, Bayou Spadrie on the Arkansas, and Bellefon- 
taine at the mouth of the Missouri, the first two less for 
the convenience of the native Indians than in anticipa- 



CROSSING THE MISSISSIPPI 133 

tion of an immigration from east of the Mississippi. 
The governor of the Territory of Louisiana was ex- 
officio superintendent of western Indians, and local 
agents were appointed for the Osage, Quapaw, and 
Caddo. The inevitable land cessions followed in the 
form of a small but important Sac and Fox cession in 
northern Missouri, and four years later an enormous 
cession by the Osage of all their land north of the Ar- 
kansas and east of the present Kansas City. Near the site 
of the future city, Ft. Clark was established in 1809. 
The securing of the huge Osage cession was partly in- 
spired by a desire to make room for the Cherokee who, 
under the encouragement of their agent, R. J. Meigs, 
had since 1807 been migrating individually and in small 
groups to the west. In 1809 some 300 Cherokee, led by 
their chief, Tahlontuskee, migrated to the west and atj 
this time the United States established a reservation for 
them on the upper White river. But in disappointment 
over the small number of migrating Indians, the United ! 
States in 1807 discontinued the post on the Missouri and 1 
in 1810 that on the Arkansas. 

Notwithstanding the policy of Indian removal and 
the lack of land sales, the census of 1810 showed an in- 
crease of population in the purchase of nearly 50,000 
over that of 1803. Orleans now had 76,000 people; Lou- 
isiana more than 20,000. Some of this additional popula- 
tion was a natural increase of the native stock ; a great 
part of it was due to the drift of settlers from the east. 
Since the public land was not yet on sale, this latter 
element necessarily became squatters, locating their 
homes as they pleased. One result of the increase of 
population was the admission in April, 1812, to the 
Union of a portion of Orleans under the name of the 
state of Louisiana. Theoretically, Orleans Territory had 



134 THE OLD SOUTH 

extended on the east to the Perdido, but it carried into the 
Union with it only the area west of the Pearl, which it 
had seized in 1810. The western boundary of the state 
was fixed as at present. 

In June, 1812, congress, apparently apprehensive of 
the confusion which might arise from having a terri- 
tory and a state of the same name, changed the name of 
the former to Missouri. In somewhat belated response 
to repeated petitions, it also raised it to the second stage 
of government with a legislature and a delegate to the 
house of representatives. One of the first acts of the new 
legislature was the creation in 1813 of Arkansas county, 
to include practically all the present state of Arkansas. 
The formation of this county was in the nature of a surgi- 
cal operation for the relief of the other communities, for 
the Arkansas region was becoming more and more a 
home for the eastern Indians. There were more than 
2,000 Cherokee on White river by 1817, and the number 
had increased to 3,500 by 1819. Between the immigrant 
Cherokee and the native Osage there was waged an al- 
most continuous warfare, making life too precarious 
for any white man but the criminal fugitive. In 1817 the 
United States established Ft Smith, where the Arkansas 
crosses the line of the present Oklahoma, in the hope that 
the military might force the people, white and red, to 
keep peace. 84 The success of this altruistic measure was 
by no means startling. 

North of Arkansas there was a more orderly de- 
velopment The earthquakes in the Mississippi Valley 
were more effective in instilling piety than in discourag- 
ing immigration. The War of 1812 had its echoes in a 
certain amount of unrest among the Indians who were 
detected in such minatory acts as "infesting the country, 

84 Grant Foreman, Indians and Pioneers, 55-59. 



CROSSING THE MISSISSIPPI 135 

stealing pigs, crawling on all fours, and imitating the 
notes of the mud lark." In 1818 land offices were finally 
opened in St. Louis and Franklin, and by the end of 
September, 1819, had sold over a million acres of land. 
These were the only land offices west of the Mississippi 
until 1821, when offices were opened at Cape Girardeau 
in Missouri, and at certain places in Arkansas and Loui- 
siana. The immigration to Missouri was chiefly from 
Kentucky and Tennessee. Both settled along the Mis- 
sissippi and later penetrated into the interior. The Ken- 
tuckians principally followed the Missouri where the 
soil was very similar to that in their home state. Passing 
over the intermediate ground, they came to the attrac- 
tive Booneslick country and made their settlements. 
Franklin was founded in 1816, Boonville in 1817. The 
Tennessee people settled chiefly in the Ozark highlands 
south of the Missouri river. 85 The White river region 
was occupied by 1818, and the Osage and Gasconade 
valleys received many settlers. Springfield was founded 
in 1822. Whether Kentuckians or Tennesseeans, the set- 
tlers brought with them their home crops, and Missouri 
became a tobacco-growing region. The immigrants were 
chiefly from the poorer class, but slavery and the planta- 
tion secured a firm hold on the Missouri Valley. This 
was the most fertile section of Missouri and its prosper- 
ity was increased when the steamboats reached Franklin 
in 1 8 19. The Santa Fe trade, begun a few years later, was 
in reality a land extension of this steamboat trade. From 
Santa Fe the first mules were imported into the Boones- 
lick country and that region soon became the mule-rais- 
ing center of the United States. 80 

8 *CarI O. Sauer, The Geography of the Owk Highland of Missouri, 
Bulletin no. 7, Geographic Society of Chicago, 140, 159. 

t 122. 



136 THE OLD SOUTH 

The census of 1820 showed that Missouri had a popu- 
lation of 66,586 of whom 10,222 were slaves, and that 
Arkansas had a population of 14,273 with 1,617 slaves. 
The two regions had been separated in 1819 when con- 
gress created "Arkansaw" Territory so as to reduce the 
Territory of Missouri to a convenient size for statehood. 
The people of Missouri had been petitioning for admis- 
sion to the Union for several years and a bill for ad- 
mission had been introduced in 1818. The Tallmadge 
amendment to outlaw slavery in Missouri as a prere- 
quisite for admission, precipitated the first slavery con- 
troversy in our history. The purposes of this amendment 
and the far-reaching effect of the resulting controversy 
must be examined in another connection. Missouri en- 
tered the Union as a slave state in 1821. It is said that) 
the "panhandle" in the southeastern corner of the state! 
was made to accommodate an influential planter who! 
did not wish his plantation to be included in Arkansasj 
In 1836 the western boundary of Missouri north of the 
Missouri river was moved west from the meridian of the 
mouth of the Kansas to the Missouri. 

The Territory of Arkansas in 1819 included all the 
area between Louisiana and Missouri as far west as the 
Spanish line, which in the same year was definitely fixed 
by treaty as the hundredth meridian. The capital was 
at Arkansas Post until 1821 when it was moved up the 
river to Little Rock. The development of Arkansas was 
slow and hesitant In 1818 the Quapaw ceded the land 
between the Arkansas-Canadian and the Red, but two 
years later the United States assigned most of the ceded 
area to the immigrating Choctaw. In 1824 and 1828 the 
entire present state of Arkansas was cleared of Indians 
by the assignment of new homes to the Cherokee and 
Choctaw farther west In 1824 the territory was given as 



CROSSING THE MISSISSIPPI 137 

a new western boundary a north and south line begin- 
ning forty miles west of the southwestern corner of Mis- 
souri ; in 1828 the territory was cut down to the present 
state limits. In 1821 the first land office in Arkansas was 
opened at Little Rock at the same time that the first 
offices were opened in Louisiana at New Orleans, Ope- 
lousas, and Ouachita, The next year gave Arkansas an- 
other land office at Bates ville on the White river. 

The location of the land offices show into what regions 
the Arkansas population was moving. The valleys of 
the Arkansas and the White received most of the settlers, 
although there was a considerable number of squatters 
in the Red River Valley in the southwestern corner of 
the territory. The establishment of land offices and the 
final decision to place the Indian reservation farther 
west encouraged settlement, but they both came too late 
for the Great Migration after the War of 1812. In 1830 
Arkansas had a population of only 30,000, and its real 
settlement came only with the Jacksonian migration of 
the thirties. 



Development of Southern Nationalism 



The Beginning of Southern Nationalism 

In colonial times that part of the Atlantic seaboard 
south of the Mason and Dixon line had been settled by 
a people essentially different in spirit from those north 
of the line. As time passed the people south of the line 
came to possess certain economic and social institutions, 
such as slavery, plantations, and staple crops, which 
served to emphasize their separateness from their north- 
ern brethren. But the essential mark of the Southerner 
was his spirit; his institutions were incidents of geogra- 
phy. Even his geography was incidental. For when the 
Southern people expanded westward they flanked the 
line and spread into the Northwest as avidly as into the 
Southwest. y/ 

In 1820, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were Southern 
states in all but location. Their population of 700,000 
was overwhelmingly of Southern birth or of Southern 
descent. Southern sentiment was strongest in Illinois 
because it was farthest remote from the North but, like 
the other two, bordered by the Southern state, Kentucky, 
from which or through which most of the Southerners 
went into the Northwest. Into all three states the South- 
ern people had carried their Southern sentiment, but 
not thtit Southern institutions. The Ordinance of 1787 
had prevented, or at least prohibited, the taking of slaves ; 
climate and soil prevented, plantations and staple crops. 
The absence of these things did not make the people less 
Southern; as a matter of fact, the great mass of people 
south of the Ohio were equally without slaves and plan- 
tations. The movement of Southern people into the 



140 THE OLD SOUTH 

Northwest was not a movement to avoid slavery but 
merely a movement into a new land precisely as the 
movement into the Southwest had been. 

In 1 820 the Southern people were spread over the land 
from the Atlantic to the Ozarks, and from the gulf al- 
most to the Great Lakes. They were divided among 
themselves by a multitude of jarring and conflicting 
interests. They were all agriculturists but the tobacco 
planter had little in common with the cotton planter. 
South of the Ohio slavery was legal, north of it illegal. 
The Atlantic seaboard turned its commercial back on 
the Mississippi Valley. There were mountain people 
and lowland people, people of wealth and people of 
poverty, aristocrats and commoners. Southern people 
constituted a heterogeneous mass in which the only uni- 
fying element was a common descent from the colonial 
population south of the line. 

There was, in truth, little indication in 1820 that 
common descent was a unifying force. There is little in- 
dication that Southern people in 1820 thought of them- 
selves as one people or were conscious of themselves as 
Southerners or looked upon Northern people as in any 
essential way different from themselves. In 1820 there 
was, in a very real sense, no South and no Southerners. 
In 1790 there were 2,000,000 people south of the line; 
in 1820 their descendants scattered over Northwest and 
Southwest numbered about 5,000,000. If they consti- 
tuted a Southern people they gave little evidence that 
they were conscious of the fact Prior to 1820, South 
was an indefinite term which could only be defined, if 
defined at all, as the region inhabited by Southerners. 
Southerner could only be defined as meaning one de- 
scended from the colonial settlers below the line. But the 
controversy over the admission of Missouri gave new 



BEGINNING OF SOUTHERN NATIONALISM 143 

meaning to these terms. It reduced the South to the 
limits of slavery and intensified within those limits the 
sentiment of unity among the people. As Professor 
Channing has said, it created a Southern nationalism. 
This new intensified feeling of unity deserves to be 
called nationalism rather than sectionalism inasmuch 
as it was based on sentiment rather than on interest After 
1820 there existed among the people of the South a 
"consciousness of kind" and a feeling of aloofness from 
the people of the North. They felt, and continue to feel, 
themselves a separate people: the other people of the 
United States they considered as aliens. 

That the Missouri controversy resulted in the creation 
of a Southern nationalism is clear ; why it should have 
had such a result is far from clear; why there should 
have been any controversy at all is difficult to under- 
stand. The action of Representative Tallmadge in offer- 
ing to the bill admitting Missouri an amendment pro- 
hibiting slavery in the prospective state might be dis- 
missed as the act of a crank and irresponsible fanatic. 
But the practically solid support he received from the 
free state congressmen and the even more solid opposi- 
tion he met from the slave state congressmen has never 
been satisfactorily explained. If northern unanimity was 
due to a devotion to principle, it must be conceded that 
the devotion was of sudden growth for there is no indi- 
cation of any deep-seated anti-slavery feeling in the 
North prior to this time. The Northern states, to be sure, 
had either outlawed slavery or "put it in the course of 
ultimate extinction," but their action had been the result 
of economic realism rather than of moral indignation. 
There was, of course, a persistent emancipation move- 
ment led by Lundy, Birney, and others, but it had never 
approached the dignity of a crusade. Moreover, the 



144 THE OLD SOUTH' 

sudden Northern enthusiasm for liberty was as barren 
of descendants as of ancestry, as was evidenced by the 
unpopularity of Garrison at the North in the following 
decade. Jefferson declared that the anti-slavery agitation 
of 1820 was like an alarm bell in the night : part, at least, 
of the terror of such a bell is due to its unexpectedness. 

Southern opposition to the amendment on the ground 
of interest is as difficult to understand as Northern 
advocacy on the ground of principle. The Southern 
congressmen represented constituents the great mass 
of whom neither possessed slaves or had an interest in 
slavery. The only slave owners who could have had an 
active interest in seeing slavery perpetuated in Missouri 
were those who reared slaves for sale and those who 
intended to settle in Missouri. The latter class was small, 
the former entirely hypothetical. Southern opposition to 
the amendment was probably due to the fact that the 
congressmen were slave owners themselves and were 
actuated by class feeling in taking their stand. 

Neither is it possible to view the Missouri controversy 
as a struggle for a balance of power. There is no evidence 
that there was any such balancing of power between 
North and South before 1820. Such a balance would be 
important only if there were controversies to be de- 
termined, and there were none. The bank war, the tariff 
war, and other sectional clashes were in the future. If 
before 1820 North and South had conflicting interests, 
their actions would indicate that they were singularly 
unaware of them. To interpret the Missouri controversy 
as an outburst of anti-slavery feeling or as a struggle for 
control of the senate is to read into the history of the 
time things which were essentially absent. 

The moral uprising against human bondage in Mis- 
souri seems to have some relationship to the ratification 



BEGINNING OF SOUTHERN NATIONALISM 145 

of the Spanish Treaty then before the senate. 31 This 
treaty gave the United States a Florida whose valuable 
portions had long been in her possession, and confirmed 
to Spain Texas where our claim remained unbuttressed 
by occupation. Since by this treaty the South gained 
only the small area of barren Florida and lost the huge 
domain of Texas, she viewed it with hostility and op- 
posed its ratification. The attack on slavery was perhaps 
designed for the purpose of forcing Southern congress- 
men to give up Texas. The northeast wished to surrender 
Texas, not because Texas was Southern, but because it 
was Western ; the jealousy of the East toward the West 
was the result of conflicting interests and had often been 
displayed in our early history. 

In the end the Spanish Treaty was ratified and Mis- 
souri was admitted as a slave state. The Missouri Com- 
promise effected a most inequitable division of the 
Louisiana Purchase in outlawing slavery therein above 
36 30', except Missouri. The South accepted it because 
in doing so it won the area then at issue, and was content 
to trust to the future for the remainder if it desired it 
The Missouri Compromise was merely a law of congress 
and might be repealed by a future congress as, in fact, 
it was in 1854. But in 1820 it seemed apparent both to 
North and South that the prohibition of slavery in the 
purchase above 36 30' was merely a gesture. For the 
Lewis and Clark expedition and other western explora- 
tions had popularized the idea that the Great Plains 
were a desert which could never support a population. 
In Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri, slavery had se- 
cured the only portion of the purchase that was thought 
inhabitable. The South accepted the compromise with 

37 F. H. Hoddcr, "Sidelights on the Missouri Compromise," in American 
Historical Association Annual Report, 1909, 153-161, 



i 4 6 THE OLD SOUTH 

reservations as to its constitutionality since it lay beyond 
the power of congress to enact Nor did it judge it ethi- 
cally binding since, after all, Missouri was not admitted 
under the compromise, but had to submit to further 
restrictions as a price of entering the Union. 

The South created by the Missouri conflict was a 
South from which many Southerners were excluded. 
The Southern people of the Northwest had been divided 
in their attitude toward the Tallmadge amendment. 
Illinois had voted solidly against the amendment; In- 
diana solidly in support of it All the Ohio votes were 
cast for the amendment save the lone vote of William 
Henry Harrison. After the matter was settled, the peo- 
ple of the Northwest remained as Southern as they had 
been before, but of course they failed to share in that 
intensification of feeling which characterized the peo- 
ple of the slave states. Throughout the ante-bellum 
period the Northwest quite generally worked in politi- 
cal harmony with the South, assisting it in its battles 
against the North. Whether this was due to a concord of 
interest or a harmony of sentiment, it would be difficult 
to say. 

Southern people after 1820, then, were of two kinds: 
the slave state people actuated by a feeling of Southern 
nationalism steadily increasing, and Northwest people, 
sympathizing with the South without sharing the new 
spirit Within the next fifteen years in the slave states 
themselves the cotton states came to be characterized 
by a nationalism much more intense than that of the 
tobacco states. The event which brought this about was 
the tariff conflict between the cotton planter and the 
Northern manufacturer. 

In the vote on the tariff of 1816 there had been no 
consistent sectional alignment; the leading advocate of 



BEGINNING OF SOUTHERN NATIONALISM 147 

the tariff of this year was John C. Calhoun of South 
Carolina. The first Southern alignment against the tariff 
came in 1820, and the date suggests a connection between 
Southern opposition to the tariff and the controversy 
over Missouri. There can be little doubt that much of 
the Southern opposition was due to its ill-will toward 
the North rather than to actual damage received from 
the operation of the tariff. The South attacked the tariff 
because it benefited a North apparently inimical to 
Southern slavery. The South, to be sure, could, and did, 
give reasons for the faith that was in it. It argued that 
a tariff made higher the price of the manufactured goods 
it had to buy, whether of domestic or foreign origin. 
It also maintained that a tariff depressed the price of 
raw cotton by discouraging the demand for it. In this 
connection it did not fail to point out that the price of 
cotton fell steadily after the tariff act of 1816. These 
arguments in all probability were the results of rational- 
izing rather than of reasoning. In moments of extreme 
candor even Southern leaders were willing to admit 
that the low price of cotton might have a connection 
with overproduction. 

The South defeated an attempt to increase the tariff 
in 1820, but in 1824, owing to the defection of the North- 
west, had to submit to higher rates. Having failed in the 
frontal attack of that year, the South in 1828 attempted 
a flank movement which proved a boomerang and 
brought on the famous "tariff of abominations." It was 
at this juncture that South Carolina, under the guidance 
of Calhoun, worked out her theory of nullification 
which she f orebore putting in practice pending the elec- 
tion of Jackson to whom she looked for relief. For va- 
rious reasons, prominent among them his quarrel with 
Calhoun, Jackson failed to show enthusiasm for tariff 



THE OLD SOUTH 



reform, and following his reelection in 1832 South 
Carolina resorted to nullification. The ensuing display 
of bluster, braggadocio, and swashbuckling is of less 
importance than the attitude of the Southern states to 
the action of South Carolina. 

The event showed that while the Southern states were 
quite generally willing to unite in denouncing the tariff, 
the spirit of nationalism was still too weak to bring 
about any approval of nullification. Kentucky and Lou- 
isiana, indeed, gave official approval to the tariff, and the 
condemnation of Maryland was so weak as almost to 
equal assent The other Southern states condemned the 
tariff and all rejected nullification. Virginia sent an 
agent to South Carolina to urge moderation. Georgia 
and Alabama asked for a federal convention to settle 
the controversy, and the former made the interesting 
suggestion of a Southern convention to be composed of 
delegates from the cotton states. 

Except for this suggestion from Georgia, there was 
nothing in the attitude of the Southern states that would 
indicate a disposition to make common cause with a 
sister state of the South. Yet it is probable that in regard 
to the nullification controversy the Southern states were 
actuated less by principle than by regard for their im- 
mediate, individual interests. Kentucky wanted a pro- 
tective tariff for her hemp, and Louisiana for her sugar. 
Neither, therefore, could approve a nullification aimed 
at a tariff, although Kentucky had herself advocated 
nullification of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. 
Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee could 
not join in defiance of a president whose aid they were 
then invoking for the removal of their Indians. Georgia, 
Alabama, and Mississippi were themselves engaged in 
defying the supreme court -which they could do in 



BEGINNING OF SOUTHERN NATIONALISM 149 

safety as long as they were supported by the president. 
In Maryland and Virginia official disapproval of nulli- 
fication was perhaps not unconnected with a desire for 
federal aid for railroads and canals. In disapproving 
nullification in 1833, Virginia was visibly embarrassed 
by her remembrance of the Virginia resolutions of 1798. 
In Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, the legis- 
latures in discountenancing nullification perhaps had a 
thought of their own sectional minorities just at this 
time displaying pronounced tendencies toward nullify- 
ing state legislation. 

It is evident that the failure of the slave states to sup- 
port South Carolina in nullification is not to be taken 
too seriously. What is more significant is the relatively 
solid alignment against the tariff. After all, the tariff 
was the issue ; nullification but a method of opposition. 
Southern opposition to the tariff was certainly largely 
a matter of sentiment rather than of interest. The tariff 
war was a cotton war and the support given it by the 
upper South was not given it because of identity of eco- 
nomic interests, because there was no such identity. It 
was, as a matter of fact, to the interest of the tobacco 
South to support rather than to oppose a tariff, and Ken- 
tucky very truculently did so. The tariff war originated, 
in part at least, in the spirit of nationalism; it had the 
effect of increasing the nationalism in which it origi- 
nated. But since it was a cotton war, it was inevitable that 
it should be more effective in intensifying the feeling of 
the far South than that of the upper South. 

Southern nationalism made the South conscious of 
itself. It expressed itself in the four decades following 
the compromise in an unceasing effort to promote South- 
ern interest and to oppose those of the North. It fed on 
the wars it waged, gradually increased in Intensity, 



ISO THE OLD SOUTH 

largely determined the issues of our history before 1861, 
and in that year launched the South into a desperate 
struggle for independence. 



Sectionalism 

The spirit of nationalism, born of the Missouri con- 
troversy, had an increasing tendency to unify the South 
in its attitude toward other people. But within the South 
itself there were many clashing and discordant interests. 
There was, for example, a clearly discernible cleavage 
between the upper South and the lower South, and one 
only less patent between the Atlantic states and those of 
the Mississippi Valley. There were state enmities such 
as the Kentucky-Tennessee boundary dispute. But the 
most virulent discords were intra-state and because they 
were discords of interests they may properly be called 
sectional. 

Delaware was too small for sectionalism, but in Mary- 
land, Virginia, and the two Carolinas, the people were 
divided into hostile camps by passions so bitter as to 
endanger the very existence of the states. In each of 
these there was an east and a west, the one chiefly low- 
land, the other upland or mountainous. The east had 
easy access to markets by its navigable rivers, the west 
was almost entirely cut off from markets. From this it 
resulted that the west was a region of small farms, of 
diversified industry, and of few slaves, while the east 
was marked by a plantation economy of staple crops and 
slave labor. It resulted also that the west was poor and 
the east wealthy. There was no essential difference of 
people, although there were great numbers of Germans 
and Scotch-Irish in the west. In colonial times the line 
between east and west had been the tidewater line, but 



152 THE OLD SOUTH 

in each South Atlantic state the east gradually en- 
croached on the west as its people shifted inland in 
search of fresh lands. In 1820 the line of division had 
advanced westward in the Carolinas to the fall line and 
In Virginia and Maryland to the Blue Ridge. 

From the differences in character, the two sections 
inevitably developed discordant interests and conflicting 
demands. In its poverty the west demanded free schools 
supported by the state ; the wealthy east opposed because 
taxes for their support would fall chiefly on the east 
The west, having few slaves, demanded that slaves be 
taxed ; the east, having many, opposed* The west, with 
no navigable rivers, wanted internal improvements at 
state expense ; the east felt neither the need of them for 
itself nor the desire to support them for the west The 
east favored sound banking, a sound currency, and a low 
tariff; the west desired local banks with a plethora of 
bank notes, and from its budding industries was inclined 
to view the protective tariff with an affectionate eye. 

In all four states the east and the west struggled for 
the control of the state governments from which these 
conflicting blessings might flow. Here the east occupied 
the strong ground of actual possession. Because it was 
the oldest settled region it had controlled the legislature 
in colonial days and thereby had determined the pro- 
visions of the state constitutions which everywhere 
marked the coming of independence. These eastern- 
written constitutions were in no respects self-denying 
ordinances, but carefully written documents designed 
to give the east control of the government in all per- 
petuity. The design, splendid in its simplicity, was to 
subordinate the entire state goverment to a legislature 
which should be controlled by the east This control was 
secured by a method of apportionment which assigned 



SECTIONALISM 153 



representatives not to population but to area. The unit 
of representation was the county and all counties in the 
state had equal representation in the lower house of the 
legislature and commonly in the upper. The western 
counties were few in number not so much from fell 
design as because they were created when the section 
was young and population scanty. Their population in- 
creased, but not their representation. They were over- 
balanced in the legislature by the small, numerous coun- 
ties of the east with a smaller population and a larger 
representation. 

To the legislature thus ingeniously constructed was 
given the power in every South Atlantic state to select 
the governor. The legislature also chose the executive 
council which in Maryland, Virginia, and North Caro- 
lina assisted and limited the governor. The legislature 
selected the judges also in every state except Maryland, 
where they were appointed by the governor - himself 
selected by the legislature. There was a property qualifi- 
cation for office-holding and a property qualification for 
voting. The resulting disfranchisement of great num- 
bers of the western people was robbed of its importance 
by the fact that there were so few elective officials. These 
were the provisions of the constitutions, and to secure 
their perpetuity the constitutions further provided, ex- 
pressly in Maryland, South Carolina, and Georgia, by 
implication in Virginia and North Carolina, that con- 
stitutional amendments be made only on the initiative 
of the legislature. 

The east did not refrain from using the power it 
possessed. United States senators, governors, state judges, 
and other state officials were chosen from the east in 
scandalous disproportion. The only internal improve- 
ments were made in the east, such as the Santee Canal 



154 THE OLD SOUTH 

and the Dismal Swamp Canal. Slaves were practically 
exempt from taxation. No schools were provided by the 
state. In Maryland the two branches of the university- 
Washington College at Chestertown and St. John's at 
Annapolis - were so far east as to be inaccessible to 
western people. The capitals remained in the east. On 
one occasion in Virginia an impassioned orator declared 
that the only state institution located in western Virginia 
was an insane asylum. 

Even in colonial times western discontent with eastern 
rule had been attested by uprisings, such as Bacon's 
Rebellion in Virginia and the Regulators' War in North 
Carolina. Both were put down, but the discontent re- 
mained and became more and more intense. As the 
western counties grew in population, their under-repre- 
sentation became more glaring every year and western 
indignation grew by leaps and bounds. The crux of the 
situation was control of the legislature, and under an 
equitable apportionment the west would secure this 
control. But apportionment could only be changed by 
constitutional revision, so that in all four states the fun- 
damental demand of the west was for a constitutional 
convention. Every session of the legislature, the western 
men renewed their demands, western newspapers gave 
publicity to western woes, western orators laid down a 
heavy barrage of reasoning and denunciation at every 
opportunity. In 1816 the aged Jefferson was induced 
to come out for revision in Virginia. Mass meetings 
passed resolutions of protest and a deluge of pamphlets 
poured down on the people. 

The east remained complacent and unmoved. In 
Maryland the property qualifications for voting and 
office-holding were abolished in 1810, but there was 
scant comfort in a widening of the suffrage when legis- 



SECTIONALISM 155 



lative apportionment was left unchanged and executive 
and judicial officials remained appointive. In Virginia 
the legislature shifted apportionment slightly, but the 
net result was to leave the east fully in control. The 
breach between east and west widened year by year in 
Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. In South 
Carolina, on the other hand, sectionalism ran a brief 
course and disappeared. 

In South Carolina sectionalism in early days was 
aggravated by the fact that the east was a rice growing 
district dependent on slavery and a plantation economy, 
while the upland had found no industry at all suitable 
for it The two sections were so different in interests and 
ideals that the constitution of 1790 established almost 
a dual government. The legislature was to meet at Co- 
lumbia but there were to be two treasurers, one to reside 
at Columbia and one at Charleston. The secretary of 
state, the attorney-general, and the judges of the superior 
court were to transact business at both places. The gov- 
ernor was required to be in Columbia only when the 
legislature was in session. From the trend of disunion 
evidenced by such an arrangement, South Carolina was 
rescued by the invention of the cotton gin. The upland 
found its staple crop in cotton and soon the entire section 
became a region of plantations and slavery. 88 The iden- 
tity of interests between the cotton planter of the west 
and the rice planter of the east drew the two sections 
together, and the process was hastened by the building 
of roads and the improvement of river navigation. There 
was no longer need for the east to hold itself entrenched 
against the west. In 1808 apportionment was changed 
to a basis of white population and taxes; in 1810 the 

88 W. A. Schaper, "Sectionalism and Representation in South Carolina," in 
American Historical Association Annual Report, 1900, vol. I, 237-463. 



156 THE OLD SOUTH 

property qualification for voting was abolished ; in 181 1 
a public school system was established. Both sections 
united in the support of South Carolina College, estab- 
lished ( 1 80 1 ) at Columbia for the promotion of planter 
culture and ideals. The unification of South Carolina 
gave it the leadership of the South. The like-minded- 
ness of the people enabled them to act promptly and 
boldly in a crisis, as in the case of nullification and seces- 
sion. The spread of cotton culture, it may also be noted, 
resulted not only in unification of the people, but in 
early exhaustion of the soil, and rendered the state dis- 
contented and dissatisfied. 

In the newer states of the South sectionalism was far 
less pronounced than in the Atlantic states. Chiefly, 
perhaps, this was because, by an accident of geography, 
all but the most remote regions had access to markets 
over navigable rivers flowing directly or ultimately to 
the gulf. Partly it was due to the fact that, by the acci- 
dent of immigration, in each state different sections de- 
veloped simultaneously and so no one section had the 
opportunity of seizing control of the government. There 
may be added to this the fact that when the state govern- 
ments were established all sections were frontier, socially 
and economically alike, and therefore without incentive 
to discriminate. All the newer states apportioned the 
legislature in some way on the basis of population, and 
none had property qualifications for voting. Everywhere 
the executive, like the legislative, officials were elective. 

Nevertheless, each of the newer states had its modi- 
cum of sectionalism. Kentucky and Mississippi had the 
least, for in both of them the planter was so completely 
in control as to make opposition useless. The mountain- 
eers of Kentucky and the "piney woods men" of eastern 
Mississippi were too feeble to merit discrimination, too 



SECTIONALISM 157 



lethargic to resent it, and too inarticulate to denounce 
it. In like manner the Ozark region, without protest 
and without approval, acquiesced in the domination of 
the Missouri Valley. Tennessee had, probably, the most 
bitter sectionalism in the Southwest Here the planta- 
tion regions of middle and west Tennessee allied them- 
selves with the eastern valley against the farmers of the 
hills and mountains. But since there were no discrimi- 
nating clauses in the constitution, sectional ill-will 
quite generally worked itself off in political rivalry and 
never reached the feud proportions of sectionalism in 
the Atlantic states. In Alabama, the Tennessee Valley 
and southern Alabama were both rich planting com- 
munities differing only in that one traded to New Or- 
leans, and the other to Mobile. Between the two lay the 
relatively inaccessible hill country with small farms, 
poor farmers, and little slavery. Each of these three 
sections was settled by a different stream of migration 
and the rivalry in early days was a social rivalry trans- 
ferred to politics. It can be seen in the migration of the 
state capital from St. Stephens to Huntsville ( 1819) , to 
Cahaba (1820), to Tuscaloosa (1825), and to Mont- 
gomery (1846). 

In Georgia the people were divided along sectional 
lines, but the division, nevertheless, was not sectional but 
factional. The cleavage was social rather than economic 
in the beginning and originated in the union of the 
aristocratic coast planters and the Virginians on the 
upper Savannah against the Carolinians of the interior. 
But the plantation system spread west as settlement 
spread and soon the alignment of east against west lost 
all meaning. Habit and tradition continued it, however, 
throughout the ante-bellum period, and rival leaders 
exploited it for their own ends. The eastern faction 



158 THE OLD SOUTH 

followed the Crawford-Troup leaders, the west the 
Clarks. The factional contests were at times extremely 
bitter, but there was rarely anything at stake more fund- 
amental than the spoils of office, and government policies 
remained the same whichever faction was in office. 
Without great controversy the capital was moved gradu- 
ally inland to Milledgeville (1804) ? the state university 
located at Athens, and academies established in every 
county. Constitutional amendments made elective all 
inferior judges (1812) and the governor (1824). 

Each Southern state, except South Carolina, was a 
house divided against itself, but the division was not 
serious in the newer states. Sectional feuds and rivalries 
greatly influenced the course of Southern history. Out- 
standing among these was the movement for constitu- 
tional reform and the formation of political parties. 

There was no "solid South" in politics in ante-bellum 
times any more than there was in geography. On the 
issue of adopting the constitution the people of Virginia 
and the Carolinas aligned themselves according to their 
sectional interests, the east favoring the constitution 
because it promised protection to property and the west 
opposing because it feared the loss of liberty. In North 
Carolina alone did the west prevail, and its victory was 
only temporary. Georgia and Maryland were all but 
unanimous for the "more perfect union" from which the 
former hoped to secufe aid against the Creeks and the 
latter, perhaps, against its neighbors. 

The parties thus formed survived the issue on which 
they had been organized ; the anti-Federalists survived 
even their name. On the new issue of centralization the 
eastern aristocrats were Federalists, the poorer people 
of the west, Republicans. 89 But the stigma of the Chis- 

U. B. Phillips, "The South Carolina Federalists," in American Historical 
Review, vol. xiv, 529 ff. 



SECTIONALISM 159 



holm vs. Georgia decision and of the sedition acts 
combined with the leadership of Jefferson, a western 
aristocrat, sufficed to overthrow the Federalists and to 
unite all sections in a common Republicanism. After the 
revolution of 1800 the Federalist party practically 
ceased to exist in the South, showing infrequent symp- 
toms of local animation only when the blunders of its 
opponents gave it opportunity. 

For more than thirty years there was but one party 
in the South and that was the Republican party. But in 
each Southern state the Republicans were divided into 
factions struggling for the spoils of office, state, and 
national. In most Southern states these factions were sec- 
tional. These sectional divisions were perpetuated as 
bases of new parties when the old Republican party 
divided into Whig and Democrat In Maryland and 
Virginia the east allied itself with the Whigs, chiefly 
because the Whigs advocated a national banking system 
which the planters needed in financing the growing and 
marketing of their staple crops. In both states the west 
became Democratic, partly because Jackson was identi- 
fied with the cause of the common man, and partly be- 
cause of its traditional antagonism to an east now become 
Whig. In North Carolina the party alignment followed 
sectional lines, but the choice of party labels is a chal- 
lenge to the human understanding. Eastern North Caro- 
lina, with the same interests as the east of Virginia and 
Maryland, became Democratic, while the west became 
Whig. Apparently it was the influence of the aged 
Nathaniel Macon which determined the choice of the 
east, while the Whig fervor of the west had no other 
reason for existence than an opposition to things eastern, 

There were many other paradoxes in the Southern 
political alignments. South Carolina, where was the 



i6o THE OLD SOUTH 

heart and soul of opposition to Jackson, became not 
Whig, but overwhelmingly Democratic* This highly 
illogical state of affairs resulted from the influence of 
Calhoun over his unified state. Calhoun was one of the 
organizers of the Whig party and gave it its name, but 
a short experience taught him that he could not, without 
a surrender of principles, compete with Clay for Whig 
leadership. Unable to surrender his principles or his 
ambition even for the sake of crushing Jacksonianism, 
Calhoun, using the sub-treasury measure as an occasion 
and excuse, rejoined his old associates now chiefly in the 
Democratic fold. South Carolina followed him and re- 
mained Democratic with frequent displays of independ- 
ence. 

Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee presented elements 
of surprise in their political complexions. The align- 
ment in Georgia well illustrates the saying that only a 
Georgian can understand Georgia politics. The Troup 
faction of the east, although it had had Jackson's support 
in Indian removal, became the Whig party. Apparently 
this was due to the Force Bill. 40 That Kentucky became 
almost as solidly Whig as South Carolina did Demo- 
cratic, may safely be ascribed to its tariff leanings, the 
need for the national bank, the Maysville Road veto, 
and the influence of Henry Clay. What is surprising is 
that the greatest Whig majorities were from the moun- 
tain section. In Tennessee the influence of John Bell, 
Hugh Lawson White, and other personal enemies of 
Jackson, made the state consistently Whig with only 
the mountain and hill country normally clinging to 
Democracy. 

In the remaining states of the South political align- 

40 U. B. Phillips, "Georgia and State Rights," in American Historical As- 
sociation Annual Report, 1901, vol. n, 138. 



SECTIONALISM 161 



ment coincided with sectional division. In Alabama the 
plantation regions of the black belt and the Tennessee 
Valley were Whig; the northern hill country, Demo- 
cratic. In Mississippi, the river counties were Whig 
while the hill country north and the pine barrens east 
of the Pearl were Democratic, The southern, sugar- 
producing section of Louisiana was Whig, the northern 
farming counties, Democratic. In the first states the 
determining issue was the national bank ; in the last, the 
tariff. 

In general the Whig party in the South was the party 
of wealth and aristocracy; the Democratic strength ex- 
cept in the Carolinas was among the poor classes. The 
fight for constitutional reform was in every case a fight 
of the common man who had remained common because 
of his poverty against the man who had taken on aristoc- 
racy because of his wealth. In the Atlantic states, where 
the struggle was most bitter, the east was a region of 
planters whose aristocracy quite often outlived the in- 
come on which it was based ; the west was a region of 
farmers whose poverty prevented them neither from 
hoping nor complaining. In every case, except North 
Carolina, it was a struggle between a resisting Whig east 
and an attacking Democratic west. 

In Virginia, reform preceded party formation. Here 
by 1829 the western people had reached such a condition 
of vocal indignation that the east was compelled to 
choose between concession and revolution. The legis- 
lature, accordingly, called a convention which should 
meet in October. Any rapture the west may have felt 
over this attainment was considerably modified by the 
legislative stipulation that the convention be composed 
of equal delegations from the senatorial districts, which 
would place the east in control and make all hope of 



162 THE OLD SOUTH 

reform depend on an eastern magnanimity to which 
Virginia politics had hitherto been a stranger. The con- 
stitutional convention was a distinguished body, includ- 
ing in its membership two ex-presidents and the chief 
justice of the United States, four ex-governors, seven 
United States senators, and fifteen representatives, past, 
present, and prospective. James Monroe was president 
of the convention; James Madison, chairman of the 
executive committee ; and John Marshall, of the judicial 
committee. The sessions continued until January 15 and 
resulted in a new constitution which bitterly disap- 
pointed the hopes of the reformers. Both houses of the 
legislature were arbitrarily apportioned in such a way 
as to leave the east in control. The property qualifica- 
tion for voting was lessened but not removed, and the 
legislature retained the power of appointing executive 
and judicial officials. The western people of Virginia, 
exasperated over the mouse of reform born of the labor- 
ing mountain of agitation, strenuously opposed the adop- 
tion of the constitution and after their failure renewed 
their protest. 

In North Carolina the western people finally made an 
impress on the obdurate legislature by taking (1833) a 
plebiscite of the west which resulted in a practically 
unanimous vote for revision of the constitution. The 
legislature obligingly called a convention but specified 
that the delegates thereto should be chosen on the county 
unit plan and that any new constitution must apportion 
senators on the basis of taxes and representatives accord- 
ing to federal numbers. Thus carefully circumscribed, 
the convention met in 1835 and with Nathaniel Macon 
as its chairman made a constitution which limited the 
power of the legislature, made the governor elective, 
and apportioned the legislature according to specifica- 



SECTIONALISM 163 



tion. Slight as these changes were, they were distasteful 
to the east and were adopted by a vote strictly sectional. 

In Maryland the western people, unsatisfied by 
meager concessions previously made, held a convention 
in Baltimore (1836) which urged a reform of repre- 
sentation, abolition of the electoral college for senators, 
and the popular election of governor. To forestall this 
movement the legislature in 1837 made certain amend- 
ments. The electoral college was abolished and senators 
were to be chosen one from each county by popular vote. 
The lower house was to be reapportioned every ten 
years on the basis of federal numbers, and the governors 
were to be chosen by popular vote in rotation from an 
eastern, middle, and western district In conservative 
Maryland these reforms were denominated the "revo- 
lution of 1837." 

In four of the newer states of the South the thirties 
saw reforms in government In 1832 a new constitution 
in Mississippi abolished all property qualifications for 
office-holding and made practically all state executive 
and judicial officials elective. The Tennessee constitu- 
tion of 1835 abolished property qualifications for the 
legislature and in Georgia in the same year a legislative 
amendment accomplished the same object Missouri in 
1829 made judges elective. 

In the Atlantic states, except for the action of Dela- 
ware (1831) in abolishing property qualifications for 
voting and for membership in the lower house, the re- 
forms, such as they were, were all in the nature of con- 
cessions which interest, not conviction, forced the east 
to make. In the newer states the reforms represented an 
increase of democracy. The Democratic party in the 
southwest identified itself with reform. In the two Whig 
states of Kentucky and Louisiana reform had to wait 



164 THE OLD SOUTH 

another decade. Arkansas, making its first constitution 
in 1836, showed the result of the democratic movement 
by omitting all property qualifications for voting and 
office-holding and by making all state officials elective 
except the superior judges. 



The Jacksonian Migration 

The stream of westward migration, which had run 
so violent a course in the years preceding the panic of 
1819, continued to flow with steady, although dimin- 
ished, volume throughout the twenties. The stationary 
population of Maryland and Virginia during the decade 
shows the source of the movement; the growth of the 
newer states of the South reveals its destination. The 
two Carolinas lost little by emigration and the rate of 
population growth was above normal in both states. 

In the newer states of the South there were few In- 
dian cessions in the twenties, in contrast to the rape of 
land in the decade before. West of the Mississippi the 
land had already been cleared of Indian title in both 
states and territory; east of the Mississippi there were 
only minor cessions made. Nowhere in the South did the 
decade witness such plundering as that of Ft Jackson, 
such grand larceny as the Jackson Purchase. Conse- 
quently, the immigration of the twenties went for the 
most part into communities already in the making. For 
the Southwest it was a ten year period of consolidating 
the frontier rather than of advancing it In Kentucky 
and Tennessee, the steady inflow of people filled the 
Jackson Purchase and advanced settlement to the banks 
of the Mississippi. In Georgia the westward-moving 
frontier reached the Flint and looked hungrily across 
to the lands beyond where the Creeks, with the support 
of President Adams, were making their last stand on 
Georgia soil. 



!66 THE OLD SOUTH 

Nearly half the land sold in the South by the United 
States during the twenties was sold in Alabama. The 
Natchez Trace and the southern spur of the Cumber- 
land Road delivered the settlers to the Tennessee Valley ; 
the Federal Road took them to the valleys of the Ala- 
bama and the Warrior. Crossing into Mississippi the 
migration was reduced to a mere trickle, for the Natchez 
district was now filled up, the piney woods east of the 
Pearl was a region to avoid, and there was but one new 
tract of land cleared of the Indians. The migration to 
Louisiana was negligible through the twenties, and the 
only new settlers Arkansas received were those who 
drifted down through the Ozarks into the White River 
Valley. Such migration as Missouri received went into 
the valleys of the Missouri and the Mississippi. 

In the next decade, 1830-40, the stream of migration 
after ten years of gentle meandering swelled suddenly 
into flood. Sectionalism, the general feeling of unrest 
accompanying the rise of democracy, and the decreasing 
fertility of the soil pushed thousands out of the Atlantic 
states toward the west. The recovery of cotton prices 
helped lure the movement into the Southwest where 
great tracts of new land made available by removal of 
the Indians were placed on sale by the United States. 
The beginning of the migration, however, preceded In- 
dian removal and aided in bringing it about. 

After forty years of land cessions, the Indians of the 
South still retained in 1830 some twenty-five million 
acres of land. It lay in two tracts, roughly equal. The 
eastern tract lay chiefly in northern Georgia and eastern 
Alabama; the western, in eastern and northern Missis- 
sippi. The two tracts were separated and surrounded 
by avid, encroaching whites. Contact with the white 
man had brought to the Indians both weal and woe. 



_ THE JACKSONIAN MIGRATION _ 167 

They had welcomed the vices of the white man with 
insistent hospitality. Although both federal and state 
laws forbade the sale of liquor, prohibition was impos- 
sible to enforce and drunkenness among the Indians had 
become almost a major industry. They were scourged 
by the white man's diseases such as smallpox and cholera, 
and by syphilis whose origin is in dispute. But the worst 
result of federal management was to break their spirits, 
to rob them of independence and initiative, and to ren- 
der them lazy and shiftless in the terrible lethargy of 
those who have no ambition and no hope. Each tribe 
contained chiefs who were in the pay of the United 
States and whose influence over their red brethren was 
always for sale. Each tribe was split into factions whose 
persistent quarrellings and bickerings made it all but 
impossible for the tribe to plan with wisdom or act with 
resolution. But the Indian ledger was not wholly in red. 
They had learned from the white man the utility of many 
a creature comfort They were better housed than ever 
before, living in log cabins and frame houses and occas-; 
ionally even in brick dwellings. They were better fed, 
for the federal government had striven successfully, and 
not altogether unselfishly, to change them from hunters 
to farmers. They raised the same crops as the white men 
and had a considerable number of horses and cattle. 
They were better clothed, supplied with materials by 



the traders or producing homespun^among themselves. 
There were missionary schools among them subsidized 
by the United States, and although the students were 
few, they were often the children of chiefs. Their inter- 
tribal wars were over and they lived in peace, subject 
only to political dissensions within and altercations with 
the constantly encroaching white men without Finally, 
each tribe received from the United States in return 



i68 THE OLD SOUTH 

for value received an annuity of very respectable pro- 
portions. This, unfortunately, had a habit of stopping 
in the pockets of chiefs friendly to the United States. 

The Southern Indian tribe which had made the most 
appreciable progress toward civilization was the Chero- 
kee. One of their number, Sequoya, had invented a 
phonetic alphabet for them, and the Cherokee language 
became a written language. Their rising culture found 
expression in the establishment of a newspaper, The 
Cherokee Phoenix. Realizing the inadequacy of tribal 
organization, they had (1827) adopted a written consti- 
tution and established a republican form of government, 
with John Ross as president. It was this action that led 
directly to the ruin of the Cherokee and, indirectly, of 
the other Southern tribes. For Georgia was outraged 
by the erection of a state within her limits and in 1829 
extended her own laws over the Cherokee, organized 
new counties to include their land, and forbade the 
Indians to hold further elections or to make new laws. 
It may be that the natural indignation felt by the patri- 
otic Georgians over the Cherokee violation of the United 
States constitution was not altogether unconnected with 
the discovery of gold in the Cherokee hills. At any rate, 
her action was contagious and the next year Alabama 
and Mississippi took similar action. 

What these states wanted the Indians to do was to 
move west of the Mississippi. Removal had been a de- 
clared policy of the executive department of the United 
States since the purchase of Louisiana, and was, in fact, 
implied in the Georgia Compact of the year before. 
Since that time the government had pursued the contra- 
dictory policy of attaching the Indian to his home and of 
persuading him to leave it. As the Indian became more 
localized through agriculture he became progressively 
more opposed to removal and, except for a disgruntled 



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>i " %- [to >> i ^ 

^T%^L\'^rA'^ 

^ ^ 'V ?\ '?'''Q X I" ^S | ) 




THE JACKSONIAN MIGRATION ij_i 

faction among the Cherokee, the tribes had refused to 
go. Calhoun, as Monroe's secretary of war, had given 
prominence to the removal project, but the New Eng- 
land conscience of President Adams had balked at the 
idea of removal either through force or chicanery. Since 
removal was possible in no other way, the project 
awaited the administration of Jackson. Then in 1830 
congress officially adopted the removal policy and em- 
powered the president to carry it out by treaty. Jackson 
promptly sent commissioners south who at various times 
and places and by various methods made treaties with 
the four reluctant and helpless tribes, exchanging their 
land in the east for new homes in the west. 

The Choctaw were the first to go. They were, in gen- 
eral, opposed to removal, but some of the chiefs were 
bribed or intimidated into a cession of their remaining 
lands in 1830, and in the two years following the tribe 
moved to its new home. The Creeks were the next. They 
were as opposed to removal as were the Choctaw, but 
they had to choose between removal and spoliation since 
the United States refused to protect them against state 
laws. After a brief resistance, federal troops forcibly 
removed them in 1836. The Chickasaw sold their land 
to the United States and after a five year delay bought 
new lands from the Choctaw in the west In 1835 a 
"treaty" of cession was made by a few hundred Chero- 
keeout of a population of seventeen thousand, rati- 
fied by a senate well aware of the fraud involved, and 
under it, after exhausting every resource of delay and 
evasion, the Cherokee were finally removed by force. 
Remnants of each of these tribes remained ia tfaeir old 
homes, and the Florida Seminole took refuge iti swamps 
and forests whence neither the power nor deceit of the 
United States was able to evict them; 

The removal of the Indians from the, South was a 



172 THE OLD SOUTH 

lurid episode, full of cruelty, hypocrisy, and broken 
faith on one side, and of suffering and misery on the 
other. Its chief historical significance, however, lies not 
in its dramatic features but in the prosaic fact that it 
made available some twenty-five million acres of land 
for white settlement. The hungering and thirsting of the 
white man for Indian land was perhaps the chief force 
in driving the government to action ; as a matter of fact, 
a considerable portion of the land had been occupied, 
informally but effectively, by squatters years before the 
Indians left. 

The rush of settlers was first directed to Mississippi 
where the most fertile lands yet unsettled in the South 
were now offered for sale in the valleys of the Yazoo and 
Tombigbee. The population of the state tripled in the 
decade. Numerous towns sprang up in the hill country 
of the north such as Corinth in the Tennessee Valley, 
Holly Springs which had its beginnings as a camping 
ground for travellers down the Chickasaw Road from 
Memphis, and Columbus which served as the export 
center of the upper Tombigbee Valley. In Alabama the 
immigration first turned to the black belt in tardy, but 
thorough, appreciation of this unique soil. The country 
east of the Coosa, where most of the Creek cession lay, 
was hilly and, except for the river valleys, infertile. 
Population spread over it thinly, giving evidence of its 
presence by the founding of Guntersville, Talladega, 
Opelika, Tuskegee, and dozens of other towns most of 
which merely continued the existence of Indian villages 
on whose abandoned sites they were located. 

The migration once under way did not confine itself 
to the lands recently ceded but jumped the Mississippi 
and penetrated the long over-looked portions of Louisi- 
ana, Arkansas, and Missouri. Missouri and Arkansas 



THE JACKSQNIAN MIGRATION 173 

tripled in population during the decade; Louisiana ex- 
perienced the comparatively normal increase of seventy- 
five per cent. In Missouri the lands most in demand were 
those around Palmyra in the northeast and Springfield 
in the southwest. The land sales at the latter place indi- 
cate that settlement was finally going into the Ozarks. 
In Arkansas new regions were settled on the Red river 
in the southwest and on the headwaters of the White 
in the northwest. The increased population of Arkansas 
raised the territory to statehood in 1836 in time to cast 
its first electoral vote for the Democratic ticket, thereby 
establishing a precedent from which it has steadfastly 
refused to depart. Making its constitution in the high 
tide of the democratic movement, Arkansas discarded 
practically all the restrictive clauses which had char- 
acterized earlier state constitutions in the South. All 
county and state officials were made elective except the 
judges. There were no property qualifications for voting 
or office-holding, and the legislature was apportioned 
on the basis of free white males. 

In Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia, the land 
ceded by the Indians became the property of the states 
and was sold by them. In northern Georgia the coming 
of the farmer was accompanied by a gold rush to 
the newly discovered mines. Rossville (Chattanooga), 
Rome, Cartersville, and Marthasville (Atlanta) were 
founded during the decade. In western Georgia, Colum- 
bus on the Chattahoochee developed from a hamlet to 
a town on the lands ceded by the Creeks in 1826. 

The Jacksonian migration was stopped by the panic 
of 1837, but the effects of the migration continued for 
many years. The most visible effect was the tremendous 
shifting of people, both white and black, from the older 
states to the new. During the decade of the thirties the 



174 THE OLD SOUTH 

population of the South increased by two and one-half 
millions ; all but seventy-five thousand of this increase 
was in the new states, including Georgia. Delaware, 
Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas increased but 
two per cent; the newer states, over one hundred per 
cent At the same time, while the slave population of the 
newer states increased over half a million, that of the 
older group actually decreased. It is evident that the 
settlers for the southwest during the Jacksonian migra- 
tion were supplied by the southeast, and that there was 
no appreciable migration from the north. It is evident, 
too, or at least apparent, that the migration was not 
limited to the poor but contained an appreciable per- 
centage of plantation owners who brought their slaves 
with them to their new homes. 

The migration in the South, as in the North, meant 
a demand for currency and credit and led to the birth 
of mushroom banks by the score. There was a great in- 
crease in the production of cotton, a rapid multiplying 
of wealth, an increase in state revenues, and a consequent 
squandering of public money on enterprises of dubious 
economic merit. For all this sowing to the wind there 
was to be an abundant reaping of whirlwind in the next 
Decade. 

The migration steadied the older South and unbal- 
anced the new. Sobered by the loss of their people to the 
west, the Atlantic states put their house in order by re- 
forming their agriculture, bettering their transportation, 
mending their outworn constitutions. The west became 
a ferment wherein the people were impatient of re- 
straints and prohibitions, both religious and legal. It 
was flush times in the southwest Money was plentiful, 
morality and law rested but lightly on the people, the 
spirit of democracy was stirring mightily in the land, 



THE JACKSONIAN MIGRATION 175 

and men and women busied themselves with walking in 
the ways of their hearts and in the sight of their eyes. 
The panic of 1837 quickly brought them into judgment 



Trade and Transportation 

The great shifting of lares et penates which made 
up the Jacksonian migration brought many changes in 
the South, none of which was more marked than the 
improvement of transportation facilities. The combina- 
tion of newly settled communities seeking access to mar- 
kets, of old markets seeking new trade, and of state 
governments with a plethora of revenues, brought about 
in the thirties an energetic effort for the improvement 
of rivers, the cutting of canals, the building of roads, 
and even a beginning of railroads. 

Road building was largely confined to the upper 
South where an abundance of surface stone made it 
easy to construct the macadamized roads demanded by 
a diversified agriculture. Ordinarily these macadamized 
roads were built by private companies incorporated by 
special acts of the legislature and compensating them- 
selves for the expense of construction and repair by tolls 
collected at toll gates on the road. Kentucky began the 
investment of state funds in the stock of road companies 
in 1832 when, for reasons political as well as economic, 
she came to the aid of the Maysville and Lexington 
Turnpike. By the time the constitution of 1850 called 
a halt to state aid, Kentucky had over 600 miles of 
macadamized roads constituting probably the best road 
system in the South. Tennessee, Virginia, and South 
Carolina, like Kentucky, took stock in road companies, 
and South Carolina built at state expense a highway 
from Charleston to Columbia. The best roads outside 



178 THE OLD SOUTH 

Kentucky were those of the Nashville region of Ten- 
nessee and the valley of Virginia, both of which were 
regions of abundant limestone. 

Prior to 1825 canal building in the South had been 
limited to the Dismal Swamp, and the Santee. Both 
were chartered in 1790, the former for the purpose of 
securing swamp timber and the latter of bringing food 
supplies to Charleston from the interior. The Santee 
Canal was finished in 1800, the Dismal Swamp in 1822. 
Neither had been successful enough to arouse enthusi- 
asm ; the Santee was abandoned in 1858. 

Inspiration for further canal building in the South 
was the result of the construction of the Erie Canal in 
New York. During its construction, or shortly after its 
completion, boards of internal improvements were or- 
ganized, or reorganized, in every Southern state. The 
two most ambitious canal projects were the Chesapeake 
and Ohio and James river and Kanawha. Both were old 
projects chartered in 1785 and both were sponsored by 
George Washington. Both had languished until envy 
of the Erie Canal stirred Baltimore and Richmond to 
rivalry for the rapidly increasing trade of the west. The 
reorganized Chesapeake and Ohio was chartered by 
Virginia in 1824 and by Maryland a year later. It was 
designed to follow the courses of the Potomac and 
Youghiogheny from Washington to Pittsburgh with a 
lateral canal from the lower Potomac to Baltimore. The 
United States, Maryland, Alexandria, Washington, and 
private individuals invested in its stock and construction 
was initiated by President Adams July 4, 1828. But the 
canal failed both in its destination and its purpose. Due 
to difficulties of financing even more than of construc- 
tion, it had only reachecj Cumberland by 1850. There 
it stopped, for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad paral- 



TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION 179 

leling its course had already passed and superseded it 
The canal was 185 miles long and cost $11,000,000 to 
construct. The reorganized James river and Kanawha 
was chartered by Virginia in 1835 and began construc- 
tion the next year. It reached Lynchburg in 1840 when 
the hard times following the panic practically forced 
it to stop. Like the Chesapeake and Ohio it was robbed 
of its potential utility by a parallel railroad. 

Such other canals as were built during the "boom" 
times of the thirties are to be viewed as accessories to 
rivers rather than as substitutes for them. The Ogeechee 
Canal from Savannah to the Ogeechee was finished in 
1831 in a condition of insolvency from which it never 
recovered. The opening in 1831 of the Louisville and 
Portland around the "falls" of the Ohio reflected the 
increased traffic conditions on that river, while the build- 
ing of the Muscle Shoals Canal in northern Alabama 
was an attempt to aid that long-suffering and now 
rapidly developing region in gaining easier access to 
New Orleans. The latter canal was built by Alabama 
with the proceeds of 400,000 acres of relinquished land 
granted her by the United States for the purpose. Un- 
fortunately it was so constructed that boats could enter 
it only at a high level of water and it was abandoned 
in 1837, one year after completion. As a matter of fact it 
was only completed for fourteen miles around one of 
the three shoals of the series. South Carolina built at 
state expense an elaborate system of canals near Colum- 
bia in an effort, more or less successful, to utilize the 
Santee system, while North Carolina subsidized private 
companies to open the Cape Fear for navigation to 
Fayetteville and the Roanoke to the Virginia line. 
Georgia began making appropriations for river im- 
provement in 1817 and eventually made all her rivers 



i8o THE OLD SOUTH 

navigable to the fall line. Alabama dissipated $135,000 
in languid attempts to improve the Coosa, Tombigbee, 
Black Warrior, and Conecuh before the panic of 1837 
halted her prodigality. In Kentucky, river improvement 
was more a matter of political calisthenics than anything 
else until the filling up of western Kentucky forced 
appropriations for the Green and Barren. 

During the boom times no such huge sums were spent 
for internal improvements in the South as in the North. 
Partly this was due to the number of navigable rivers in 
the South, partly it was due to lack of federal aid. The 
abortive Muscle Shoals Canal was the only canal to 
receive such assistance. Mobile harbor was improved, 
the "rafts" were removed from the Red river, and a 
military road was marked from Memphis to Little 
Rock. The strict construction theories which Southern 
leaders professed to entertain made them chary of ac- 
cepting government aids. Perhaps the chief reason 
Southern promoters and politicians were able to restrain 
their enthusiasm for waterways was that they were de- 
veloping a mania for railroads. 

The first two railroads in the South originated in the 
desire of Baltimore and Charleston to revive their fail- 
ing trade by tapping the western trade. As long as trade 
between east and west was carried on wagons, the Cum- 
berland Road had given Baltimore practically a mo- 
nopoly of it. But the Erie Canal and the Pennsylvania 
system were raising rivals in New York and Philadel- 
phia to the north while the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal 
seemed likely to. build up Washington to the south, 
since the projected lateral canal to Baltimore proved 
impracticable. As a measure of self-defense citizens of 
Baltimore organized the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad 
Company to build to some point on the Ohio, and so 



TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION 181 

retain for Baltimore the trade now in danger of being 
detracted by the canals. On July 4, 1828, the venerable 
Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the only surviving signer 
of the Declaration of Independence, laid the corner 
stone of the road at Baltimore. Maryland and Baltimore 
subscribed to most of the stock, and in May, 1830, the 
first twelve miles were open to traffic. In 1834 it reached 
Harper's Ferry where it was overtaken by the panic 
of 1837. 

The Charleston and Hamburg Railroad had in the 
beginning no more vaulting ambition than to secure for 
Charleston the Savannah river trade and to make her 
the center of wholesale trade for the interior. The retail 
trade of the interior, once possessed by Charleston, had 
passed to the fall line towns, Cheraw, Camden, Colum- 
bia and Hamburg, with the result that business was at 
a standstill, property values rapidly falling, and the 
population gradually dwindling. The railroad was char- 
tered in January, 1828, under the name of the South 
Carolina Canal and Railway Company, and construc- 
tion begun early in 1831, The railroad was completed 
to Hamburg on the Savannah in September, 1833, at 
the cost of $900,000, most of which was subscribed by 
the people of Charleston. An attempt to secure a sub- 
scription from the United States called forth such a 
storm of criticism that it was hastily abandoned. The 
136 miles of the Charleston and Hamburg was at that 
time the longest railroad in the world. A branch line 
from the main road was completed to Columbia in 1840 
while an extension to Camden had to await the passing 
of the panic years. The panic also put an end to the 
project of tapping the Ohio river trade by a road from 
Columbia through Saluda Gap, along the French 
Broad, through Cumberland Gap and Kentucky to Cin~ 



i8a THE OLD SOUTH 

cinnati and Louisville. This Louisville, Cincinnati and 
Charleston had secured its charters in the four states it 
proposed to traverse, had made its survey, and had 
pledged its subscriptions when a combination of hard 
times and the death of its president, R. Y. Hayne, de- 
stroyed the fairest prospect that ante-bellum Charleston 
ever had to gain metropolitan glories. 

Aroused by the energetic action of Baltimore and 
Charleston, other South Atlantic cities bestirred them- 
selves to revive their flagging trade by means of railroads 
to the interior. In Virginia, Richmond sought to gain 
connection with the Potomac to the north and the 
Roanoke to the south ; the latter connection was secured 
by 1838 but the northern line had only reached Fred- 
ericksburg when it was overwhelmed by the panic. Even 
Norfolk was infected with the railroad fever and se- 
cured a line to the Roanoke by 1837. The two Virginia 
roads met at Weldon, North Carolina, from which 
point a railroad was built, 1836-1840, to Wilmington, 
thus providing a "through" line from that city on the 
lower coast of North Carolina to Fredericksburg on the 
Rappahannock. These, it may be noted, were tidewater 
railroads, and the two states subscribed liberally to their 
stock. Virginia also took stock in a line from Winchester 
to Harper's Ferry, which gave the upper valley a long- 
deferred outlet over the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal 
and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. In North Caro- 
lina a line from Weldon running west to Raleigh was 
left suspended in the air at that place by the panic, with 
faint hopes of sometimes going on to Columbia. 

In December, 1833, the Georgia legislature chartered 
three railroads: the Georgia to run westward from Au- 
gusta through Athens to the Tennessee river, the Central 
of Georgia from Savannah to Macon, and the Monroe 



TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION 183 

from Macon to Forsyth. The Central of Georgia was 
Savannah's reply to the Charleston and Hamburg. Sa- 
vannah, seeing her river trade transferred to Charleston 
and realizing the failure of the Ogeechee Canal, spon- 
sored the railroad as a method of getting into the in- 
terior. The Monroe road and the Georgia road, on the 
other hand, were attempts of the interior to find a mar- 
ket, the one with Savannah and the other with her rival. 
Hampered, but not stopped by the panic, the Savannah 
road reached its destination in Macon in 1843. Both 
the Monroe and the Georgia, however, changed their 
aim while in full flight and both built into Atlanta, 
reaching that infant city in 1845 and 1846 respectively. 
The reason for the change of goal on the part of these 
two roads was that in 1836 the Georgia legislature had 
chartered the Western and Atlantic, a state-owned road, 
to run from some point on the Chattahoochee to Ross's 
Landing on the Tennessee. The "point on the Chatta- 
hoochee" was fixed at a place first called Terminus, later 
Marthasville, and finally Atlanta; Ross's Landing was 
later renamed Chattanooga, The panic of 1837 and the 
difficulty of transporting road material until the Au- 
gusta and Macon roads were completed limited con- 
struction to grading until the late forties, 

In the newer states of the South, as in the Atlantic 
states, railroads represented the efforts of ambitious 
cities to increase their trade. The chief sponsors were 
Natchez, Vicksburg, Memphis, and Mobile, each of 
which had been compelled to witness the phenomenal 
growth of New Orleans while her own development re- 
mained purely prospective. Now in the railroad they 
saw a means of doing for themselves what the Missis- 
sippi had done for New Orleans. 

As a matter of fact, however, the first railroad built 



i4 THE OLD SOUTH 

in the Southwest was built to aid New Orleans rather 
than her rival. The Tuscumbia and Decatur built 
around Muscle Shoals, 1831-1834, paralleled the canal 
and continued useful after the canal was abandoned. 
Both Mobile and Memphis proceeded to make plans 
for railroads to connect with the Tuscumbia and De- 
catur and convert to themselves the trade of the Tennes- 
see Valley, In 1834 the Tennessee legislature chartered 
the Mississippi and Atlantic Railroad to run from 
Memphis to Tuscumbia, utilize the Tuscumbia road to 
Decatur, and from Decatur proceed east till it met the 
Georgia road. After the Georgia legislature chartered 
the Western and Atlantic to Chattanooga, that city be- 
came the goal of the Memphis road. But its only con- 
struction was grading the forty miles between Memphis 
and La Grange when the panic stopped it. Mobile in- 
terests secured from the Alabama legislature a charter 
for a road from Selma to Gunter's Landing on the Ten- 
nessee but the panic preceded and prevented construc- 
tion. To offset these attempts to confiscate her valley 
trade, New Orleans planned a road to Nashville but it 
too fell a victim to the panic. Neither Memphis nor 
Mobile made any headway, during the boom times, in 
railroad building, but the two pigmy rivals of New 
Orleans - Natchez and Vicksburg-made at least a be- 
ginning. Before the paralysis of the panic crept over the 
South, twenty-five miles of road were built from Vicks- 
burg toward Jackson where a connection was planned 
with a road to Mobile. Natchez built valorously twenty- 
five miles up the old Natchez Trace toward Canton in 
the interior. 

In Kentucky the only road built was the Lexington 
and Ohio which was ambitious to reach Louisville, but 
in 1835 came to a halt in Frankfort. Florida by 1840 had 



TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION 185 

three railroads of which the most important was the 
Tallahassee opened to St. Marks in 1837* In Louisiana 
there were a number of roads built around New Orleans, 
of which the one to Lake Pontchartrain was probably the 
most useful. The panic of 1837 not only arrested the 
construction of roads in the South, but also suspended 
many a project which was to materialize when pros- 
perity returned. The Memphis- Charleston connection 
was one of these. The Vicksburg- Savannah was another. 
One of the most ambitious was a project for a valley 
road connecting Richmond with Chattanooga and At- 
lanta. All these projects originated in the thirties, suc- 
cumbed to the panic, and were later brought to fruition. 



A Decade of Discontent 

The period 1830-1837 had been a time of prosperity 
for the South, particularly for the cotton kingdom. Not- 
withstanding the enormous increase in cotton produc- 
tion, its price remained high enough for profit in the 
new lands, and whatever distress manifested itself in 
the less fertile eastern states could generally be appeased 
with the panacea of migration to the west. It had been 
a period, also, of relative peace and quiet in which 
nullification, Indian removal, and sectional conflicts 
took their places as mere eddies in the huge current 
of content These halcyon days came to an abrupt end 
with the panic of 1837. 

As far as the South was concerned the panic was a 
species of foreign manufactured goods imported into 
the United States. Hard times in England made it 
necessary for English banks to withdraw from their 
correspondent banks in New Orleans the funds ordi- 
narily used for marketing the cotton crop. The failure 
of the New Orleans banks dragged down the feebly 
constructed banking systems of Louisiana and Missis- 
sippi, and the epidemic of failures ran through the 
South. The scores of new banks in the South created 
during the migration failed when the declining price 
of farm products made it impossible for the farmers 
to repay their loans. After the fall of the National Bank 
had removed all effective restraint on note issues, the 
Southwest, like the Northwest, had indulged ift an orgy 
of wildcat banking in which the quantity of bank notes 



i88 



THE OLD SOUTH 



issued had quite generally no discoverable relation to 
the reserves. Jackson's specie circular had the same ef- 
fect on bank credit in the South as in other sections, 
while the withdrawal of public funds from the fifteen 
"pet banks" to meet the installments of surplus distri- 
bution to the states facilitated the descent into ruin. 
Thanks to better banking regulations and to a banking 
practice based on reality rather than hope, the Atlantic 
states fared much better than did the newer states. The 
Virginia and South Carolina banks, particularly, weath- 
ered the panic without losses. 

As hard times made their appearance in the wake of 
the panic, taxes ceased to be paid, public revenues dwin- 
dled and disappeared, and the credit of the states them- 
selves was shaken. Delaware, Georgia, and North Caro- 
lina had no public debt, but the other Southern states 
were staggering under a burden of obligations which 
aggregated $75,000,000. These debts had been accumu- 
lated by the lending of state credit to banks, and by works 
of internal improvement such as roads, canals, and rail- 
roads. The following table shows the debts of the South- 
ern states in 1838, and the way they were incurred: 41 

STATES BANKS 
Alabama 7,800,000 
Arkansas 3,000,000 
Kentucky 2,000,000 
Louisiana 22,950,000 
Maryland 

Mississippi 7,000,000 
Missouri 2,500,000 
So. Carolina 
Tennessee 3,000,000 
Virginia 

Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and South Carolina 
each had a state bank owned, financed, and managed 

41 E. L. Bogart, Economic History of the United States, 214. 



CANALS 


RAILROADS 


ROADS 


Misa 


TOTAL 




3,000,000 






10,800,000 










3,000,000 


2,619,000 


350,000 


2,400,000 




7,369,000 


50,000 


50,000 




235,000 


23,285,000 


5,700,000 


5,500,000 




292,980 


11,492,980 










7,000,000 










2,500,000 


1,550,000 


2,000,000 




2,203,770 


5,753,770 


300,000 


3,730,000 


118,166 




7,148,166 


3,*35,35o 


2,128,900 


354,800 


343,139 


6,662,189 



A DECADE OF DISCONTENT 189 

by the state; the other states of the South had taken 
stock in private banks, raising the money by the sale 
of state bonds. The failure of many of these banks in 
the panic period deprived the state treasuries of the 
dividends on which they relied to meet the bond interest- 
Louisiana and Maryland defaulted on their payments 
and Mississippi avoided a default by the novel device 
of repudiation. When Florida became a state in 1845 
it repudiated bonds, to the amount of $3,000,000, which 
it had issued to its Union Bank. 42 

Bank failures in the South increased from 1837 to 
1841, the greatest number coming in the latter year. The 
South yielded to the panic slowly, due to the fact that 
cotton prices kept up for several years. There was a 
sudden drop in 1837 from fifteen cents to ten, followed 
by a quick recovery, and then a gradual decline to six 
cents in 1843, the lowest price in ante-bellum history. 
At that price its production was unprofitable even on 
the most fertile land, and the cotton growers faced ruin. 
During the decade 1837-1847 they were the most dis- 
contented class in the United States. 

The farmers of the upper South suffered less than 
those of the lower South in the panic for the double 
reason that they had not been so prosperous in the boom 
times and that they had a more diversified agriculture. 
Tobacco had been struggling for existence for a gen- 
eration. 48 Its exportation had been hurt by the trade 
restriction of the Napoleonic period and had practically 
ceased during the War of 1812. At this time tidewater 
Virginia and Maryland ceased to be tobacco-growing 
communities. After the war the industry enjoyed a few 

42 R. C. McGrane, "Some Aspects of American State Debts in tlie Forties/' 
in American Historical Review, vol. xxxvnr, 673-687. 

* 8 Gray and Thompson, History of Agriculture in ike Southern States to 
1860, vol. n, chapter xxxii. 



190 THE OLD SOUTH 

years of prosperity until the panic of 1819 started it 
on a decline from which it began to recover only in 
1834. The panic of 1837 again plunged it into the abyss 
which tobacco growers had come to think was its normal 
condition. High duties in England, a tobacco monopoly 
in France, and the competition of tobacco grown in 
Germany, Austria, France, and Russia discouraged im- 
portation and the development of domestic manufac- 
tures in Lynchburg, Petersburg, and Richmond was 
not rapid enough to consume the excess crop. From 
1819 to 1834 the farmer sold his tobacco for less than 
four cents a pound. 

By 1837 tobacco production in the east had become 
concentrated in a tier of Piedmont counties extending 
southwest from Chesapeake Bay in Maryland to the 
vicinity of Raleigh in North Carolina. It had disap- 
peared from Georgia and South Carolina, from the 
tidewater of Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, 
and from the valley. Its abandonment in the tidewater 
had been the result of low prices, soil exhaustion, and 
the increased cost of labor due to the demand of the 
cotton kingdom for slaves. The domestic slave trade 
grew not only because of the demand for slaves in the 
cotton fields but also because the tidewater planter could 
find no adequate substitute for tobacco on which to 
employ his labor supply. In 1837 the discontent of the 
old tobacco region of the tidewater was less poignant 
than that of the cotton kingdom only because it had 
become a routine. 

In the newer tobacco states the area of production had 
expanded as it had contracted in the old. From the old 
production districts of middle Tennessee and central 
Kentucky tobacco had expanded in western Kentucky, 
into the Missouri Valley of Missouri and into south- 
eastern Ohio. The Ohio tobacco was marketed through 



A DECADE OF DISCONTENT 191 

Baltimore, but that of the other sections was shipped 
to New Orleans after being collected at Louisville, Hop- 
kinsville, and Henderson in Kentucky, Clarksville in 
Tennessee, and St. Louis in Missouri. In 1837 Virginia 
was the leading tobacco growing state, followed in order 
by Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland, North Carolina, 
Missouri, and Ohio. 

In the newer states tobacco had its place as one ele- 
ment of general farming, and as its price fell, the farmer 
tended more and more to stress other farm features. 
Hemp largely displaced tobacco as a staple in central 
Kentucky and middle Tennessee from 1819 to 1834. 
It was protected from foreign competition by the tariff, 
and from domestic competition by the superior fertility 
of these regions. Practically the entire production was 
sold to the cotton states in the form of cordage and 
cloth for baling. The bluegrass regions also offset the 
decline in tobacco prices by the raising of live stock 
which they drove overland or shipped down the Mis- 
sissippi to the lower South. Missouri had almost a mo- 
nopoly of the mule trade, Kentucky of the trade in 
"saddle" horses. From Kentucky every year great droves 
of cattle and hogs were driven South, either by the old 
Wilderness Road through Cumberland Gap or over 
the Louisville-Nashville Pike. The trade flourished be- 
cause the lower South had so concentrated on growing 
cotton that it produced neither its work animals nor 
its food. 

But the cotton grower had no substitute to which he 
could turn when the price of cotton fell. As a matter of 
fact, his discontent was due not merely to low prices 
but also to the cost of marketing. The planter, as a rule, 
sent his cotton directly to a factor in the port city of his 
neighborhood or to his local agent; the farmer almost 
invariably sold to the local merchant in payment for 



192 THE OLD SOUTH 

merchandise, quite commonly already consumed. In 
either case the proceeds came back from the factors in 
the form of drafts on New York or London. The ex- 
porting factors were generally agents for Northern or 
English firms. Their drafts drawn for sixty or ninety 
days could be turned into ready money by the cotton 
grower only by discounting them at his local bank, which 
in turn forwarded them to New York for collection or 
sale. The rate of discount would depend not only on the 
time element but also on the rate of exchange in New 
York. The planter lost the amount of the discount, and 
the sum he received for his crop was always consid- 
erably less than the amount for which he sold it. 44 He 
was to an extent dependent on New York for his income 
and in a period of economic distress he found the de- 
pendence irksome. 

There were other methods by which the profits from 
the cotton crop found their way into Northern pockets. 
Since two-thirds of the cotton crop went to England, 
the freight charges on its transportation across the sea 
amounted to a large sum. Although the river boats of 
the South were generally Southern owned and Southern 
built, the South had never engaged in the building or 
operating of ocean-going ships, principally because 
capital could be more profitably employed in agricul- 
ture. Most of the cotton sold was carried on coastwise 
ships to New York, and the great part of it transshipped 
from that place to England, All the coastwise ships and 
most of the ocean-going shipping was Northern owned 
and consequently the freight charges went into Northern 
pockets. In 1843 this amounted to nearly a million dol- 
lars. In addition the insurance costs while the cotton was 
in transit were generally paid to Northern firms. 

44 A. H. Stone, "The Cotton Factorage System of the Southern States/' in 
American Historical Review, vol. XX, 557. 



A DECADE OF DISCONTENT 193 

Not only did the cotton growers pay "tribute" to the 
North through their exports, but through their imports 
as well. The imports into the South came through North- 
ern ports; the exports of the South amounted to two- 
thirds the total of the United States but her direct im- 
ports were less than one-tenth. The freight charges to 
New York and Boston, the tariff duties, and the cost 
of transportation on coastwise vessels to the South all 
added to the cost of merchandise. There is no method 
of determining what proportion of the goods imported 
into the North was for Southern consumption; the 
Southern estimate of the whole was probably too high. 
Nor is it possible to estimate what proportion of the 
manufactured articles used in the South was made in 
the North. 

In the hard times of the forties, Southern economists 
were prone to find the explanation for their distress in 
the "tribute" paid to the North. They came to believe 
that the economic progress of the North depended on 
this "tribute," and epitomized their opinion in the phrase 
"Southern wealth and Northern profits." They pictured 
the South as a downtrodden region whose huge profits 
had a habit of slipping through its fingers and flowing 
North through consumption of Northern goods, tariffs, 
costs of cotton marketing, and the unequal operation of 
the federal government. An orator at Tuscaloosa in 
1851 delivered his soul as follows: 

At present the North fattens and grows rich upon the South. We 
purchase all our luxuries and necessaries from the North. . , With 
us, every branch and pursuit in life, every trade, profession, and occu- 
pation is dependent upon the North; for instance, the Northerners 
abuse and denounce slavery and slaveholders, yet our slaves are clothed 
with Northern manufactured goods, have Northern hats and shoes, 
work with Northern hoes, ploughs, and other implements, are chas- 
tised with a Northern made instrument, are working for Northern 
more than Southern profit. The slaveholder dresses in Northern goods, 



194 THE OLD SOUTH 

rides In a Northern saddle, . . . sports his Northern carriage, patro- 
nizes Northern newspapers, drinks Northern liquors, reads Northern 
books, spends his money at Northern watering-places. . . The ag- 
gressive acts upon his rights and his property arouse his resentment 
and on Northern paper, with a Northern pen, with Northern ink 
he resolves and re-resolves in regard to his rights! In Northern vessels 
his products are carried to market, his cotton is ginned with Northern 
gins, his sugar is crushed and preserved by Northern machinery; his 
rivers are navigated by Northern steamboats, his mails are carried 
in Northern stages, his negroes are fed with Northern bacon, beef, 
flour, and corn; his land is cleared with a Northern axe, and a Yankee 
dock sits upon his mantlepiece; his floor is swept with a Northern 
broom, and is covered with a Northern carpet ; and his wife dresses 
herself in a Northern looking-glass; ... his son is educated at a 
Northern college, his daughter receives the finishing polish at a North- 
ern seminary; his doctor graduates at a Northern medical college, 
his schools are supplied with Northern teachers, and he is furnished 
with Northern inventions and notions. 45 

By the phrase "operation of the federal government 1 ' 
the South meant bounties to New England fisheries, 
internal improvements in the North such as harbors, 
roads, canals, and public buildings, tariff duties, and 
deposits of government funds. The total amount thus 
spent the Southern people estimated at $232,000,000 a 
year. 46 

Bounties to fisheries $ 1,500,000 

Customs disbursed at North 40,000,000 

Profits of manufacturers 30,000,000 

Profits of importers 16,000,000 

Profits of shipping 40,000,000 

Profits of teachers and others 5,000,000 

Profits on travellers 60,000,000 

Profits of commissions 10,000,000 

Capital from South 30,000,000 



* 5 R, R. Russell, Economic Aspects of Southern Sectionalism, pt. I, 48. 
. P. Kettell, Southern Wealth and Northern Profits, 127. 



A DECADE OF DISCONTENT 195 

The irritation felt by the Southern leaders over the 
"tribute" paid to the North was intensified by the growth 
of the abolition movement there. Prior to 183 1 the South 
had shown tolerance and even sympathy for the con- 
servative emancipation program put forth by such men 
as Benjamin Lundy and J. G. Birney and to the project 
for colonizing Liberia. But with the founding of the 
Liberator by William Lloyd Garrison the abolitionists 
seemed less concerned with helping the slaves than with 
harming their masters. The Garrison editorial which 
declared u We do not acknowledge them to be within the 
pale of Christianity, of Republicanism or humanity" 
certainly did little to promote intersectional good-will 
and cooperation. The Southern leaders attempted vainly 
to debar incendiary literature from the mails and suc- 
ceeded in 1836 in obtaining a rule by congress against 
the further reception by that body of petitions against 
slavery. Ordinarily Southern men treated the abolition 
movement with contempt, realizing that the great mass 
of Northern people were either hostile or indifferent 
toward it But in the irritable years following the panic, 
the movement appeared more portentous. The ministra- 
tions of the "Underground Railway" over which slaves 
were encouraged to make one-way trips to the North 
were also exasperating, although the total number of 
fugitives was small, and practically all from the tobacco 
states. The South was disposed to believe that the Turner 
rebellion in Virginia in 1831 was a result of the abolition 
crusade. The consequence was that the Southern states 
generally restricted the privileges of free negroes and 
made more stringent regulations for the slaves. 

Abolition affected church unity. In 1845 as a result 
of the action of the general conference in suspending 



196 THE OLD SOUTH 

Bishop Andrew because he held slaves, the Methodist 
Episcopal Church divided and the M.E. Church, South, 
was formed. In the same year the Baptist Church split 
into a Northern and Southern wing. That the division 
was popular in the South is shown by the fact that each 
of these two new denominations doubled its member- 
ship in the next fifteen years. 

It was to be expected, of course, that out of this welter 
of discontent there should emerge a host of remedies and 
panaceas for Southern ills. Among the proposed pana- 
ceas of an economic nature, the most prominent were 
those of direct trade with Europe, of manufacturing, 
and of agricultural reform. Direct trade with Europe 
meant the building of ships in the South to ply between 
Southern and European ports. The arguments in its 
favor were that it would not only take exports directly 
to Europe from the South but it would also bring in 
imports directly and thus leave in Southern hands the 
freight rates, the money the merchant usually spent on 
going to New York for his supplies, commissions, ex- 
change rates, coastwise transportation, and various other 
items. To develop a movement for direct trade com- 
mercial conventions were held in Augusta (1837 and 
1838), in Charleston (1839), in Richmond (1838), and 
in Norfolk (1839). In the nature of things it was the 
Atlantic states that were most interested in direct trade, 
and the delegates to the conventions came chiefly from 
them. They included in their number the most promi- 
nent men of the South. The conventions recommended 
better banking laws so that capital could be procured 
for shipbuilding, that the states should promote by sub- 
sidies the building and operation of ships, and that laws 
should be made legalizing the formation of corpora- 
tions. The commercial conventions were held before 



A DECADE OF DISCONTENT 197 

the full force of the panic struck the South; in the in- 
creased economic distress after 1840 the agitation for 
direct trade met little encouragement. 

It was inevitable that a fall in the price of cotton 
should inspire in the South a movement for manufac- 
turing. The leading advocate of this idea was William 
Gregg who in 1 844 summed up the arguments for man- 
ufacturing in the South in his Essays on Domestic In- 
dustry which was widely read throughout the South. 
Gregg spoke from experience gained as a manufacturer 
at Graniteville, South Carolina. 47 Manufacturing, he 
claimed, would make it cheaper for the planter to mar- 
ket his cotton and to buy his manufactured goods. It 
would keep at home for Southern development the 
money that had been flowing North for manufactured 
goods. It would give employment to the poor whites 
of the South, and to the slaves who could not be used 
profitably on the plantation. It would promote immi- 
gration and thus, increasing Southern population, would 
restore the numerical equilibrium between the two sec- 
tions. The agitation for manufacturing had better re- 
sults than did that for direct trade. Southern manufac- 
tured products amounted to $2,000,000 in 1840 -ten 
years later their value was three times this figure. 

Agricultural reform, like direct trade and manufac- 
turing, was intensified rather than caused by hard times. 
Also like the other two it concerned chiefly the Atlantic 
states. By 1837 a very great portion of Maryland, Vir- 
ginia, and North Carolina east of the Blue Ridge was 
abandoned land where the soil had been filched of all 
fertility by successive crops of tobacco and now was 
given over to sedge grass and cedars. 48 Some attempt 

* T Broadps Mitchell, William Gregg, Factory Master of the Old South, 4.9-75. 
* 8 A very Craven, Soil Exhaustion as a Factor in the Agricultural History 
of Virginia and Maryland, 122-161. 



198 THE OLD SOUTH 

had been made to change to wheat culture, but the soil 
was too exhausted even for wheat. The tidewater was 
thoroughly spent, and the Piedmont was failing fast. 
John Taylor of Caroline in 1812 had, in his Arator, 
urged the use of vegetable manures. Plaster and clover 
had been introduced from Pennsylvania, but little im- 
provement was discernible until in 1832 Edmund Ruifin 
published An Essay on Calcareous Manures embodying 
the results of many years experimentation on his James 
river plantation. Ruffin recommended the use of marl 
as manure. The hard times following the panic gave 
point to his urging and the farmers of the east slowly 
took up the new agriculture and gradually brought their 
dead land to life. By 1860 the tidewater and Piedmont 
were almost wholly restored and ranked as the most 
fertile part of the South. Ruffin spread the gospel of 
mineral fertilization throughout the South by his Farm- 
er's Register which he began editing in 1833. Early in 
the forties the first cargo of guano came to Baltimore 
and commercial fertilizers were popular with Southern 
farmers for the next decade. The panic of 1837 was 
followed by a great increase in the number of agricul- 
tural societies and fairs, all of which deserve great credit 
for their intentions and social practices* 

In time the South turned to politics for redress of its 
wrongs, and here it had a better measure of success. It 
renewed its war on the tariff which had been increased 
in 1842 in the hope of reviving a treasury undernour- 
ished since the panic, and in 1846 with a Southern presi- 
dent and a Southern secretary of treasury, it forced 
through congress the Walker tariff which was so low as 
to be practically for revenue only. Southern votes in 
congress upheld the Tyler vetoes which prevented the 
reestablishraent of a national bank. In 1846 congress 



A DECADE OF DISCONTENT 199 

adopted the warehousing plan of the Southern leaders 
by which imported merchandise need not pay duties 
until sold, and not at all if reexported. 

But there was arising in the South a class of people 
who thought that economic and political measures were 
not sufficient to put the South on a par with the North. 
It was their belief that the only way the South could rid 
itself of subservience to the North was by leaving the 
Union. These were the secessionists per se. They were 
the counterpart of the abolitionists at the North whom 
they resembled in fewness of numbers, virulence of 
declamation, and lack of influence. They were most 
numerous in South Carolina where James Henry Ham- 
mond and Robert Barnwell Rhett were the leaders. 
William L. Yancey in Alabama and John A. Quitman 
in Mississippi were rising to fame. In 1842 Rhett ini*- 
tiated the "Bluffton movement" for secession in South 
Carolina as an answer to the tariff and Texas policy of 
the North, 49 



49 C. S* Boucher, "The Annexation of Texas and the Bluffton Movement in 
South Carolina," in Mississippi Valley Historical Remew, vol. vn, 3. 



The Southern Movement, 1848-1851 

The beginning of Southern migration to Texas came 
so closely on the heels of the Missouri Compromise that 
careless or prejudiced observers have been inclined to 
see between the two events the relation of cause and ef- 
fect. The slaveocracy had the fell design of compensating 
itself for the loss of the northern purchase by promoting 
an emigration to Texas which should colonize, revolt, 
and join the Union as a slave state. This particular myth 
has died hard, but it has died. The movement of South- 
ern people into Texas was, indeed, a promoted move- 
ment, but the promoters were not Southern politicians; 
they were land speculators. Stephen F. Austin and his 
fellow empresarios were in direct line of succession to 
Richard Henderson, William Blount, and the Yazoo 
companies. Both North and South, the land speculator 
was the entrepreneur of the westward movement 

That Southern people, rather than Northern, were 
attracted to Texas by the liberal land and immigration 
policies of the Mexican government may be ascribed 
less to foresight or depravity than to proximity. The 
plantation owners of the South were discouraged from 
migration by the hostile attitude of the Mexican gov- 
ernment toward slavery, and Texas in consequence ex- 
erted its attractions chiefly for the poor farmer whose 
lack of possessions made him impervious to damage 
through attacks on his property. 50 Although hard titties 
after 1819 and the abolition of credit in land sales by the 

50 E. C, Barker, "Influence of Slavery on the Colonization of Texas," in 
Mississippi F alley Historical Review, vol. xi, 3. 



202 THE OLD SOUTH 

United States gave a certain impetus to the movement 
to Texas, the "Texas fever" never attained any such 
high temperatures as did the Great Migration and the 
Jacksonian migration. In 1836 the twenty thousand 
Americans in Texas were settled in the eastern part of 
the state where the forests screened them from the at- 
tentions, invariably unwelcome, of the Indians of the 
plains. 

The high indignation which brought about the Ameri- 
can revolt of 1 836 was not the result of any attacks, pres- 
ent or prospective, on the institution of slavery, for the 
Mexican policy in that respect had been long foreseen 
and discounted. Slave owners neither originated the 
revolt nor guided it. Neither his residence among the 
Cherokee nor his intimacy with Jackson qualified Sam 
Houston for heading a cause of the planter aristocracy* 
But the revolution once accomplished, it was not un- 
natural that Southern leaders in the United States should 
let their thoughts dwell fondly on the added strength 
an annexed Texas would furnish in their warfare against 
the twin Northern abominations of tariff and abolition. 
Southern sentiment, however, was by no means unani-* 
mous; every Southern Whig senator except one voted 
against the treaty of annexation in 1844 an( ^ on ^J three 
Whig senators and eight Whig representatives sup- 
ported the joint resolution of 1845 which finally brought 
Texas into the Union. That the opposition of the Whig 
congressmen reflected public opinion in the South and 
not merely their personal hostility to Tyler is indicated 
by the vote for president in 1844 when five of the thir- 
teen Southern states cast their electoral vote for Clay 
who opposed annexation. The entire group of cotton 
states with the addition of Virginia and Missouri voted 
for Polk and "reannexation." 

Southern orators were accustomed to call the Mexican 



THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT, 1848-1851 203 

War which followed the annexation of Texas a Southern 
war; the South, they said, furnished two-thirds of the 
money, three-fourths of the men, and four-fifths of the 
graves. But as a matter of fact the Whig leaders of the 
South quite generally opposed both the war itself and 
the acquisition of territory which resulted from it. 51 
Part of this attitude was due to Whig inability to detect 
virtue in a Democratic war, but chiefly it was because 
an acquisition of territory would mean an increase in 
the price of slaves and a decrease in the price of cotton. 
It is quite evident that the expansion of slave territory 
was not the work of the Whigs who owned the slaves 
but of the Democrats who did not. Both parties at the 
South made common cause against the Wilmot Proviso 
deeming it not only a blow against slavery but an attack 
on the South, 

The introduction of the Wilmot Proviso represented 
nothing more significant than the attempt of a Pennsyl- 
vania representative to regain from his constituents the 
approval he had forfeited by his unthinking support of 
the Walker tariff. 52 The enthusiasm it aroused among 
Northern congressmen was due partly to resentment 
against a Southern president for his veto of the Rivers 
and Harbors Act, and for his failure to "reoccupy" 
Oregon; partly it was due to the demand of the manu- 
facturers that no more Southern states be prepared for 
later fight on the tariff. Both North and South took it 
for granted in 1846 that Southern territory would neces- 
sarily be slave territory unless preventative measures 
were taken, and that no territory would be Southern in 
sympathy if slavery were forbidden in it. 

With the admission of Texas and Florida in 1845 the 

5* A. C. Cole, The Whig Party of the South, 118-123. 
52 R* R. Steaberg, "Motivation of the Wilmot Proviso," inMwistippi Valley 
Historical Review, vol. xvra, 535. 



2O4 



THE OLD SOUTH 



South had attained, its full strength of fifteen states; 
eight of the fifteen voted for Taylor in 1848 in the ex- 
pectation that he would, as a Southern man, use his veto 
if necessary to prevent any form of a Wilmot Proviso 
in the Mexican cession. By the time Taylor met his first 
congress in the fall of 1849 a gold rush had supplied 
California with a population whose origin so far offset 
its impermanency as to result in the making of a free 
state, Texas was involved in a dispute with the United 
States over its western boundary which the Texans with 
some show of logic insisted was the same Rio Grande 
the United States had accepted in admitting them and 
had maintained against Mexico in war. When Taylor 
recommended the admission of California as a free 
state, Democratic leaders were prevented by their own 
state rights principles from effective opposition, but 
the idea of a Wilmot Proviso spread over a territory of 
New Mexico enlarged by the confiscation of western 
Texas moved them to thoughts of resistance. 

The legislatures of the Democratic states gave formal 
warning of their intentions. Virginia in March, 1847, 
had adopted resolutions to the effect that she would 
resist the proviso at all hazards and to the last extremity, 
and in January, 1849, provided for a special meeting 
of the legislature if the Wilmot Proviso were adopted. 
Georgia in February, 1850, provided for the calling of 
a state convention in case congress adopted the proviso, 
abolished slavery in the District of Columbia, admitted 
California as a free state, or if the Northern states per- 
sisted in violating the fugitive slave law. South Carolina 
(December, 1848) and Missouri (March, 1849) de- 
clared themselves ready to cooperate with other South- 
ern states. Florida (January, 1849) suggested coopera- 
tion of the Southern states through a Southern conven- 



THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT, 1848-1851 205 

tion. North Carolina (January, 1849) recommended 
extending the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific. 

The idea of a Southern convention to provide for a 
concerted resistance to the perils threatening the South 
had been sponsored, if not originated, by Southern con- 
gressmen in Washington. At the instance of Senators 
Foote of Mississippi, Hunter of Virginia, and Calhoun 
of South Carolina a caucus of 69 Southern congressmen 
was held in the senate chamber, December, 1848, for 
the purpose of considering plans to avert danger to the 
South. A committee of fifteen was appointed to prepare 
an address, and this delegated the task to a sub-com- 
mittee of five. Calhoun wrote the "Address to the People 
of the Southern States" which the caucus adopted Janu- 
ary 22, 1849, an d sent to the newspapers of the South 
for publication. Only 48 Southern congressmen signed 
the address and only two of these were Whigs (Mis- 
sissippi). The address, after setting forth the attitude 
of the North, urged that Southern people forget their 
political animosities and unite in one party for defense 
of the South. The purpose of the address was primarily 
to promote a Southern party to include all Southern 
people; it was for this reason that the Whigs opposed 
it, for the program of the proposed party would be a 
Democratic program, and the Whigs had no intention 
of losing their identity in any such way. Four Demo- 
crats refused to sign the address and issued one of their 
own. Senator Berrien of Georgia also issued an address. 

Although the address issued no call for a Southern 
convention, it had its part in promoting it. Apparently 
influenced by the address, a meeting in Jackson, Mis- 
sissippi, May 7, 1849, issued a call for a state convention 
to meet in October to consider the relations of the North 
and South. The proceedings of this May meeting were 



206 THE OLD SOUTH 

sent to Calhoun, who suggested that the October meeting 
issue a call for a general Southern convention, Calhoun 
was reluctant that the call for a Southern convention 
should come from South Carolina because he fully re- 
alized the distrust of South Carolina felt by the other 
Southern states because of her radical and intemperate 
policies. The Mississippi state convention was com- 
posed of both Democrats and Whigs and its chairman 
was the Whig chief justice, William L. Sharkey, The 
Whigs of Mississippi were more inclined to resistance 
than were the Whigs in the other Southern states ; the 
two Whig congressmen from Mississippi were the only 
Whigs to sign the address. The convention summed up 
its work in a series of resolutions one of which was a 
call for a general Southern convention to meet at Nash- 
ville, Tennessee, the first Monday in June, 1850, "to 
devise and adopt some mode of resistance to these ag- 
gressions." The convention declared that this call con- 
stituted Mississippi's response to the Southern address. 
In another resolution the convention recommended that 
if congress passed the proviso, or prohibited inter-state 
slave trade, or abolished slavery in the District of Co- 
lumbia, the legislature should authorize the governor 
to call a state convention "to consider the mode and 
measure of redress." 

When the call went out it met with general opposition 
from the Whig leaders in all the Southern states. It was, 
of course, not to be expected that they would join the 
Democrats in opposition to a Whig president they had 
just elected. When Taylor recommended the admission" 
of California as a free state they professed to see in it 
nothing more than an endorsement of the state rights 
theory for which the South had battled in the Missouri 
Compromise. Even when it became evident that Taylor 



THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT, 1848-1851 207 

would not veto a proviso for New Mexico, most of them 
remained acquiescent, justifying their attitude by declar- 
ing that slavery could never exist in New Mexico any- 
way, and even if it could it would be better for the South 
not to have any more western competition for slaves and 
in cotton production. It was not resistance the Whigs 
wanted, but compromise, and so thoroughly convinced 
were they of Southern weakness that they were disposed 
to accept practically any terms the North dictated so 
long as it was called a compromise* The Whigs prophe- 
sied that Southern unity would call forth a Northern 
unity and thus render impossible that securing of aid 
from their Northern friends which was the only hope 
of success for the South. A Southern movement, they 
declared, was a step toward secession and to secession the 
Whigs were unalterably opposed. 

None of the Whig states of the South sent delegates 
to the Nashville convention except Tennessee, and in 
that state the delegates were chosen unofficially in county 
meetings after the Whig senate had rejected the resolu- 
tion of the Democratic house that the governor appoint. 
In Mississippi the delegates were chosen by the legisla- 
ture, absent-mindedly perhaps, since a set had been 
named by the October convention, Alabama, South Car- 
olina, Texas, and Georgia elected their delegates by 
popular vote. The Virginia delegates were chosen by a 
state convention, and in Florida the governor, by author- 
ity of the legislature, appointed. On the whole the mass 
of Southern people appeared indifferent. 53 The effects 
of the panic had worn away, and under the stimulation 
of prosperity people had little patience with constitu- 
tional theories or economic abstractions. The elections 



Newberry, 'The Nashville Convention and Southern Sentiment 
of 1850," in South Atlantic Quarterly, vol. n, 259-273. 



2o8 THE OLD SOUTH 

for delegates called out a very small vote and many of 
the delegates chosen did not take the trouble to attend. 
The death of John C. Calhoun in April removed the 
most potent advocate of the movement Responding to 
the urgings of Webster and others, Northern congress- 
men were showing symptoms of compromise and the 
South was disposed to defer meeting its dangers until it 
could be certain that the dangers existed. 

The convention met June 3, 1850, in a Nashville that 
felt none too flattered by its selection as hostess. There 
were 179 delegates in attendance of whom 102 were from 
Tennessee; Virginia sent 6, South Carolina 17, Georgia 
12, Mississippi n, Texas i, Alabama 21, Arkansas 2, 
and Florida 6. The average of ability in the convention 
was, perhaps, not lowered by the enforced absence of 
the Southern senators and representatives. Governor 
Matthews and Chief Justice Sharkey headed the Mis- 
sissippi delegation. Ex-Governor Roane was a delegate 
from Arkansas, ex-Governor McDonald from Georgia, 
Governor Henderson from Texas. Beverly Tucker, au- 
thor of The Partisan Leader, was a delegate from Vir- 
ginia and John A. Campbell, later an associate justice 
of the supreme court of the United States, was a delegate 
from Alabama. The most distinguished delegation was 
from South Carolina, including the venerable Langdon 
Cheves, ex-Governor Hammond, and Robert Barnwell 
Rhett The Carolinians, quite aware of the distrust of 
their state in the South, kept in the background and took 
little public part in the deliberations. 

The convention organized by electing Chief Justice 
Sharkey president and Governor McDonald vice-presi- 
dent After adopting the customary plan for each state 
to have an equal vote, a committee on resolutions, of two 
from each state, was selected to which all resolutions 



THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT, 1848-1851 209 

presented in the convention should be referred. While 
the committee gave its attention to the resolution so re- 
ferred to it, the convention listened to speeches by the 
delegates. On the 8th the committee through its chair- 
man, Gordon of Virginia, submitted its report consist- 
ing of thirteen resolutions, and an address of which 
Rhett was supposed to be the author. There was a minor- 
ity report by four members of the committee. The reso- 
lutions of the committee were adopted by a unanimous 
vote by states and the address slightly amended at the 
instance of General Pillow of Tennessee. Several mem- 
bers of the convention, including the president, had their 
names recorded as opposing the address. The resolutions 
were to the effect that the Wilmot Proviso was unconsti- 
tutional and that the states all had equal rights in the 
territories. The eleventh resolution declared that the 
extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the Pa- 
cific was the utmost concession the South would make. 
The address declared that Clay's compromise measures 
were unacceptable to the South and should be resisted. 
The convention adjourned on the I2th after adopting 
a resolution that it would meet again on the call of Judge 
Sharkey on the sixth Monday after the adjournment of 
congress. It had been a dignified gathering and its de- 
liberations much more conservative than had been gen- 
erally anticipated. Southern Whigs, however, charged 
that the convention in naming the Missouri Compromise 
line as its limit of concession was deliberately trying to 
bring about disunion by making impracticable terms. 
The adoption of the compromise measure by congress 
at once forced the South to make its choice, and both 
Democrats and Whigs prepared for the contest. The 
result showed that the excitement had been limited to 
the politicians and that the great mass of Southern peo- 



2io THE OLD SOUTH 

pie had remained unconcerned. Governor Towns of 
Georgia called the state convention which the legislature 
had authorized if California were admitted as a free 
state, but the election resulted in the choice of an over- 
whelming majority of compromise men. It adopted reso- 
lutions accepting the compromise while declaring that 
it would resist even to secession if slavery were abolished 
In the District of Columbia, or a slave state denied ad- 
mission to the Union or any change made in the fugitive 
slave law or in the status of slavery in Utah and New 
Mexico. 

In Mississippi Governor Quitman called a special 
session of the legislature in November and sent a message 
urging secession and the forming of a Southern Con- 
federacy. The legislature called a state convention, but 
the compromise men controlled it overwhelmingly and 
adopted resolutions favoring the compromise, condemn- 
ing the calling of a convention, and denying the right 
of secession. Senator Foote, one of the originators of the 
Southern movement but now a convert to the compro- 
mise, was elected governor by a bare majority over 
Jefferson Davis. Davis had taken the place on the Demo- 
cratic ticket left vacant when Quitman resigned his 
candidacy on finding his policies repudiated by the state 
convention. 

In Alabama Governor Collier refused to call a special 
session of the legislature and in the following elections 
the compromise forces captured both branches of the 
legislature. The legislature of Virginia passed resolu- 
tions acquiescing in the compromise, while the legisla- 
ture of North Carolina with strict impartiality refused 
either to approve the compromise or the doctrine of se- 
cession. In the Whig states of Kentucky, Tennessee, and 
Louisiana the compromise was so popular that the Dem- 



THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT, 1848-1851 211 

ocrats made no issue of its acceptance. In Florida the 
compromise advocates controlled the state and showed 
their control by defeating Senator Yulee for reelection. 
In Missouri the Whigs elected their first senator in the 
history of the state, the achievement being due, however, 
not so much to Whig advocacy of the compromise as to 
internecine strife in the Democratic party. 

In South Carolina there was no prospect of endorsing 
the compromise ; the only choice was between immediate 
secession and secession in cooperation with the other 
Southern states. The little handful of Whigs joined 
hands with the conservative Democrats in promoting 
the cooperative movement with the result that they 
secured a majority of the state convention. Since it was 
impossible to cooperate with states which would not 
operate, the state convention decided to forego secession 
while affirming both its right and desire to secede. 

Since South Carolina had deferred action as long as 
possible in hope of a turn of the compromise tide, her 
state convention was the last of the Southern state con- 
ventions to meet. Meanwhile the Nashville convention 
had reassembled, almost overlooked by the South in 
its preoccupation with other things. Judge Sharkey did 
not send out a call for the meeting but the members of 
the convention dispensed with this formality and made 
their way to Nashville at the appointed time. The fifteen 
Whig members and most of the conservative Democrats 
remained away, contending that the Southern people 
were satisfied with the compromise and that a further 
meeting of the convention was unnecessary. Only seven 
states were represented since the delegations of Arkansas 
and Texas did not return. The fifty delegates in attend- 
ance were chiefly radical secessionists except the four- 
teen from Tennessee and a few from Mississippi, Ala- 



212 THE OLD SOUTH 

bama, and Florida who attended for the purpose of 
checking any disunion movement that might material- 
ize. The convention met November 1 i, 1850, with vice- 
president McDonald presiding in the absence of Judge 
Sharkey. The sessions continued for seven days and were 
largely devoted to the delivery of fiery speeches of which 
that by Langdon Cheves was the most notable. The con- 
vention adjourned on the i8th after adopting resolutions 
assejting the right of secession and recommending that 
the Southern states should not take part in the presiden- 
tial conventions of either political party "until the con- 
stitutional rights of the South should be secured/' The 
Tennessee delegation entered a formal protest against 
this latter resolution and proposed one indorsing the 
compromise. They countered the rejection of this by 
holding, in Nashville on the 23rd, a huge mass meeting 
for the Union. 

The Southern movement had for its purpose the pro- 
motion of Southern unity in the face of what the South 
termed Northern aggression. When the movement was 
originated the Northern program was for free states in 
California, Utah, and New Mexico, and the abolition 
of slavery in the District of Columbia. The Southern 
movement may be credited with the result of defeating 
this program, except for California. Utah and New 
Mexico were organized not as free states but as terri- 
tories. The ultimate decision as to slavery there would 
have to come from the supreme court ; what the decision 
would be was revealed later in the Dred Scott case. 
Texas received restricted boundaries but exacted pay- 
ment for the territory surrendered. The stricter fugitive 
slave law was a concession to the South that six months 
earlier would have been thought impossible* The aboli- 
tion of slavery in the District was modified to an 



THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT, 1848-1851 213 

abolition of slave trade, and none but the most fanatic 
Southerner opposed it. Even the loss of the senate 
through the admission of California was only an appar- 
ent loss. California senators would be likely to favor a 
low tariff which even in 1850 was of greater interest in 
the South than slavery expansion was. 

In the South, as in the North, the excitement over the 
slavery question was largely an excitement of the poli- 
ticians; the people were apathetic and passive. Even 
among the politicians the talk of secession was chiefly 
rodomontade, a bluff designed to impress the North and 
to secure concessions. That it accomplished that very 
thing no one can doubt who reads the correspondence 
of contemporary leaders, North and South. The action 
of Senator Foote in originating the Southern movement 
and then opposing it after the compromise was secured 
is very enlightening. 

It was a Democratic movement which the Whigs ex- 
erted themselves first to prevent and later to check. Al- 
though they checked the disunion movement following 
the compromise, the Southern movement was respon- 
sible for the concessions in the compromise, and the 
Whigs found it difficult to meet the Democrat charge that 
Whigs had shown a disposition to subordinate Southern 
rights to party unity. The Democrats definitely estab- 
lished their position as the guardians of Southern rights, 
and Southern people were inclined to give to the Demo- 
cratic party the credit for the compromise which the 
leading Democrats opposed. The label of disloyalty to 
the South that the Democrats succeeded in fastening on 
the Whigs was to be fatal to that party. 

It must be conceded that the Southern movement in- 
creased the feeling of a Southern nationalism. Whatever 
action was proposed was a cooperative action. Not even 



214 THE OLD SOUTH 

South Carolina proposed a separate state action. Seces- 
sion was openly considered and debated and even in the 
process of rejecting it, the South became more tolerant 
of it. Perhaps the most significant result of the Southern 
movement was, not that it forced concession from the 
North, but that it promoted unity among Southern peo- 
ple. That was the end for which Calhoun designed it. 



Building the Railroads 

The failure of the alarmists in 1850 in their efforts 
to "fire the Southern heart" was perhaps principally 
due to the fact that good times had returned and the 
South was prospering. Both passions and politics had 
to wait while the Southern people revelled in the all 
but forgotten delights of making money. Impatient with 
constitutional theorizing, skeptical of future dangers, 
openly contemptuous of philosophers and prophets, the 
South threw its energies into the development of tan- 
gible, material things. There was money to be made in 
agriculture, and in the two handmaidens of agriculture, 
manufacturing and transportation. 

In 1840 the South had about 900 miles of railroads 
of which the most impressive were the Baltimore and 
Ohio up the Potomac, the combination of lines from 
Fredericksburg to Wilmington, and the roads leading 
from Charleston into upper Georgia. As the shadows of 
depression lifted the Southern promoters took up anew 
the railroad ambitions temporarily hamstrung by the 
panic. Although construction work had not entirely 
stopped during the hard times, the general revival of 
hopes and enthusiasm may be dated by the Southwestern 
convention which met at Memphis, July 4, i845- 64 Since 
it was called to promote river improvement as well as 
railroad building, delegates were present from the Mis- 
sissippi Valley states of the North as well as of the 

54 St. George L. Sioussat, "Memphis as a Gateway to the West," in Ten- 
nessee Historical Magazine, vol. 3, 77. 



216 THE OLD SOUTH 

South. Although the convention considered the Missis- 
sippi and adopted resolutions for its improvement, it 
was railroads that received the greatest attention. John 
C. Calhoun came as a delegate at large from South Caro- 
lina and was chosen president of the convention. The 
convention after several days of open meetings and 
group conferences summarized its work in twenty reso- 
lutions among which was one calling for the construc- 
tion of four east-and-west railroads to terminals at New 
Orleans, Vicksburg, Memphis, and Nashville. Others 
advocated the improvement of the Mississippi. 

The convention by its very recommendations revealed 
the divergence of interests in the South. New Orleans 
had no railroads, needed none, and wanted none. Each 
year 450 steamboats and 4000 flatboats brought to her 
the commerce of the Mississippi Valley. No effort was 
required on the part of New Orleans to secure this trade ; 
she needed only to receive it The only improvement she 
desired in transportation facilities was improvement in 
the Mississippi. In 1845 she was the largest city in the 
South, the second largest exporting city in the United 
States, and in possession of a trade that was the envy of 
all other cities, North and South. No other Southern 
city had a Mississippi to carry commerce to her; every 
Southern city envied New Orleans and was ambitious 
to secure some of her trade. From 1845, th en > railroad 
building in the South represents a conscious effort on 
the part of other cities of the South to divert the Mis- 
sissippi trade to themselves. Baltimore, Richmond, 
Charleston, Savannah, and Mobile lifted their eyes from 
local trade to the Mississippi and Ohio. They found 
allies in Memphis and Vicksburg which in the new 
course of trade would become entrepots instead of mere 
way-stations to New Orleans. 



BUILDING THE RAILROADS 217 

The desire for the Mississippi trade led to the com- 
pletion of three main east-and-west lines, all extensions 
of roads constructed before the panic. The northernmost 
of these was the Baltimore and Ohio which had been 
formed for the purpose of diverting the lake trade from 
the Erie Canal and looked to Pittsburgh as a western 
terminus. Abandoning both its aim and ambition, after 
leaving Cumberland it built to Wheeling (1853) lower 
down on the Ohio in order to secure the river trade. 
Five years later a more direct branch reached the Ohio 
near Marietta, and found itself in connection with Cin- 
cinnati and St. Louis over lines already completed. This 
entrance into the trade of the Ohio and the Mississippi 
brought to Baltimore the prosperity she desired and 
quickly made her the leading city of the South. In 1 850 
Baltimore and New Orleans were equal in population; 
in 1860 Baltimore had 212,418 people while New Or- 
leans had but 168,675. 

Much farther south a second line gradually crept 
westward toward the Mississippi, With the completion 
of the state-owned Western and Atlantic to Chattanooga 
in December, 1849, there were continuous roads from 
Charleston and Savannah to the Tennessee river. In 
making Chattanooga the terminal of the Western and 
Atlantic, Georgia was hoping that a considerable part 
of the upper Mississippi trade would be diverted up the 
Tennessee and over the Georgia roads to Savannah or 
Augusta. But in anticipation of disappointment or in 
hope of increased trade, the Georgia roads and the 
Charleston-Hamburg encouraged by liberal subscrip- 
tion a road from Chattanooga to Nashville. The com- 
pletion of this circuitous road in 1854 meant that tide 
Charleston and Savannah bid for trade had carried them 
to Nashville. But connection with the Mississippi was 



2i8 THE OLD SOUTH 

not, after all, to be made through Nashville. The Mem- 
phis and Charleston, after sinking under the panic, ac- 
quired a new charter in 1850, received aid from Tennes- 
see and various cities, bought the Tuscumbia-Decatur 
road in 1851 and in April, 1857, entered Chattanooga 
somewhat shamefacedly by utilizing the Nashville road 
east of Stevenson, Alabama. Charleston at last had her 
line to the Mississippi as Calhoun had foretold twenty- 
five years before, but the fact that New Orleans also 
invested in the road would indicate that the rival cities 
did not agree on the nature of its utility. 

The third east-and-west line, like the first two, was 
an old hope, long deferred, but finally realized. Savan- 
nah had her Memphis connection through Atlanta and 
Chattanooga, as did Charleston, but desired a line to 
the Mississippi unshared by her rival. In alliance with 
Vicksburg in the west and Montgomery in the center 
she promoted a more direct line which should reach the 
Mississippi at Vicksburg. As was the case with all the 
ante-bellum "lines," the Savannah- Vicksburg, when 
finished in 1860, consisted of several connecting roads. 
The Southwestern from Macon reached Columbus in 
1853 and there joined a branch of the Montgomery and 
West Point to Montgomery; between Montgomery and 
Vicksburg the Southern completed its road in 1860 
except for sixty miles in western Alabama which re- 
mained unbridged until the second year of the War be- 
tween the States. 

Several other east-and-west lines remained suspended 
in mid-air at the outbreak of the war. In Virginia the 
Richmond and Ohio was chartered in 1846, started con- 
struction in the fifties, and was stopped by the War be- 
tween the States near Charlottesville whose intellectual 
atmosphere did not reconcile the railroad promoters 



_ BUILDING THE RAILROADS 219 

to an entire absence of trade. In North Carolina the 
road west from Wilmington to Charlotte was designed 
rather to carry products to the long-isolated people of 
the mountains than to bring trade to the seacoast. From 
Savannah and Jacksonville twin roads started westward, 
presumably for Pensacola, but one remained incomplete 
in southwestern Georgia and the other, in dire need, 
stopped near Tallahassee. 

In addition to the primary east-and-west lines, the 
decade of 1850-1860 saw the completion of some half- 
dozen roads running north and south. Two of these were 
east of the mountains, one was a valley road, and three 
were west of the mountains. The Fredericksburg- Wil- 
mington line was extended to the Potomac on the north 
and through Charleston (1857) to Savannah on the 
south. The Potomac terminal of this line had only a 
river connection with Washington whence roads ran to 
Baltimore and eastern points. Diverging from this sea- 
board line at Richmond, another line ran through Dan- 
ville and Charlotte to Columbia where it connected 
with the South Carolina system. A few miles of this 
line between Danville and Greensboro remained un- 
finished until the Confederate government took the task 
in hand late in the war. The valley road was one of the 
oldest projects of the South. It originated in 1836 when 
the east Tennessee people, turning away from the allure- 
ments of the prospective Louisville, Cincinnati and 
Charleston, chartered the Hiwassee Railroad to run 
from Knoxville to the Georgia line where it hoped to 
meet the Georgia Railroad from Augusta. But with the 
chartering of the Western and Atlantic the Georgia 
roads fixed their line terminal far to the west at Chat- 
tanooga, far out of the reach of the Hiwassee, which 
quietly died in disappointment, accentuated by deep 



220 THE OLD SOUTH 

financial stringency. It revived in 1848 under the name 
of the East Tennessee and Georgia and by July 4, 1855, 
connected Knoxville with Dalton on the Western and 
Atlantic. In 1858 the East Tennessee and Virginia con- 
nected Knoxville with Bristol from which place the 
Virginia and East Tennessee had been opened to Lynch- 
burg. From Lynchburg there were diverging roads to 
Washington and Richmond. 

The three north-and-south lines west of the mountains 
were the Mobile and Ohio, the New Orleans, Jackson, 
and Great Northern, and the Louisville and Nashville. 
The first was chartered by Mobile interests in 1847 with 
the time-honored purpose of diverting the Mississippi 
trade from New Orleans ; the second was sponsored by 
New Orleans interests in 1852 to checkmate the efforts 
of their pygmy rival whose impertinent ambitions they 
regarded with a mixture of wrath and incredulity. The 
Mobile and Ohio was chartered to build to Columbus, 
Kentucky, on the Mississippi where it would "connect," 
by a ferry, with the Illinois Central at Cairo ; the New 
Orleans road was vague about its northern terminal al- 
though it favored Nashville. It finally decided on Jack- 
son, Tennessee, as the terminal of its main line, and 
Memphis as the terminal of a branch road from Gren- 
ada. Jackson was of no importance except as a point to 
which the Mobile and Ohio had built south from Co- 
lumbus, Since the New Orleans road reached Jackson in 
January, 1860, and the Mobile and Ohio from the south 
did not come into town until April, 1861, New Orleans 
secured railroad connection with Columbus a year be- 
fore Mobile did -and over the road Mobile herself 
built! 

While Mobile and New Orleans were hurrying their 
rival roads to the north, the Louisville and Nashville 



BUILDING THE RAILROADS 223 

was staggering southward. It was sponsored by Louis- 
ville interests and proposed to make its dividends chiefly 
on freight carried out of the South through Louisville 
and over connecting roads to northern ports. Chartered 
in 1850, eccentricities of management delayed construc- 
tion until James Guthrie, ex-secretary of treasury, be- 
came president. It was opened to Nashville in 1859 and 
the following year a branch line was completed from 
Bowling Green to Memphis. When the Louisville road 
reached Nashville it found the Tennessee and Alabama 
built south to Decatur. There was a wide gap from De- 
catur to Montgomery, from which place a road ran to 
Pensacola and Mobile. That the Louisville and Nash- 
ville would sometime gather these roads into a system, 
bridge the gap, and so have a line from the Ohio to the 
gulf was inevitable, but the War between the States de- 
ferred accomplishment. 

At the opening of the war the South had more than 
10,000 miles of railroads. In addition to the primary 
roads there were numerous minor roads connecting with 
the "trunk" lines or, as in Florida, with nothing at all. 
The railroads were, as a rule, built economically, the 
New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern being the 
outstanding example of reckless financing. The Atlantic 
states relied chiefly on stock subscriptions for their 
money supply while in the southwest the practice, ap- 
parently, was to regard private subscriptions as merely 
accessories to public funds. Every Southern state aided 
its railroads either by subscribing to their stock or by a 
loan of credit by means of bonds* Tennessee was the most 
liberal, granting each railroad within its limits $10,000 
a mile* Municipalities invested heavily in railroads. 
State and municipal bonds, as well as mortgage bonds, 
the roads commonly marketed in England where the 



224 THE OLD SOUTH 

public, except during the period of the Crimean War, 
displayed a hospitality to Southern investments that was 
later to cause many heart-burnings. The United States 
aided some of the roads by land grants. The grants 
amounted to 3,000,000 acres, practically all in Alabama 
and Mississippi. The Mobile and Ohio was the chief 
recipient of federal aid. 

The Southern railroads had many defects, most of 
them common to railroads throughout the United States. 
To save money many of the roads used wooden rails 
stripped with iron, and these soon wore out. By 1861, 
however, the H-type iron rail was in general use. "Con- 
necting" roads rarely connected, freight being trans- 
ferred from one road to another by wagons. Lack of 
engineering skill made the contractors wary of tunnels 
and brought about undue reliance on "inclined planes." 
The locomotives used wood for fuel ; this was cut and 
piled up along the track at intervals to be loaded on the 
tender when needed. The roads were rarely direct but 
ran through the communities which would give the most 
support. Their direction wavered according to the in- 
tensity of subscriptions. 

The telegraph followed the railroad into the South; 
more frequently it marked out the way the railroad was 
later to follow. The first telegraph line in the United 
States was a Southern line opened from Baltimore to 
Washington in 1844. 1 J&J.^, Amos Kendall and others 
incorporated the second line, the Washington and New 
Orleans, and sent out advance agents to secure the stock 
subscriptions which, as in the case of railroads, were 
necessary preliminaries to construction. The telegraph 
followed the railroad to Raleigh, preceded it to Colum- 
bia, followed the Hamburg line to the Savannah and 
thence went along the old stagecoach line through Ma- 



BUILDING THE RAILROADS 225 

con, Montgomery, and Mobile to New Orleans. The 
entire line was completed in July, 1848. Meanwhile the 
People's Telegraph Company had been formed to con- 
nect Pittsburgh with New Orleans via Louisville, Nash- 
ville, Columbus, and Jackson. It was finished late in 
1848 after a spirited legal battle with the Washington 
and New Orleans. By 1860 the telegraph followed every 
railroad in the South and brought practically every 
locality into communication with the outside world. 
During the War between the States Southern telegraph 
lines were combined into two main systems. 

The chief utility of the Southern railroads, in the 
scanty time they operated before the war, was to develop 
the interior ; it is doubtful if they would ever have taken 
the Mississippi trade from New Orleans. Nothing less 
than the war was required to change this great river 
trade to a railroad trade. But long before the completion 
of the Mississippi railroads, Southern people had ex- 
panded their commercial ambitions, envisaging an ocean 
trade with Europe on the east, and a land trade with 
California on the west 

The agitation for direct trade with Europe, born of 
discontent in the thirties, was revived in the fifties. In 
its latter phase it was closely connected with the rail- 
road movement: the Atlantic ports considered shipping 
connections on the east as desirable extensions of railroad 
connections on the west The agitation for direct trade 
accompanied the agitation for railroads, used the same 
methods and, but for the war, might have had equal 
success. Moreover, there was the desire to be free of the 
"tribute" which Southern industry paid to the North 
in prosperity even more than in adverse times. The am- 
bition for direct trade found expression in the Southern 
Commercial Convention which met in Baltimore in 



226 THE OLD SOUTH 

1852 and held adjourned sessions in other Southern 
cities annually until i859- 55 Promoting railroads as well 
as shipping, the convention drew delegates from all the 
Southern states and sought to direct Southern interest 
and capital into both fields. As far as direct trade was 
concerned, results were few. Alabama, South Carolina, 
and Virginia chartered steamship companies, but the 
Alabama company apparently exhausted its energies in 
obtaining a charter while the Charleston company, after 
building a ship, found that it was unable to get out of 
the harbor when loaded. Only in Virginia was a begin- 
ning actually made and the ships of the Southern Vir- 
ginia Navigation Company were plying the Atlantic 
when the war ended their activity. 

The commercial convention urged a Pacific railroad 
as it did direct trade. The project of such a railroad had 
been agitated in the United States in the forties, but 
prior to the Mexican War the South had taken little 
interest in it since our only Pacific possession was 
Oregon. After the war Southern promoters displayed 
increasing interest for now there was a southern ap- 
proach to the Pacific. At once there developed a rivalry 
among the Mississippi cities for the honor of the eastern 
terminal. Vicksburg and Memphis claimed it because 
they were already marked out as terminals for railroads 
from the Atlantic. St. Louis was a strong claimant be- 
cause her Missouri Pacific was already chartered to run 
to the mouth of the Kansas. New Orleans was inclined at 
first to rely on the Isthmus of Panama road, but after 
her Opelousas road began to build west, she too joined 
the list of claimants* In 1849 both Memphis and St. 
Louis held great railroad conventions to further their 
plans. Under Pierce, Secretary of War Jefferson Davis 

55 R. R. Russell, Economic A$pect$, pt. I, 123-151. 



BUILDING THE RAILROADS 227 

was authorized to survey the routes, both north and 
south, for a railroad. His survey showed that a route 
through Texas was the most feasible. This and the pur- 
chase from Mexico of territory south of the Gila river 
made it seem imminent that the Pacific road would be 
a southern road and would probably start from New 
Orleans or Vicksburg, both of which had lines building 
to the west But a Pacific road, whether north or south, 
would have to be built by public funds and this required 
an appropriation by congress. On the verge of success, 
the Southern leaders failed to secure this appropriation 
when all mundane issues in the United States fell before 
the abolition crusade. 



Cotton is King 

The Southern railroads were both evidences and 
causes of Southern prosperity* By penetrating the hither- 
to inaccessible regions of the South, they gave an outlet 
to markets and stimulated not only agriculture but va- 
rious other industries. Lumber production in the South 
was more than doubled during the decade, 1850-1860, 
the chief development being in the pine regions of 
Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. There was, also, a 
great increase in the production of flour especially in 
tidewater Virginia and North Carolina where the culti- 
vation of wheat had long since driven out tobacco. In 
western Maryland and Virginia the coming of the Balti- 
more and Ohio Railroad gave new life to the iron and 
coal mines, and Cumberland, Wheeling, and Richmond 
developed factories for the production of railroad iron. 
In Richmond the Tredegar factory built locomotives 
for both Southern and Northern roads. 

But the great prosperity of the South during the fifties 
was primarily based on the rise in price of its two great 
staples, tobacco and cotton. Partly, this was due to the 
general business recovery in both Europe and America 
from the economic doldrums of the forties; partly, it 
was the reflection of currency inflation following the 
gold discoveries in California. In the case of tobacco, 
there had been a great decrease in production during 
the panic years, so that by 1850 supply was running far 
behind demand. In 1849 the price of tobacco began to 
mount rapidly, reaching ten cents in 1851, and after a 



230 THE OLD SOUTH 

brief relapse climbing to fifteen cents in 1 857. From 1 849 
to 1859 tobacco production was doubled in the South as 
a whole, and in North Carolina was tripled. The de- 
velopment of better varieties and the discovery of better 
methods of curing helped keep up the price. In this 
decade the greater part of the western tobacco exporta- 
tion was shifted from New Orleans to Baltimore, as the 
Baltimore and Ohio penetrated the Ohio Valley and 
tapped the Mississippi at St Louis. In seeming contra- 
diction to economic laws tobacco manufacturing ex- 
panded as the price of raw tobacco rose. Lynchburg was 
the leading tobacco manufacturing center of the east, 
but Richmond and Petersburg were developing rapidly. 
In the west, Clarksville, Louisville, and St. Louis were 
the chief centers. In New Orleans there were a few 
factories employed in the manufacture of the old French 
Perique tobacco raised on the upper Red river. The 
tobacco factories in the South made great use of slave 
labor. For the most part the manufactured products 
were in the form of pipe tobacco although there was 
some production of cigars. In 1860 Southern tobacco 
manufactures were valued at nearly $20,000,000, which 
was about one-third the entire tobacco manufacturing 
output of the United States. 

In the case of cotton, the invention of the sewing 
machine (1846) enormously increased the demand for 
cotton cloth and, consequently, for raw cotton. The price 
of cotton began rising in 1844 and with occasional ups 
and downs averaged about eleven cents for the decade 
of the fifties. The combination of good prices and 
bumper crops during the decade had the pleasing effect 
of increasing the cotton growers' income from $ioo,~ 
000,000 in 1850 to $250,000,000 ten years later. In 1859 
the production was more than 2,000,000,000 pounds. 
With the exportation and manufacture of the enormous 



COTTON IS KING 231 

crop, the trade and commerce of the world was so in- 
extricably tied up, that to the Southern economists it 
seemed evident that the South held the key to world 
prosperity. Their exultation in this fact they expressed 
in the slogan: "Cotton is King." 

Most of the Southern cotton was exported or sent 
North for manufacture, but the manufacturing move- 
ment in the South continued to increase throughout the 
fifties although beset by many difficulties. The high 
cotton prices so welcome to the grower receiving them 
cut down the profits of the manufacturer who paid them. 
Prosperity in planting also meant that higher wages 
had to be paid to the mill operatives and that such slave 
labor as was used in factory work was likely to be with- 
drawn for work in the cotton field. It happened, too, that 
there was a fall in the price of cotton goods coincident 
with the rise in price of raw material; part of the fall 
may have been due to increased foreign competition 
under the Walker tariff. Finally, the Southern factories 
were waging an uphill fight against the competition of 
established Northern firms who made a practice of 
"dumping" their goods on the Southern market as a 
method of crushing the rising manufactures there. As 
a result of all these things many of the Southern cotton 
mills failed in the early years of the decade. But there 
was a revival in 1858, and in 1860 the value of the cotton 
manufactures in the South was $11,360,173. This was 
an increase of only $2,000,000 in the fifties as compared 
to one of nearly $6,000,000 in the forties. Georgia, with 
33 mills in 1860, was the leading cotton manufacturing 
state. Maryland was a close second, and Virginia third. 
In striking contrast to the lagging cotton manufacturing, 
the manufacture of woolen cloth increased almost three- 
fold from 1 850 to 1860. 

Cotton was king of England. The number of bales 



232 THE OLD SOUTH 

produced in 1860 was 3,837,407; of this 2,344,000 bales 
were exported to England and 1,069,000 bales to conti- 
nental Europe, principally France. Normally England 
depended on the South for about five-sixths of her cotton 
supply, for her efforts to develop cotton production in 
India had met with very little success. The manufac- 
ture of this cotton from the South, it was estimated, gave 
employment to over a million laborers; four million 
people in England were dependent on the industry for 
their livelihood. Cotton manufactured goods normally 
made up more than half the total exports of England. 
Manchester and Liverpool, the leading manufacturing 
city and the leading port city, owed their prosperity to 
the cotton industry, and in the six shires around Man- 
chester practically the entire population made its living, 
directly or indirectly, from cotton. 56 

France consumed only about one-fifth as much cotton 
as England, but nearly a million people were supported 
by the cotton manufactures. Cotton manufacture was the 
most profitable in all France and because of the fineness 
of the textiles produced the value of the manufactured 
product was very great. Russia, Prussia, Austria, Spain, 
and practically every other European nation possessed 
cotton factories but they secured an appreciable part of 
their raw cotton from English reexports. 

Cotton was king of the North. Although only one- 
fourth of the cotton crop of the South was used in the 
North, the value of cotton manufactures there in 1860 
was over $100,000,000. This represented, however, only 
a small portion of the money the North made from cot- 
ton ; cotton formed normally from one-half to two-thirds 
the total exports of the United States and profits of 
transportation went chiefly to the North, Cotton kept up 

56 F. L. Owslcy, King Cotton Diplomacy, chapter i. 



COTTON IS KING 233 

Northern shipping as well as Northern textile manu- 
facturing. In addition to all this was the large item of 
manufactured goods of all sorts which the South bought 
from the North and paid for out of the proceeds of the 
cotton crop. Southern economists estimated Southern 
purchases from the North at $150,000,000 annually. 

Cotton was king of the West, although here the rule 
was indirect The chief product of the West was food 
crops and for these the only sure market in the world 
was the far South. It was cotton that caused the planter 
and farmer to neglect the growing of food crops. It was 
estimated that Western food products sold in the South 
amounted to $30,000,000 annually. This trade between 
South and West was as old as the West itself and was the 
basis of that political alliance between the two sections 
which so long dominated the government of the United 
States. The South supported the West in her demands 
for cheap land because it meant cheaper food, and op- 
posed internal improvements because they meant higher 
food prices due to increased demand. The building of 
the canals and railroads at the North greatly increased 
food production in the West but did not shake the posi- 
tion of the South as the largest and steadiest market for 
Western products. 

In 1855 David Christy published his Cotton Is King 
which gave expression to the faith the Southern leaders 
had come to have in the power of cotton in world affairs. 
The shibboleth was not new, but the statistics with which 
Christy interlarded his book gave the idea an increased 
validity. It became an article of faith accepted and as- 
serted by statesmen, politicians, orators, economists, and 
even ministers. Its effect was to increase the self -confi- 
dence of a people who had always been singularly lack- 
ing in meekness and timidity. The Southern leaders 



234 THE OLD SOUTH 

during the fifties were aggressive in action and arrogant 
in demeanor. Although a minority, by force of assertive- 
ness they dominated all departments of the national 
government and made use of it to advance their own 
interests. The political victories of the South, 1850- 
1860, were even more impressive than its economic de- 
velopment. 

In 1850 a union of Whigs and conservative Demo- 
crats had secured in every Southern state an acceptance 
of the compromise as a final settlement of the slavery 
question. Southern leaders, Whig and Democrat, ap- 
proved the Georgia resolutions that if any changes were 
made in the compromise the Southern states would 
resist. To bring about this acceptance of the compromise 
the Whigs in some states, notably Georgia and Missis- 
sippi, had discarded their party name and united with 
conservative Democrats under the name of "Union" or 
" Constitutional Union" party. After the emergency the 
two wings of the Democratic party reunited, but the 
Whigs found it difficult to resume their organization. 
The name Whig had been stigmatized by Democrats, 
not without success, as symbolizing lukewarmness in 
defense of Southern rights and it was perhaps not un- 
natural that the Southern people should distrust Whig 
ideas while approving Whig action. Moreover, the anti- 
slave attitude of certain Northern Whig leaders, notably 
Seward, Greeley, and Governor Johnston of Pennsyl- 
vania, had the effect of making the name Whig a term 
of reproach in the South and of rendering many South- 
ern Whigs reluctant to retain their party affiliations. 
As the election of 1852 drew near many of the Southern 
Whigs announced their intention of supporting Pierce, 
the Democratic nominee, who was a "doughface" and 
an ardent champion of the compromise; the Georgia 



COTTON IS KING 235 

leaders insisted on keeping the Constitutional Union 
party as a substitute for the Whig; the mass of Southern 
Whigs retained their party affiliation and directed their 
efforts toward securing from the Whig national conven- 
tion a platform affirming the compromise and a candi- 
date who could be trusted to defend it But although 
after strenuous efforts they secured resolutions indorsing 
the compromise, they failed to secure the nomination of 
Fillmore or of Webster. Scott they distrusted, notwith- 
standing his assurances, and in the ensuing election a 
considerable portion of the Whigs either joined the 
Democrats or refrained from voting. Only Tennessee 
and Kentucky cast their electoral vote for Scott. Thus 
there was brought about in the South in support of the 
compromise that political solidarity which Calhoun had 
desired as a means of opposing it. It was one of the little 
ironies of political history that the Southern Whig party, 
whose efforts secured acceptance of the compromise in 
the South, committed suicide in its efforts to perpetuate 
it. 

Having secured the presidency, the aggressive South- 
ern leaders acted promptly to make use of it for the 
promotion of what they considered Southern interests, 
one of which was the building of a Pacific railroad, 
and another the securing of more territory on the south. 
The appointment of Jefferson Davis as secretary of war 
was probably less a tribute to his undeniable military 
talents than to a recognition of the fact that only a South- 
ern man could properly direct the department in its 
survey of the Pacific route. Considering the nature of 
his mission, no more suitable minister could have been 
chosen for Mexico than James Gadsden who, as presi- 
dent of the Charleston Railroad, had received the diplo- 
matic training so essential in his new post. The ardor of 



236 THE OLD SOUTH 

Pierre Soule for the seizure of Cuba offset in the eyes 
of the administration the fact that he was, to put it with 
all possible mildness, persona non grata to the Spanish 
court to which he was accredited. John Y. Mason, a 
Virginian, and James Buchanan, a Pennsylvania dough- 
face, as ministers to France and England respectively, 
were selected with special regard for their ability to give 
him aid and comfort. 

That all these preparations were made in vain was 
due to the fact that Southern planning excelled execu- 
tion. The arrogance of the Ostend Manifesto was too 
crude even for a doughface president, and Cuba re- 
mained unsecured. The filibustering of William Walker 
In Nicaragua failed as that of Lopez in Cuba had done ; 
neither failed for lack of Southern prayers for success. 
Unable to secure from Mexico a territory large enough 
for a state, Gadsden did purchase land sufficient for a 
railroad. But the recommendation, by Davis, of a South- 
ern route went unheeded by congress in the wild passions 
of a new slavery controversy. 

The two years following the election of Pierce had 
been peaceful years for the South preoccupied with 
prosperity. With the general government firmly under 
control, the railroads moving toward the Mississippi, 
and cotton selling at eleven cents, Southern people could 
ignore Uncle Tom's Cabin, mob interference with the 
fugitive slave law, and even an occasional passage of a 
personal liberty law by a Northern state. The mass of 
people, leaders and laymen, were satisfied with the slav- 
ery status, and it was, perhaps, in a genial attempt to 
extend the compromise (1850) principle of government 
non-interference in the territories that A. C. Dixon, 
Whig senator from Kentucky, offered as an amendment 
to the Kansas-Nebraska bill the repeal of the Missouri 



COTTON IS KING 237 

Compromise. 57 Apparently Southerners neither realized 
that the bill would affect the Pacific railroad situation 
nor that the amendment would again raise the anti- 
slavery agitation they deplored. Southern congressmen 
supported the bill, as Douglas no doubt anticipated, 
because it repealed the Missouri Compromise, and fa- 
vored the repeal because the Missouri Compromise had 
been unconstitutional, had never been carried out, and 
if it were allowed to stand would surround Missouri 
with free states. The increasing solidarity of the South 
was shown by the fact that every Southern Whig senator 
but one joined the Democrats in support of the bill ; two- 
thirds of the Whig representatives voted for the bill. 
Southern congressmen in supporting the Kansas- 
Nebraska bill had refused to see in it any authorization 
of squatter-sovereignty and had assumed that with the 
Missouri Compromise repealed and the old Louisiana 
law unrestored, the status of slavery would be left to 
the courts as in the case of Utah and New Mexico. Few 
Southerners were sanguine enough to hope that Kansas 
or Nebraska would ever become slave states ; as has been 
seen, Southern planters were inclined to oppose the 
expansion of slave territory. Southern immigration to 
Kansas was confined almost wholly to Missouri people, 
whose migrations across the border coincided closely 
with territorial elections. Apparently the Southern peo- 
ple remained apathetic in regard to Kansas until the 
missionary efforts of John Brown on Pottawatomie 
Creek became known. The formation of the Republican 
party, its rapid progress in the North, and its bold bid 
for power in the presidential election of 1856 forced the 
South in self-defense to turn its attention once more to 
the slavery issue. 

57 A. C Cole, The Whig Party of the South, 286. 



238 THE OLD SOUTH 

Although the debacle of 1852 had destroyed the Whig 
party beyond any hope of resurrection, the mass of 
Whigs were reluctant to assume the Democratic label 
however much they might be willing to cooperate with 
Democrats. In 1856 the homeless Whigs found a tem- 
porary refuge in the Native American or "Know Noth- 
ing" party. The immigration flood that followed the 
European revolutions of 1848 had sent many foreigners 
to the South where they were looked upon without favor. 
This dislike the Whigs tried to capitalize for the undo- 
ing of their ancient enemy, the Democratic party. Whig 
influence in the South added to Know Nothing princi- 
ples an opposition to slavery agitation and to disunion. 
The state elections, however, of 1856 showed that the 
Whigs were unable to do by proxy what they had failed 
to do in person, for the Democratic candidates were 
elected everywhere except in Kentucky and Maryland. 
In the presidential election of 1856 the Buchanan ticket 
swept every Southern state except Maryland, which 
voted for Fillmore, the Native American candidate. 
Even Kentucky went Democratic. It was so plain in this 
contest that either Buchanan or Fremont would be 
elected that Whigs joined the Democrats by thousands. 
Toombs and Stephens of Georgia, Benjamin of Louisi- 
ana, Reverdy Johnson of Maryland, and many other 
influential leaders went over to the Democracy and took 
their personal following with them. The 500,000 Fill- 
more votes in the South were cast by people who pre- 
ferred the Union to slavery, since no Southern man could 
mistake the menace of the Republican party, and the 
Democrats during the campaign had openly threatened 
secession if Fremont were elected. The Fillmore vote 
came from those sections of the South where slavery and 
plantation predominated and so reveals again the para- 



COTTON IS KING 239 

doxical situation that the slave owners were the least 
disposed to fight for slavery. 

The election of Buchanan was not merely a Demo- 
cratic victory, but a Southern victory as well, for Bu- 
chanan was even more of a doughface than Pierce waa 
The departments of war, treasury, and interior were 
placed in charge of Southern men. Foreign affairs were 
directed by a doughface of such proven fidelity that he 
could be depended on to lend every aid to Southern 
plans for expansion. Not altogether losing sight of Cuba, 
the Southern leaders centered their attention on Mexico. 
To John Forsyth of Alabama who had replaced Gads- 
den as minister to Mexico in 1856, Cass sent instructions 
to buy Lower California, Sonora, and Chihuahua, and 
to secure transit rights across the Isthmus of Tehuante- 
pec. Forsyth, unable to procure any of these things, was 
replaced in 1859 by Robert M. McLane of Maryland 
who in December of that year finally negotiated a treaty 
with the distracted Juarez government which gave the 
United States the coveted right of way across the isthmus, 
right of way for two other railroads across northern 
Mexico, and gave the United States the right to inter- 
vene in Mexico to put down disorder. That the Southern 
leaders intended to use railroads and intervention as an 
opening wedge to annexation, there can be little doubt 

Meanwhile at home the Dred Scott decision had given 
to the Southern people the court action which they had 
anticipated in accepting the compromise and the Kan- 
sas-Nebraska Act. As a matter, of fact the Dred Scott 
decision changed the status of slavery only in Minne- 
sota, Nebraska, Washington, and Oregon, and changed 
it only theoretically even there. The South accepted the 
decision as a triumph of its principles, but not even the 
most fanatical Democrat expected any of the places 



240 THE OLD SOUTH 

ever to become slave states. The cool heads among the 
Southern leaders realized that a state might be Southern 
without being slave; it was the support of free states 
that had given the South its control of the government 
since 1850, for since the admission of California the 
South was a minority even in the senate. 

In the seven years following the compromise of 1850 
the Old South had moved with decision from victory to 
victory. It had elected presidents, repealed the Missouri 
Compromise, extended slavery into all territories, se- 
cured Mexican land for a Pacific railroad, reduced the 
tariff. It was enjoying unexampled prosperity and had 
gone unscathed through the panic of 1857. Its railroads 
were building rapidly, its factories were developing, it 
was even getting its hands on its over-seas trade. It was 
confident in spirit and arrogant with success. Nothing, 
apparently, could successfully oppose it. Cotton was 
King. 



Secession 

On March 4, 1850, Senator Mason read to the senate 
of the United States a speech which Calhoun had 
written but was too ill to deliver. The Union was in 
danger, he asserted, because of Southern discontent due 
to the belief of Southern people that they could no longer 
remain in the Union consistent with honor and safety. 
The equilibrium between the two sections had broken 
down as a result of Southern exclusion from the terri- 
tories, of the federal system of revenue and disburse- 
ment, and of the increasing powers of congress. This 
loss of equilibrium was vital because of the difference of 
interests in the two sections. Unless some way were de- 
vised by which the South could defend its interests 
against a superior North, secession must inevitably re- 
sult 

The analysis made by Calhoun was as valid for condi- 
tions in 1860 as it had been for those of ten years before. 
It was quite evident in 1860 that secession was the result 
of ill-will between North and South which distorted 
the acts and words of both and made them mutually 
suspicious. This ill-feeling between the two sections, 
Calhoun said, had its origin in the struggle over the 
tariff and was itself a cause of the slavery controversy. 
There are reasons, however, for thinking that the tariff 
struggle, like the slavery struggle, was an expression of 
ill-will rather than its cause. It is possible that indigna- 
tion over the attempt to exclude slavery from Missouri 
made the South more ready to detect the injuries result- 



242 THE OLD SOUTH 

ing to her from a tariff beneficial to the North. At any 
rate, the issue between North and South was joined over 
the tariff and at no time before 1860 was there a truce 
between the combatants. There were many people, both 
North and South, who doubted if either section were so 
vitally affected by the tariff as its leaders asserted, but 
there was not a time before 1860 when Northern con- 
gressmen would not have raised the tariff if they had 
been able nor Southern congressmen have lowered it if 
they had possessed the power. 

With interests allegedly conflicting, it was inevitable 
that each section should try to gain control of the ma- 
chinery of government in order to promote its own wel- 
fare at the expense of its opponent That the South was 
successful in this struggle is easily evident. Alexander 
H. Stephens tried to dissuade Georgians from secession 
in 1 86 1 by showing that the South had controlled the 
Union from the beginning. 58 Before 1860 every presi- 
dent had been a Southerner or a doughface, except the 
two Adams and Van Buren whose combined terms ag- 
gregated only twelve years. The South had supplied 18 
of the 29 justices of the supreme court (including both 
chief justices since 1800), 24 out of 35 presidents (pro 
tern) of the senate, 23 out of 35 speakers of the house, 
14 out of 19 attorneys-general, and 86 out of 140 minis- 
ters to foreign countries. Most important of all was that 
the South had controlled congress to such an extent that 
since the Missouri Compromise no important law had 
been made which the South disapproved and no im- 
portant bill which the South favored with any degree 
of unanimity had failed to become a law. One by one 
it had killed the tariff, internal improvements, bounties 
to fishermen, national banks, and other legislation favor- 

58 J. T, Carpenter, The South as a Conscious Minority, 178^-1861, 180-181. 



SECESSION 243 



ing the North passed before the South became con- 
sciously sectional. 

Since the choosing of officials and the passing of laws 
are done by majorities, some explanation of the tech- 
nique of the minority South in achieving these things 
is required. Until the admission of California in 1850 
the South could prevent legislation, treaties, and ap- 
pointments by its equality in the senate. After 1850 it 
was outnumbered in the senate as it had always been in 
the house and the electoral college. But equality in the 
senate does not explain the Southern success in positive 
legislation before 1850, nor did the loss of equality in 
1850 at all diminish the success of the South thereafter 
in blocking legislation it did not want or in securing 
legislation that it did. 

It is evident that Southern ability at all times to secure 
presidents it desired, to secure positive legislation before 
1850, and both positive and negative after 1850, de- 
pended on the assistance given by Northern peo- 
ple themselves. Sometimes this assistance was secured 
through threats as in the case of the compromise tariff 
of 1833 and the compromise of 1850. Generally, it was 
secured through the agency of the political party, and 
the Democratic party in particular. Both the Whig 
and the Democratic party, in order to secure from their 
members the whole-hearted support necessary to suc- 
cess, made concessions to their aggressive Southern ele- 
ments. The Democratic party was more pro-Southern 
than the Whig for the reason that the Southern Demo- 
cratic vote was larger in proportion to the total Demo- 
cratic vote than the Southern Whig vote was to the 
Whig total. The South controlled the Democratic party : 
the Democratic party controlled the government: there- 
fore, the South controlled the government. 



244 THE OLD SOUTH 

The question, of course, arises, why was the Northern 
Democracy more disposed to favor the South than the 
Southern Democracy the North. In its ultimate analysis 
is was because there was no such spirit of Northern 
nationalism as there was of Southern nationalism. The 
Northern people did not think of themselves as North- 
ern except in the geographical sense. Not only was there 
a lack of common sentiment to unite the people, but 
there was a conflict of interests to divide. The Northeast 
and the Northwest were more likely to be antagonists 
than otherwise on such subjects as tariff, public lands, 
Indian relations, fishing bounties, banking, and even, 
at times, internal improvements. Northwestern Demo- 
crats had much more in common with Southern Demo- 
crats than with Northeastern Democrats. The basis of 
the alliance between the South and the Northwest has 
been often elaborated in our histories and need not be 
labored here. It only needs be pointed out that the two 
sections in cooperation made the program of the Demo- 
cratic party and through it determined the policy of the 
government. As the price of cooperation with the South, 
the Northwest secured certain legislation, but this legis- 
lation was not of the character commonly thought of as 
"Northern." There were divisions of interest between 
the cotton states and the tobacco states, but the Demo- 
crats were mostly in the cotton states and therefore had 
common interests. An appeal to Southern nationalism 
could generally quiet any antagonism between upper 
and lower South. 

It was because they realized the utility of a national 
party in controlling the government that Southern lead- 
ers were so violently opposed to Calhoun's attempt to 
form a strictly Southern party. Such a party would be 
useless except in the face of a divided North. But, as 
was often pointed out, the very formation of a Southern 



SECESSION 245 



party would tend to unite the North in opposition. From 
1850 to 1860 leaders of both parties in the South were 
constantly appealing to their excited followers to put 
their trust not in Southern action, but in "our Northern 
friends." That the South seceded in 1861 was because 
it had lost faith in the willingness of the Democratic 
party to fight for Southern interests. In the election of 
1860 the Democrats secured control of both senate and 
house, and the supreme court was not only Democratic 
but Southern. But the Democratic party in the North, 
it seemed to the South, was almost as anti-slavery as 
the Republican, and its congressmen, of course, reflected 
the opinions of their constituents. The South thought, 
rightly or wrongly, that Northern people were united 
against it, and the only safety lay in secession. In Cal- 
houn's words it could no longer remain in the Union 
consistent with honor and safety. 

In all probability the Southern leaders were wrong 
in their diagnosis. Not that they were wrong in refusing 
to accept Lincoln's assurance that he would not oppose 
slavery in the states, but only its extension to the terri- 
tories. 59 The South estimated Lincoln as a sincere man 
at any one time but primarily a politician always able 
to find reasons for changing his convictions as the ma- 
jority demanded. But in its excitement the South over- 
rated the anti-slavery sentiment at the North. Even 
the Republican party was far from being anti-slavery. 
Republicans were primarily anti-Democrat, just as the 
Whigs had been anti-Democrat. They were a hetero- 
geneous mass of oppositionists, held together only by 
the hope of plunder. Some hoped to use the party 
for the promotion of abolition, others for a protective 

59 The menace to slavery of Lincoln's election was debated by A. C. Cole 
and J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton in American Historical Review, vols. xxxvi 
and xxxvn, July, 1931, and July, 1932, respectively. 



246 THE OLD SOUTH 

tariff, others for low-priced lands. There were the usual 
number of carrion attracted by the prospect of a corpse. 
That such a hydra-headed organization could ever have 
held together for any deliberate program, anti-slavery 
or otherwise, is not likely. Moreover, like parties in 
general, it probably would have been more conservative 
in office than when seeking it 

The act of secession was the ultimate expression of 
that doctrine of state rights which is commonly regarded 
as something peculiarly Southern. Yet a study of South- 
ern history is likely to leave one with the impression that 
the attractions of state rights for the South lay in its 
utility rather than its principle. As long as the national 
government was working to Southern advantage, South- 
ern people were nationalists ; when it threatened harm, 
they retreated behind the bulwarks of state rights. A 
Southern president bought Louisiana and fathered an 
embargo. Southern leaders originated, and Southern 
votes passed, acts for the first protective tariff and the 
second national bank. The South accepted, and even so- 
licited, federal aid for roads, canals, and railroads. No 
greater invasion of state rights was ever attempted than 
was the fugitive slave law of 1850. On the other hand, 
every assertion of state rights by the South was utili- 
tarian ; a device for gaining something it wanted. South 
Carolina was not intent on establishing the principle of 
nullification, but in lowering the tariff. Georgia was 
not interested in defying the supreme court but in getting 
the Indians removed. Kentucky and Virginia put out 
their famous resolutions not to curb the central gov- 
ernment but to bring down the Federalist party. 

As a matter of fact, the doctrine of state rights was as 
popular, and as often asserted, in the North as in the 
South. It would be difficult to find in the South at any 
time a more vigorous expression of state rights than in 



SECESSION 247 



New England during the embargo and the War of 1812. 
The Hartford Convention and the Nashville Conven- 
tion were singularly alike in purpose, spirit, and action. 
The personal liberty laws of the fifties were as much 
defiance of the central government as any action in the 
South. In 1860 there was no state, North or South, which 
had not at some time through its regularly constituted 
authorities, practiced nullification and asserted the con- 
stitutionality of secession. 

Whether secession was constitutional or not is now 
an academic (that is, a dead) question. 60 Whether states 
could or could not leave the Union, we may at least be 
sure of two things. The original thirteen states went into 
the Union thinking they could leave when they desired, 
and the belief in secession was almost universally held 
in 1860 both North and South. In the final analysis, a 
state could constitutionally leave the Union if it retained 
under the constitution the "sovereignty, freedom, and 
independence" it undoubtedly possessed under the Con- 
federation. No state, North or South, up to 1860 had 
failed to claim repeatedly the possession of these three 
virtues. 

The secession movement mj^ South was of ancientj 
ancestry and slow growth:It was recognized as thej 
ultima ratio of the nullification movement in South! 
Carolina. Following that episode there was ever present 
in the South a group of leaders who were known as I 
secessionists per se in that they advocated secession as) 
a better course for the South irrespective of Northern/ 
attitude and action. Robert Barnwell Rhett and W. HJ 
Hammond were the most prominent of this group. Laterl 
they were joined by Governor Quitman of Mississippi, 

60 The Southern view of secession as a constitutional measure is elaborately 
presented in the first volume of Alexander H. Stephens, The War Between 
the States. 



248 THE OLD SOUTH 

Langdon Cheves of South Carolina, Edmund Ruffin of 
Virginia, W. L. Yancey of Alabama, and others. Until 
late in the fifties the secessionists per se were discredited 
in the South as fanatics in much the same way that Gar- 
rison was in the North. As long as the South controlled 
the government of the United States, Southern people 
had little inclination to "calculate the value of the 
Union." But most Southern people believed in secession 
if events justified it, and in the three years preceding 
the election of 1860 an increasing number became con- 
vinced that the justification had arrived. 

The first event, perhaps, that played directly into the 
hands of the secessionists was the refusal of congress 
to admit Kansas as a slave state in 1858 on the ostensible 
ground that her constitution had not been submitted to 
a vote of the people. The Southern leaders looked upon 
this as a mere subterfuge since all the states before 1817, 
and five since, had been admitted without submitting 
their constitutions to a popular vote. This action of con- 
gress gave the South its first check since the compromise 
and it is possible that the sting of unaccustomed defeat 
intensified the Southern indignation. It was quite in vain 
that cool men like Howell Cobb pointed out that if 
Kansas were admitted as a slave state against the wishes 
of her people she would be useless to the South. 61 From 
this time the writings and speeches of Southern leaders 
are filled with bitterness and indignation, and there is a 
growing disposition to leave a Union now become in- 
tolerable. 

The capture of the house by the Republicans and 
Free Soilers in 1858 also had the effect of increasing 
the strength of the secession movement in the South, 

61 0. jj, Phillips, editor, Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. 
Stephens, and Howell Cobb, in American Historical Association Annual 
Report, 1911, vol. n, 424. 



SECESSION 249 



since it indicated that the legislative department of the 
government was passing into the hands of the avowed 
enemies of slavery. The Freeport Doctrine announced 
by Douglas this same year in his successful effort to 
return to the senate was another thing that stirred the 
Southern people, making the Dred Scott decision and 
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise take on the 
semblance of barren victories. Nothing, however, so 
strengthened the hands of the secessionists as did the 
John Brown raid. Southern people could not endure 
the menace of a servile insurrection. The Southern states 
began purchasing arms and preparing for eventualities, 
and a proposed conference of the Southern states at 
Atlanta was defeated only by the refusal of Virginia to 
take part. The organization of the house in 1859 with the 
election of a Republican speaker and the subsequent 
appointment of committees dominated by anti-slavery 
men increased Southern unrest and strengthened the 
secession movement 

There were other things. Within the ten years after 
the compromise every Northern state east of the Mis- 
sissippi, except Ohio and Illinois, passed personal lib- 
erty bills which to all intents and purposes nullified the 
fugitive slave law. Some of the penalties against a South- 
erner trying to reclaim his property were as follows : e2 

STATE FINE IMPRISONMENT 

Maine $1,000 5 years 

Vermont 2,000 15 years 

Massachusetts 5,000 5 years 

Connecticut 5,ooo 5 years 

Pennsylvania 1,000 3 months 

Indiana 5,ooo 14 years 

Michigan 1,000 10 years 

Wisconsin 1,000 2 years 

Iowa 1,000 5 years 



250 THE OLD SOUTH 

The number of fugitive slaves was not large in pro- 
portion to the slave population, and the loss fell mostly 
on the border states, but neither of these facts lessened 
the indignation of the cotton South. The personal liberty 
bills were judged at the South by their purposes and 
not by their effects. 

The refusal of admission to Kansas had shown how 
the will of a state on slavery might be blocked by con- 
gress; the Freeport Doctrine pointed out how even a 
supreme court decision might be obviated by a terri- 
tory. To the South both ideas were equally vicious. The 
John Brown raid of 1859 indicated, by the countenance 
given it in high places in the North, that slavery was 
not even to remain unmolested in the old established 
slave states. Throughout the South public opinion crys- 
tallized into the conviction that the Republican party 
must be destroyed or that the South must secede in self- 
defense. Extreme state rights leaders declared that not 
even the destruction of the Republican party would 
assure the safety of the South, for Northern Democrats 
were often as rabidly anti-slavery as Republicans were. 

Against this rising tide of discontent the dwindling 
remnants of the old Whigs fought valorously and vainly. 
They tried to distract Southern thoughts from political 
and sectional issues to economic ones. They urged on 
the building of railroads, the promotion of manufac- 
tures, the establishment of shipping lines, and the ex- 
ploitation of the Amazon Valley. They even at times 
advocated the taxing of Northern imports and shipping, 
the deportation of Northern firms doing business in the 
South, and the boycotting of Northern industry. But by 
1860 the secessionists had gained control of the local 
Democratic organizations in the cotton states and were 
prepared to force ultra-Southern views on the national 



SECESSION 251 



Democracy or abandon it Since either course would 
bring about that Republican success which the seces- 
sionists insisted would be the signal for disunion, it is 
evident that they preferred Southern independence to 
a Union controlled by the South, 

The election of 1860 showed clearly how a devotion 
to shibboleths and slogans can blind men to the realities 
of a situation. When certain of the cotton states in- 
structed their delegates to the Charleston convention 
to withdraw if the convention rejected the Dred Scott 
decision as the party platform, they were demanding 
something of the Northern delegates that would have 
meant the loss of every Northern state to the Democracy 
had it been conceded. The decision was the law of the 
land whether endorsed or not, and however much Doug- 
las may have believed in squatter sovereignty he could 
not as president have substituted it for the decision. 
There are scant grounds for believing that Douglas's 
adherence to squatter sovereignty was more than an 
election expedient which had served him well in 1858, 
might serve again in 1860, and could be reconciled with 
the decision once he were elected. When the Southern 
delegations withdrew from the convention and disrupted 
it, their course was disapproved throughout the South, 
except in South Carolina, and even the regular party 
organizations in the withdrawing states displayed a tend- 
ency to compromise. Every state, except South Carolina, 
reaccredited to Baltimore the delegations which had 
withdrawn from Charleston; the Baltimore delegates 
were also accredited to Richmond with the understand- 
ing that that convention should take no action if har- 
mony could be established at Baltimore. Enthusiasm for 
suicide was not altogether confined to the secessionists 
as was shown by the action of Douglas men in sending 



252 _ THE OLD SOUTH _ 

contesting delegations from Alabama, Louisiana, Ar- 
kansas, and Georgia, and of the Baltimore convention 
in seating them. The regularly accredited delegates of 
the cotton states, the full delegations of California and 
Oregon, a majority of the delegates of Massachusetts, 
and a minority of the Pennsylvania and Minnesota dele- 
gates withdrew from the Baltimore convention, nomi- 
nated Breckenridge and Lane on a Dred Scott decision 
platform, and had their action confirmed by the reas- 
sembled Richmond convention. Newspaper reporters, 
commenting on the proceedings of this wild medley of 
conventions, declared that the Southern insistence on the 
Dred Scott decision was primarily for the purpose of 
eliminating Douglas. As a matter of fact, twice during 
the convention Douglas authorized his managers to 
withdraw his name, but in both cases his telegrams were 
suppressed. 63 

The Constitutional Unionists, under which name the 
Whigs made their last attempt to escape incorporation 
in the Democracy, were as hide-bound as were the 
Democrats themselves. They were Southern nationalists 
quite as much as the Breckenridge men were, quite as 
devoted to the Dred Scott decision, and quite as ardently 
hated the Republicans and all their ways. They abhorred 
secession, but by retaining their separate organization 
they did their utmost to bring secession to pass. An Epi- 
metheus of today might be pardoned for thinking that 
the only people in the South who preferred the Union 
to their shibboleths were the men who cast their votes 
for Douglas. 

From the time of the Richmond and Baltimore nomi- 
nations, all but the most sanguine followers of the re- 



. Halstcad, A History of the National Political Conventions of the 
Current Presidential Cam-paign is a lucid description by "an eye-witness 
of them all." 



SECESSION 



253 



spective candidates conceded the election of Lincoln and 
directed their chief energies toward fixing upon their 
Southern opponents the responsibility for the event 
Scattered hopes that the election might go to the house 
disappeared after the fall elections in Northern states. 64 
The Breckenridge men in the cotton states welcomed the 
election of Lincoln assuming that it meant disunion; 
in Charleston the news of his election was received with 
enthusiastic cheering. 65 In the upper South the state 
legislatures were controlled by Bell and Douglas men 
and remained inactive; in the lower South the Brecken- 
ridge faction was in control and took prompt steps for 
secession. 

No dispassionate analysis of the popular vote in the 
North in 1860 can interpret it as an anti-slavery vote. 
Congress remained Democratic and the most that could 
be feared from it was a refusal to admit further slave 
states. But Southern realists in 1860 knew that slavery 
had reached the natural limits of its expansion in the 
United States as then constituted, and that, with the 
possible exception of Kansas, further slave states were 
impossible, irrespective of congressional action. 66 It is 
not likely that any attempt would have been made to 
overthrow the Dred Scott decision since climate and soil 
had robbed it of all practical significance in the then 
territories. The South was doomed to be a minority; yet 
it had always been a minority and, notwithstanding, had 
been able to rule. Southern realists knew that a state 
admitted without slavery was not necessarily a state op- 
posed to slavery in the South. It is difficult to escape the 

64 U. B. Phillips, Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, 
and. Ho well Cobb t 500-501. 

65 D. L. Dumond, editor, Southern Editorials on Secession, 226. 

66 C. R. Ramsdell, "The Natural Limits of Slavery Expansion/* in Missis- 
sippi V alley Historical Review, vol. xvt, 151. 



254 THE OLD SOUTH 

conclusion that the secessionists in the South were using 
the anti-slavery menace as a bogie man to frighten South- 
ern people into an adherence to their pre-arranged pro- 
gram. How little fear of anti-slavery action there was on 
the part of the great slave owners is shown by their 
opposition to secession. 

The secessionists were, or thought themselves to be, 
Southern nationalists working for the independence of 
the South as a method of protecting Southern rights; 
no one pretended that he was moved merely by devotion 
to his own state alone. But since the South as a section 
had no constitutional standing, its independence could 
be gained only through the secession of the separate 
states of which it was composed inasmuch as each state 
had rights under the constitution including, presumably, 
that of secession. Since secession was unprecedented 
there was no established method of seceding. In the 
absence of an approved technique, South Carolina left 
the Union as she had entered it, through a convention 
called by her legislature. By February i, Mississippi, 
Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas fol- 
lowed South Carolina into secession and adopted her 
technique. Mississippi and Texas had submitted to the 
people the question of entering the Union ; Texas sub- 
mitted to them the question of leaving it. 

Having secured independence through state rights, the 
seceding states at once gave expression to their Southern 
nationalism by forming a Southern Confederacy. The 
invitation extended to all the Southern states by Alabama 
in her Ordinance of Secession to send delegates to a con- 
vention at Montgomery, February 4, was accepted only 
by the seceding states and the delegates of one of these, 
Texas, did not arrive in Montgomery in time to take 
part in the proceedings. The other six states in forming 



SECESSION 255 



the Confederacy adopted a constitution so near that of 
the United States as to justify their contention that they 
had left the Union but not its constitution. The choice 
for vice-president of Alexander H. Stephens who had 
supported Douglas, was a personal friend of Lincoln, 
and had opposed the secession of Georgia, was an open 
attempt to enlist the support of the Southern conserva- 
tives. Jefferson Davis was made president probably in 
recognition of his freedom from local attachments and 
of his devotion to Southern nationalism. 07 In the spring 
of 1861 the constitution of the Confederate States was 
ratified by conventions in the seven seceded states, the 
only opposition appearing in South Carolina where ex- 
treme state rights men charged that the Confederate 
government was too centralized. 

The Montgomery convention invited the other South- 
ern states to join the Confederacy, but for the time being 
the invitation went unaccepted. The legislatures of the 
tobacco states, controlled by Douglas and Bell men, did 
not judge the election of Lincoln a just cause for seces- 
sion and refused to call conventions to consider the ques- 
tion except in Tennessee, where the convention when 
called was controlled by Unionists and in North Caro- 
lina where it was rejected by popular vote. Instead they 
worked diligently for compromise and conciliation. Sen- 
ator Crittenden of Kentucky introduced compromise 
resolutions in the senate which all the tobacco states 
supported. When this effort failed, Kentucky memorial- 
ized congress for the calling of a national convention, 
and Virginia called a peace conference which met at 
Washington under the presidency of John Tyler the 
same day the Montgomery convention met under the 

67 N, W. Stephenson, "A Theory of Jefferson Davis/* in American Historical 
Review, vol. XXI, 73-90. 



256 THE OLD SOUTH 

presidency of Howell Cobb, All the Southern states 
were present except those which had seceded; all the 
Northern states except six. During the month of its 
deliberations the United States and the Confederacy 
refrained from acts of hostility in accordance with the 
appeal of Virginia, The Crittenden resolutions never 
came to a vote, the recommendations of the peace con- 
ference were rejected with practical unanimity and con- 
gress, having refused to call a national convention, ad- 
journed March 4 leaving the country divided into a 
resolute North, a resolute Confederacy, and a group of 
eight slave states between them undecided as to their 
course. The call to arms following the bombardment of 
Ft. Sumter furnished them a cause, or excuse, for seces- 
sion. Virginia was the first to secede (April 17) , follow- 
ing her secession with entrance, by treaty, into the Con- 
federacy. Arkansas and North Carolina followed in 
May. Tennessee did not secede until June 24, but her leg- 
islature early in May passed a declaration of independ- 
ence and made a military alliance with the Confederacy ; 
the declaration was ratified by the people June 8. All 
these states submitted their acts of disunion to popular 
ratification. In Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee 
the ancient spirit of sectionalism showed itself in the op- 
position of the highlanders to the act of the lowland ma- 
jorities. In Virginia sectionalism seized its opportunity 
to bring about the state division which it had long de- 
sired. In none of the states is there any evidence that the 
opposition to secession was due to love of the Union. 
Maryland and Missouri were overwhelmed by United 
States forces before the legislatures could act The deci- 
sion of Kentucky to remain in the Union but be neutral in 
the war, although in all probability a ruse of the Union 
men to prevent secession, undoubtedly reflected the spirit 



SECESSION 257 



of Kentuckians of which the principle ingredient is a 
dislike of unknown things. 

By July 20 the Confederacy included all the seceded 
states, eleven in number. The spirit of Southern national- 
ism had originated in the attacks on Missouri, forty 
years before. It had increased in intensity year by year, 
until by 1860 it was strong enough to enlist all the South- 
ern states, except Kentucky, in a movement for separa- 
tion In fact from the Northern states. Separation in 
sentiment there had long been. The Southern states had 
long been a nation in all but name, bound to each other 
chiefly by cords of sentiment. In 1861 this common senti- 
ment triumphed over conflicting interests in trade, agri- 
culture, social systems, and many other things, and was 
sufficient to hold them united. In the war they faced 
they had little to fear from the North : their chief enemy 
was their own doctrine of state rights. There was little 
question of the ability of the Southern Confederacy to 
defend itself against the United States : the chief ques- 
tion was whether the spirit of nationalism was strong 
enough to overcome the spirit of state rights and to 
bring about a community of effort necessary for success. 



The Culture of the Old South 



The Social System 

The quantity of the Old South increased tremendously 
from 1789 to 1860 but its quality remained much the 
same through the seventy years. Slavery, the plantation 
system, and the production of staple crops were charac- 
teristic of it in 1860 as they were in 1789. Slavery indeed 
had fastened and increased its hold on the South in a 
way that completely reversed the prospects of 1789. At 
the time of the eighth census the people of the South 
were as much a rural people and as much given to agri- 
culture as they were when the first census was taken. 
Cities were still small and few. There were but three 
cities in the South that had a population of over a hun- 
dred thousand, and one of these, Baltimore, was as much 
Northern almost as it was Southern, while St. Louis, 
the most rapidly growing of the Southern cities, could 
with much better grace be called a Western city than 
a Southern. New Orleans, ranking next to Baltimore in 
population, was certainly a Southern city, and Louisville 
with about a third as much population ranked fourth. 
The total population of all the other Southern cities 
combined did not run much over a hundred thousand. 
Charleston which had been the leading city in 1790 now 
ranked barely fifth and was losing population in the last 
decade before the War between the States. 

In 1860 the fifteen slaveholding states had a popula- 
tion of 12,240,000 of which nearly 4,000,000 were slaves 
and 250,000 free negroes. The eight million whites 
were distributed somewhat unevenly over the South. 



262 THE OLD SOUTH 

Virginia was the most populous state, Missouri second, 
and Kentucky third. The South Atlantic states were 
growing very slowly because their people were continu- 
ally being drawn off to the West and the Western states 
were growing very rapidly because they were receiving 
them. In 1790 the population of the South had been 
almost exactly equal to that of the North; in 1860 the 
North outnumbered it almost two to one. This disparity 
of numbers is to be accounted for neither by a difference 
in the birth rate nor in the rate of mortality. For the 
most part it was due to the fact that the Old South during 
that period had received very little immigration from 
abroad and that the expansion of the Southern people 
had carried a great many of them into Northern terri- 
tory. 

One of the most striking features of the Old South 
was the homogeneity of its people. The census of 1860 
gave the number of foreign born people in the South 
as 536,692, a number that would have to be considerably 
increased in order to get the number of those of foreign 
descent. This was only a little over one-eighth of the 
total foreign born population of the United States and 
even those who did come to the South were not widely 
distributed. Missouri contained nearly a third of the 
foreigners of the South, while Louisiana had about half 
as many, and Maryland was a very close third. Ken- 
tucky was fourth. With the exception of Louisiana, the 
lower South had very few foreigners: Florida and 
North Carolina were practically without them and Mis- 
sissippi and South Carolina had only a handful each. 
Statistics showed that most of the foreigners in the South 
went to the cities. Nearly two-thirds of those in Missouri 
lived in St. Louis, while Baltimore and New Orleans 
had an equal proportion of those living in Maryland 



THE SOCIAL SYSTEM 263 

and Louisiana. Practically all those in South Carolina 
lived in Charleston, and Mobile absorbed two-thirds of 
those in Alabama. There were more Germans than any 
other nationality, with the Irish coming second. The 
former were in the majority in the border states and 
Texas; the Irish in Virginia and the lower South. 

It has always been a mooted question why the for- 
eigners did not go to the South. Certainly it was not 
because there was any antipathy to them on the part of 
the Southern people, for there is abundant evidence that 
the South welcomed them. This was particularly true of 
the Irish who were generally day laborers and were in 
great demand in the South for all the dangerous tasks 
in which the farmer or planter did not wish to risk the 
life of a slave. If an Irishman died it merely increased 
the Kingdom of Heaven; if a slave were killed there 
was $1,500 gone. The South never had as a great a labor 
supply as it needed and for this reason foreign labor 
was greatly in demand. Nor could the failure of the 
foreigners to go South have been due in any great meas- 
ure to any repugnance felt by them to slavery or to 
negroes or to a reluctance to put themselves into competi- 
tion with slave labor. We have no reason to suppose that 
the foreign immigrants to the United States were abo- 
litionists from conviction or that they were well-in- 
formed about labor conditions at the South. It was as 
easy to secure land in the Southwest as it was in the 
Northwest and the prospects of profits were quite as 
good. The great mass of Southern people were not slave 
owners but worked their farms with their own labor. 
Certainly it would have been possible for the foreigners 
to have done the same. One could live in the South with- 
out coming into contact with the slave and without com- 
peting with him in any way. Probably the chief reason 



264 THE OLD SOUTH 

why the immigrants stayed out of the South is to be 
found in the fact that the steamship lines all ran into 
Northern ports. The immigrant landed in the North 
because his ship took him there; he either stayed there 
from the force of inertia or if he went West he had a 
tendency to follow the parallels. This rather than cli- 
mate or slavery seems to have been the reason so few 
of them reached the South. 68 

The census of 1860 showed that there were 355*811 
people of Northern birth living in the South and that 
this was an increase of seventy-five per cent in ten years. 
These Northern born were, of course, to be found in 
the greatest numbers in the border states and very few 
found their way into the lower South. South Carolina, 
North Carolina, and Georgia had practically none at 
all. There was no evident feeling against these ex-North- 
erners in the Old South and as a matter of fact they 
rarely retained their Northern qualities for any length 
of time. They were quickly assimilated in the bulk of 
the Southern population and completely lost their iden- 
tity. Northern immigrants to the South entered into all 
the careers open to Southern people and there are many 
instances of Southern leaders of Northern birth held in 
high esteem. A most notable instance of this was Sargent 
Prentiss of Mississippi. It is little more than romance 
to picture these Northern born people as a conservative 
force in the time of secession or as an Union element 
during the War between the States. The South sent many 
more immigrants to the North than it received from 
that section. In 1860 there were 655,496 Southern born 
people in the population of the North but the increase 
of the last decade was slight 

The Old South was the subject of many popular mis- 

* T. P. Kettel, Southern Wealth and Northern Profits, xoi. 



THE SOCIAL SYSTEM 265 

conceptions during its life, and has been the subject of 
a great many more since it disappeared. It was common, 
for example, to speak of it as a "land of cotton 5 ' whereas 
in reality less than half its area was in the cotton area 
and less than half its people engaged in cotton produc- 
tion. Cotton was as much an object of curiosity in Mary- 
land as in Maine. But the worst misconception was the 
idea, perpetuated into the present, that the South was 
a land of plantations where every man owned great 
droves of slaves whose labor supported him in idleness. 

Only a small per cent of the Southern people ever 
owned slaves. In 1860 there were some 383,000 slave 
owners in the South out of a total white population of 
over 8,000,000. A liberal estimate would give to the 
slave owning families a membership of about 1,600,000, 
or about one-fifth of the total white population of the 
South. So far were the Southern people from being slave 
supported that three out of every four of them had to 
live, if they lived at all, by the labor of their own hands. 
As a matter of fact the proportion was much higher than 
this, since the owner of merely a few slaves could not 
possibly be supported by their labor. It is only an ap- 
parent paradox that the greatest number of slave owners 
were to be found in Virginia and Kentucky where plan- 
tations were least numerous and slavery least profitable, 
for slavery was first established in Virginia while the 
two states ranked first and third in population. la all 
the border states the average number of slaves to an 
estate was so small, and was so steadily decreasing, that 
in 1 86 1 there was considerable feeling in the cotton states 
against inviting them into the Confederacy since they 
seemed certain of soon becoming free soil and conse- 
quently abolitionist. 

The four million slaves at the South in 1860 were 



266 THE OLD SOUTH 

about evenly divided between the older states (includ- 
ing Georgia) and the new. The slaves of the Atlantic 
and border states were practically all natives of the states 
where they were owned, while in the newer cotton states 
one-third to one-half the slave population had been 
brought in from other states or from Africa. It has been 
estimated that 270,000 slaves were smuggled into the 
United States after 1808, but the census of 1870 counted 
only about 2,000 negroes who admitted their African 
birth. Practically all these were in the gulf states and 
South Carolina. With the exception of the smuggled 
articles, the non-native slaves of the Southwest had been 
brought in by their immigrating owners or had reached 
their destination through the agency of the domestic 
slave trade. The domestic slave trade began about 1820 
and by 1860 had resulted in the transfer of some 300,000 
slaves from the tobacco states where slavery was less 
profitable to the cotton states where there was an in- 
satiable demand, Virginia was the chief source of supply 
for the slave trade; in 1870 there were 160,000 Virginia 
born negroes living in the other Southern states. The 
constant exodus of slaves from Virginia without any 
apparent decrease in her slave population gave rise to 
the abolition taunt, indignantly denied by the Virgin- 
ians, that slave breeding had supplanted agriculture in 
the plantation economy of the old dominion.* 9 Slavery 
had practically disappeared in Delaware by 1860, while 
in South Carolina and Mississippi slaves outnumbered 
the white people and almost equalled them in number 
in Louisiana. The 250,000 free negroes in the South in 
1860 were mostly in the tobacco states and for the most 
part were descendants of slaves set free before 1820, 

69 Frederic Bancroft, Slave-trading In the Old South, 67-87. For a refutation 
see U. B. Phillips, American Negro Slavery, 361-362, 



THE SOCIAL SYSTEM 267 

since the Southern states in general denied state resi- 
dence for more than a year to emancipated slaves. 

The slaves of the South were divided almost equally 
between farm and plantation, a farmer being defined as 
a man who lived by the sweat of his brow, and a planter 
one who lived by the sweat of slave brows. The classifica- 
tion of slaveholders in 1850 indicates that there were 
about 100,000 plantation owners in the South and since 
it was the custom to employ not more than sixty slaves 
on a plantation, the number of plantations was consider- 
ably in excess of the number of planters. On both farm 
and plantation the slaves were of two kinds, house ser- 
vants and field hands. The former were the slave aristoc- 
racy, in constant contact with their owners, imitating 
their speech and demeanor, trusted with authority and 
freedom of movement, and commonly repaying the trust 
in them with loyalty and devotion. It is the house servant 
that has become the stock type of fiction. Novels, the 
stage, and innumerable ballads have immortalized the 
black mammy, the cook, the pompous coachman, and 
the devoted body-servant In their own parlance the 
house servants "belonged" to the family in much the 
same way as the white members of the household. They 
took great pride in their privileged conditions and af- 
fected equal disdain for the field hands and the po' white 
trash. The field hands far outnumbered the house ser- 
vants and in striking contrast to them their lives were 
strictly regimented. They lived in quarters, had their 
food dealt out to them in weekly rations, worked in 
gangs in the fields under the supervision of an overseer 
on the plantation and of their owner on the farm. On 
the large plantations they rarely came in contact with 
any white person other than the overseer, and they were 
forbidden to leave the plantation without a pass. Any 



268 THE OLD SOUTH 

loyalty on the part of the field hands to their owners was 
the loyalty of inertia and dread of change. The field 
hand rarely figures in fiction, although he has a certain 
standing in ballad literature. 

On the plantation the character of slave life and the 
profits of his labor largely depended on the overseer. 
Planters chose their overseers with the same care that 
manufacturers used in selecting managers for their fac- 
tories. The two things required of the overseer were that 
he should be able to get along with the slaves and that 
he should be a practical agriculturist. Elaborate regula- 
tions governed his management of the slaves, specifying 
the amount of their food, the quality of their punish- 
ments, the amount of labor to be exacted from them, and 
many similar things. Equally elaborate regulations spe- 
cified the amount of cotton, corn, and other crops to be 
raised. The fact that the plantation was generally profit- 
able may indicate that the overseer was normally effi- 
cient, but there can be little doubt that he was universally 
detested by the slaves. 

The plantation was profitable because slave labor was 
profitable. Slave labor was slow, clumsy, and inefficient, 
but all these defects were more than offset by its steadi- 
ness. It was not subject to strikes or labor disturbances ; 
it was not interrupted by drunkenness or merrymaking 
or wage disputes. As long as the slave was contented, his 
labor would result in a profit to his owner. Every South- 
ern slave owner realized the necessity of keeping his 
slaves in a good humor, for there was no way of dealing 
with a sullen slave without impairing his usefulness as 
a laborer. Fortunately, the task of keeping slaves con- 
tented was not a difficult one for an owner who under- 
stood them. A plentiful supply of food, a raasgnable 
amount of rest, occasional gifts and holidays we^e nor- 



J.H& bUClAJL SYSTEM 269 

mally all that was required. That the slave of the South 
was reasonably contented may well be believed, although 
the testimony is almost exclusively that of his owners. 
From the physical side his working hours were long but 
not strenuous; from the psychological side, since he had 
never known freedom, he looked upon slavery not as a 
degradation but as a routine. He took no thought of the 
future nor needed to. In sickness and in health, in his 
childhood and his old age he was assured of an income 
proportioned to his necessities and not to his productive- 
ness. From the moment he was born he became the re- 
cipient of an annuity that continued until his death. In 
the security of bondage he probably gave little thought 
to the unknown attractions of freedom. 

The plantation owners constituted the aristocracy of, 
the South. They were, as has been indicated, few in 
numbers and more numerous in the cotton states than in 
the tobacco states. Contemporary fiction and abolition 
propaganda made every Southerner an aristocrat and 
the owner of a plantation. The planters were the most 
articulate class of the Old South and modesty was not 
one of their besetting weaknesses. They saw no reason 
to refrain from publishing their virtues and merits to 
their contemporaries, and since the passing of the Old 
South many a book of reminiscence has pictured them 
in the lenient light of distant memory. The planter was 
generally a wealthy man, but since his wealth was in- 
vested principally in land and slaves he was often in 
need of ready money. Fiction represents the planters as 
improvident and impractical, but the mass of them 
were certainly successful business men whose net income 
was derived from the steadiness of slave labor and large- 
scale production, The planter regarded his plantation 
primarily as a business enterprise, aad only secondarily 



27O 



THE OLD SOUTH 



as a home. Southern plantations, then, were likely to 
appear unkempt to people accustomed to the carefully 
tended homes of the North or of the upper South. A soil 
prolific in weeds, bushes, and briars, but chary of grass 
contributed to the ragged appearance of farm and plan- 
tation. The planter built his house in 1860 as he did in 
1700. The Southern mansion had, and has, a widespread 
reputation for beauty and comfort, but travellers re- 
ported it as being more often undistinguished in archi- 
tecture and lacking in convenience compared to North- 
ern houses. Doubtless there were as many varieties of 
plantation houses as there were of plantation owners, 
although in both cases convention tended to produce 
uniformity. Some of the planters were Chevalier Bay- 
ards and a surprisingly large number of them, if we can 
believe the reports of travellers perhaps not unbiased, 
were veritable Squire Westerns. As a rule a planter's 
culture and refinement would depend on how long he 
had been a planter and on where he lived. For the planter 
class was constantly being recruited from the farmers, 
and in the Western states plantation life lacked many of 
the graces and punctilios characteristic of the East. His 
hospitality was abundant but by no means undiscrimi- 
nating and there is plentiful evidence that he treated 
with scant courtesy visitors who presented themselves 
without proper credentialsr. 

There was considerable justification for the Northern 
complaint that Southern planters were arrogant and 
overbearing. They were never afraid to look upon the 
wine when it was red, but drunkenness was hardly the 
exclusive attribute of any class or section in the United 
States of ante-bellum times. The planter conventions 
permitted a considerable liberality in personal morals, 
demanded an attitude of reverence for women, and took 



THE SOCIAL SYSTEM 



271 



for granted a devotion to that sum of principles which is 
called honor. To take some part in politics was almost a 
canon of his class. 

While the overseer managed the plantation and the 
slavc^/did the manual labor, the planter lived a life of 
ease. He entertained his neighbors and entertained them 
royally. In the summer he made the rounds of the sum- 
mer resorts, in the pine woods of the Carolinas, at White 
Sulphur Springs in Virginia, or even at Saratoga. He 
owned his stable of horses and his kennel of dogs and he 
was present at all the fox hunts in the neighborhood. 
He ordered his clothes, with many maledictions, from 
Northern tailors, and in the interstices of outdoor life 
read the Charleston Mercury or the Richmond Enquirer 
or the Louisville Journal so that he might be able to 
discuss the intricacies of politics with his friends. He 
was commonly a justice of the peace and dealt out the 
high, low, and middle justice. He was often a member 
of his state legislature or of the national congress. His 
place in society was secure and so was that of his family. 
To the Southern planter nothing was more evident than 
that the Lord had looked down upon him as the choicest 
work of His hands and had pronounced him good. 

By far the most numerous class of the South was that 
of the farmers. They constituted about five-sixths of the 
total white population of the South. One-fifth of them 
were slave owners, but whether the farmer owned slaves 
or not he was forced to labor in the field in order to make 
a living. It is evident, then, that the great mass of white 
people in the South were working people, ignorant of 
the supposed fact that white people could not endure the 
Southern sun and equally oblivious of any hypothetical 
stigma on manual labor. It is also evident that the white 
people of the South had no aversion to laboring in com- 



272 THE OLD SOUTH 

party with the slave. Statistics of slavery and population 
indicate that the majority of the planters lived in the 
cotton states, due to the fact that cotton was more adapted 
to slave labor than was tobacco. The evidence is over- 
whelming that the farmers of the cotton states were en- 
thusiastic advocates of slavery, whether they owned 
slaves or not. For it was through slavery that they saw 
their only opportunity to increase their wealth and to 
improve their social standing. Almost invariably the 
cotton farmer began his life in poverty, making his 
living by unremitting toil ; if his health did not break 
nor cotton fall too low in price, he might soon begin 
buying slaves and land, and in the course of time his 
farm would grow into a plantation and its owner become 
a planter. It was, of course, not to be expected that he 
should condemn either the labor system that gave him 
his chance to rise or the social class into which he hoped 
to enter. The farmers of the South formed the bulwark 
of the Democratic party which made itself tlie protector 
of slavery interests, and brought about secession, osten- 
sibly, in its defense. 

The crops of the farm were the crops of the plantation, 
except that the farmer did not venture into the produc- 
tion of rice and sugar since these required a capital that 
he could not command. Life on the farm was hard and 
monotonous, perhaps harder and more monotonous than 
in any other section of the United States. Able to gain 
a competence only by dint of continual application, the 
farmer lacked the leisure to appreciate, as he lacked the 
means to procure, the better things of life. From the 
testimony of travellers it can be gathered that the farmer 
of the cotton states was most often uneducated although 
by no means lacking in intelligence, that he was given 

70 j. D, B. DeBow, Interest in Slavery of the Southern Non-Slaveholder. 



THE SOCIAL, SYSTEM 273 

to hard drinking and even harder swearing, that he read 
little beyond the almanac if he read at all, and that he 
was inclined to be boorish but not inhospitable, having 
about him few of the comforts and conveniences of life 
and affecting to despise their appearance. In his haste 
to acquire wealth he was content to live in unbelievable 
squalor, and his home and farm had such an unkempt 
appearance that travellers were commonly deceived 
thereby into thinking him improvident and his farm a 
losing business. It seems probable that the farmers of 
the tobacco states lived an easier and less rude life than 
did those of the cotton states. Their chief selling crop 
was tobacco, but their agriculture was diversified. There 
is evidence that farm agriculture throughout the South 
was more diversified than plantation agriculture. 

The lowliest of the lowly in the Old South were the 
poor white trash. By that slave-bestowed name they were 
known throughout the South although they had special 
names in different localities. "Crackers" they were 
called in Georgia, "sandhillers" in South Carolina, 
"rag-tag and bob-tail" in Virginia, "squatters" in Ala- 
bama and Mississippi, "people of the barrens" in Ten- 
nessee. They, as their name indicates, were the paupers 
of the South, but in reality it was not poverty so much 
as shiftlessness that set them apart from Southern people. 
They lived in the pine barrens and on the worn-out land 
of the South everywhere, and there were perhaps a mil- 
lion of them all told. They were absolutely without 
energy, initiative, or ambition. They lived in miserable 
huts and sheds which were generally without any other 
floors than the earth, and which possessed roofs in name 
only. Between inadequate roof and non-existent floor 
their houses consisted rarely of more than one room, 
and the furniture in them was of the most makeshift 



Slaveholders, 1860 







i 


I 




i 


i 


41 


I 

jrtt 




Slaveholders 


3 


3 


In 
*> 





1/1 


1 


N 


00 





Alabama 


5,607 


3,663 


2,805 


2,329 


1,986 


1,729 


I,4H 


1,227 


1,036 


Arkansas 


281 


173 


117 


88 


69 


70 


50 


52 


41 


Delaware 


237 


"4 


74 


5i 


34 


19 


15 


10 


8 


Florida 


86 3 


568 


437 


365 


285 


270 


225 


186 


169 


Georgia 


6,713 


4,355 


3,482 


2,984 


2,543 


2,213 


1,839 


1,647 


1,415 


Kansas 


2 


















Kentucky 


9,306 


5,430 


4,009 


3,281 


2,694 


2,293 


i,95i 


1,582 


1,273 


Louisiana 


4,092 


2,573 


2,034 


i,536 


i,3io 


1,103 


858 


771 


609 


Maryland 


4,"9 


r,952 


1,279 


1,023 


8i5 


666 


523 


446 


380 


Mississippi 


4,856 


3,201 


2,503 


2,129 


1,809 


1,585 


1,303 


i,i49 


1,024 


Missouri 


6,893 


3,754 


2,773 


2,243 


1,686 


1,384 


1,130 


877 


640 


North Carolina 


6,440 


4,017 


3,068 


2,546 


2,245 


1,887 


1,619 


1,470 


1,228 


South Carolina 


3,763 


2,533 


1,990 


i,73i 


i,54i 


1,366 


1,207 


1,095 


973 


Tennessee 


7,820 


4,738 


3,609 


3,012 


2,536 


2,066 


1,783 


1,565 


1,260 


Texas 


4,593 


2,874 


2,093 


1,782 


1,439 


1,125 


928 


791 


667 


Virginia 


11,085 


5,989 


4,474 


3,807 


3,233 


2,824 


2,393 


1,984 


1,788 


Total in States 


76,670 


45,934 


34,747 


28,907 


24,225 


20,600 


17,235 


14,852 


12,511 


Dist of Col. 


654 


225 


in 


72 


53 


31 


24 


12 


II 


Nebraska 


i 


4 








i 








Utah 


8 


2 










I 






Total in 




















Territories 


663 


231 


112 


72 


53 


32 


25 


12 


II 


Total in States 




















and Territories 


77,333 


46,165 


34,859 


28,979 


24,278 


20,632 


17,260 


14,864 


12,522 



Slaveholders, 1860 























, 

! 


. 




8 


8 


8 


1 


1 


8 


rt 


s 

m 


3 


1 

" 


11 

W ( 


1 
J 


i 


"35 


3 


3 


a 


"35 


3 


"BJ 


8 


8 


o 
o 


o 1 


f 

a^ 


cf 
























HI 




4*^ 




I 




6 


I 


A 


6 


I 





I 


6 
o 


11 


M" 

< v o 


1? 


3,742 


2,l64 


2,323 


i,253 


768 


791 


550 


312 


24 


10 




33,730 


435,080 


99 


43 


35 


13 


8 


6 


4 










I|I 


111,115 


17 


8 




















587 


1,798 


627 


349 


333 


171 


99 


116 


42 


45 


2 






5J52 


61,745 


4,707 


2,823 


2,910 


1,400 


739 


729 


373 


181 


23 


7 


I 


41,084 


462,198 
























2 


2 


3,691 


i,58o 


1,093 


296 


96 


51 


12 


6 


I 






38,645 


225,483 


2,065 


i,i57 


1,241 


695 


413 


560 


469 


460 


63 


20 


4 


22,033 


331,726 


1,173 


545 


487 


179 


81 


75 


24 


15 




I 




13,783 


87,189 


3,432 


2,057 


2,322 


i,H3 


755 


814 


545 


279 


28 


8 


i 


30,943 


436,631 


1,734 


666 


349 


120 


33 


26 


8 


4 








24,320 


114,931 


4,044 


2,029 


1,977 


8?0 


474 


423 


188 


118 


II 


L 




34,658 


331,059 


3,334 


1,876 


1,984 


1,083 


579 


710 


487 


363 


56 


22 


7 


[ 26,701 


402,406 


3,779 


1,744 


1,623 


643 


284 


219 


116 


40 


6 


I 




36,844 


275,719 


2,237 


1,186 


1,095 


491 


241 


194 


88 


52 


f 






21,878 


182,566 


S686 


^,088 


3,017 


1,201 


609 


W, 


243 


105 


8 


I 




52,128 


490,865 


40,367 


21,315 


20,780 


0,648 


S.I79 


WI7 


3,149 


1,980 


224 


74 


13 


1 383,637 


3,950,513 


20 


7 


7 






I 












1,229 


3,185 
























6 


15 


I 






















12 


29 


21 


7 


7 






I 












1,247 


3,2*9 


10,388 


21,322 


20,796 


0,648 


WW 


5,2ii 


3,H9 


1,980 


224 


74 


13 


[384,884 


3,953,742 



276 THE OLD SOUTH 

quality. The families of these people were most often 
large, but large or small they all lived together in the 
one room. They cooked in it, ate in it, slept in it, were 
born in it, and died in it. There was generally one large 
home-made bed that did service for the whole family, 
there was a rough home-made table, and one or two 
home-made stools. The family was lucky if it possessed 
an inherited frying pan, and the possession of knives and 
forks would have been frowned upon as a sycophantic 
attempt to ape the gentry. The possession of chinaware 
would have been looked upon as a symptom of effemi- 
nacy. 

As a class the poor white trash had an unconquerable 
aversion to work in any form, and only direst necessity 
could induce them to indulge in it. Each family had a 
little truck-patch near its cabin and commonly a few 
acres of corn overrun by weeds. In the spring the families 
planted their gardens and their corn patches conscien- 
tiously, but after that intrusted them to the care of Di- 
vine Providence. Yet the members of this class managed 
not only to multiply but even to prosper. There were 
no beggars among them. The forests of the South were 
wide and game was abundant However poor the rag- 
tag and bob-tail was, he always possessed a rifle and was 
an expert in using it. A few hours spent in the forests 
with old "silver heels" would provide him with meat 
for a week, and leave a residue to be traded in at the 
country store for whisky or other necessities. For the 
poor white trash were notoriously given to drunkenness 
and, always irresponsible, they became even more so 
when intoxicated. Occasionally they worked for the 
farmer or the planter, but the work was always by the 
day, with the worker apt to quit his job any time he got 
a dollar or so in his pockets or whenever an unusual 



THE SOCIAL SYSTEM 277 

feeling of inertia took possession of him. As a laborer 
he was considered inferior to the slave, not so much on 
account of his laziness (the slaves themselves furnished 
vigorous competition in this respect) as on account of 
his lack of dependability. Farmer and planter alike 
disliked him and distrusted him because he set such a 
bad example for the negro and particularly because he 
was so singularly inappreciative of the difference be- 
tween meum and tuum. Consequently both made it their 
business to buy him out whenever possible and get him 
away from the neighborhood. In fact the desire to re- 
move this undesirable class from the community was a 
by no means inconsiderable cause of the increasing size 
of farm and plantation. 

In appearance the poor white trash were likely - men 
and women - to be long, lank, and lean. As a class they 
had a yellowish or greenish color which seems to have 
been due partly to their habit of habitually eating clay. 
They were totally ignorant, were generally intelligent, 
and were hospitable to a fault. They voted the Demo- 
cratic ticket automatically without hope of reward or 
fear of punishment They were generally hard-shell 
Baptists in religion, if itbe proper to speak of their su- 
perstitions as religion./They were strong advocates of 
slavery, their hatred of the slave being due to the proxim- 
ity of his social status to their own. They looked up to the 
planting class without envy and without emulation. In 
the War between the States they threw off the inertia that 
so hampered them in peace and became very effective 
fighters in defense of state rights of which they had never 
heard and of the slaves which they did not own. 

Ingenious explanations have been given by various 
writers of the origin of these peculiar people. Many 
have professed a belief that they were descendants of 



278 THE OLD SOUTH 

the convict and debtor classes of colonial days. Both 
their number and their distribution argue against such 
an explanation, and it is improbable that any one ex- 
planation will account for them all. As the Mississippi 
name indicates, many of them were originally squatters, 
settling on government land ahead of sale, and moving 
on when dispossessed. Daniel Boone came dangerously 
near sinking into this class for this reason. Probably 
great numbers of them came from the farming class, 
failing on account of bad management, bad crops, ill- 
health, or other reason and being hopelessly submerged. 
For although it was an easy task to sink into this class, 
it was practically impossible to get out - Facilis descen- 
sus Averno, sed revertare gradum superasque evadere ad 
aurasj hoc opus, hie labor est. 

The progress of modern science has suggested that the 
inertia and shiftlessness of the poor white trash was a 
disease rather than a fault. 71 The children - and many of 
the adults - of the poorer classes in the South went bare- 
foot practically all the year round, and the hookworm 
has been found to flourish most in those regions where 
the poor white trash lived. Certainly in recent years the 
members of this class When treated for the hookworm 
have thrown off their inertia and have become as active 
as other men. We might say in the case of the poor white 
trash it was not so much that they were inferior as that 
their talents were latent. They at least were always ener- 
getic when they were drunk, and in the War between the 
States proved themselves brave, enduring, and resource- 
ful soldiers. 

The social system of the South may be likened to 
a three-story white structure on a mudsill of black. 

71 Paul EL Buck, "The Poor Whites of the Ante-bellum South," in American 
Historical Review, vol. xxxi, 41. 



THE SOCIAL SYSTEM 279 

Planters, farmers, poor white trash, and slaves made up 
a social order in which only the last named was per- 
manent and incapable of rising. The three white classes 
were not sharply differentiated and people were con- 
stantly shifting from one class to another. There was 
little friction among them for the superiority of the 
planter was conceded as freely as it was claimed. 



Education 

When the English people came to the South they 
brought with them as a part of their inheritance the 
English conception of education. Education was pri- 
marily a training for leadership. Since by dint of prop- 
erty qualifications for office holding and even for voting, 
leadership in the early South was limited to people of 
means, it followed that education was thought of as a 
thing reserved for people who could afford to pay for 
it. It was no part of the business of society to furnish 
educational facilities free of charge or even to furnish 
them at all. Of the original six states of the South, only 
two, North Carolina and Georgia, mentioned education 
in their constitutions and the mention was brief. "The 
arts and sciences shall be promoted in one or more semi- 
naries of learning," said the Georgia constitution of 
1798, and an injunction was laid upon the legislature to 
make donations to seminaries. 

It was perhaps inevitable, since education was a train- 
ing for leadership, that education in the Old South 
should grow more vigorously at the top than at the 
bottom. Colleges and academies flourished, or at least 
existed, in the South long before there Was any thought 
of establishing elementary schools. The academy was the 
distinctive school of the South. It was a school having 
a corporate existence, operating under a state charter, 
and governed by a board of trustees which was generally 
self-perpetuating. Sometimes the academies had endow- 
ments from private subscriptions, infrequently they re- 



282 THE OLD SOUTH 

ceived aid from the state, often they enjoyed denomina- 
tional support, and always they depended chiefly on 
tuition fees for the necessary replenishment of the ex- 
chequer. Their curricula occasionally reached up into 
college work and more often down into the elementary 
levels. They were both preparatory schools for the col- 
leges and finishing schools standing alone. They all 
taught Latin and Greek in response to the firm convic- 
tion of the Southern people that these two languages 
were the foundation of all education. Mathematics was 
always included in the educational bill of fare, but it 
was mathematics quite commonly limited to arithmetic 
and geometry. History was practically an unknown sub- 
ject and what little attention it received was given to 
ancient history. The English that was taught was almost 
entirely grammar (for which, perhaps, something might 
be said), and the philosophy was chiefly metaphysical 
with little application to things of this world. Occasion- 
ally the academies penetrated into the sciences and into 
the modern languages, but these were more in the nature 
of raids than of permanent invasions. 

In 1850 there were three thousand of these private 
academies in the South and they had a student enroll- 
ment of over two hundred thousand. Kentucky had the 
greatest number, but this was probably not so much due 
to a passion for knowledge in that state as to the fact that 
many of the academies received state aid. Kentucky 
adopted the policy of establishing an academy in each 
county seat and of giving six thousand acres of land to it 
as an endowment This policy was certainly not an il- 
liberal one, but it failed of its purpose. The school lands 
were mostly assigned in the western part of Kentucky 
where settlement was very slow in penetrating and where 
land, consequently, had only a nominal value. The Ken- 



EDUCATION 283 



tucky academies in their need for money for buildings 
and other purposes sold their land early and at a very 
low price. Sometimes they invested the proceeds of the 
sale and almost invariably lost it all. Georgia, like 
Kentucky, adopted the policy of establishing county 
academies and of supporting them by land grants. In 
Louisiana state support of academies began in 1811 and 
continued increasingly until at the beginning of the 
public school system in 1847 approximately a million 
dollars had been expended. In the other Southern states 
assistance to the academies from the state was negligible 
and in the case of Arkansas, Florida, and North Caro- 
lina, non-existent. 

All the academies of the South were private institu- 
tions and were privately managed whether they received 
state aid or not. Some of them, it may be most of them, 
were secular in character and existed for no more altruis- 
tic reasons than similar institutions do of the present 
day. Many of the academies, however, were denomina- 
tional institutions, both supported and controlled by the 
different churches. The Presbyterians, the Methodists, 
and the Baptists seem to have been the most active in 
bringing to the wavering structure of education the 
powerful support of religion. Only in Louisiana did the 
Catholics extend their activities to education. Very often 
the strong religious inclination of the founder or mana- 
ger of an academy gave a decided atmosphere of sec- 
tarianism to an academy unsupported and uncontrolled 
by a denomination. It does not appear that the curricu- 
lum or standard of teaching in the denominational acad- 
emy differed in any material respect from those of the 
other academies. 

As a rule the academies were inclined to be most nu- 
merous in the Southern Piedmont, shunning the moun- 



284 THE OLD SOUTH 

tains because of their poverty and the coastal plain for 
its wealth. Everywhere they were numerous enough to 
be accessible to all who really wanted an education. 
Their courses of study and their teachers were sufficient 
to furnish a well-balanced grammar school education 
to those who applied. The buildings were commonly 
rude, the methods antiquated, and the equipment scanty : 
how much the course of education was hindered by these 
things is doubtful. Some of the academies had, and 
deserved, reputations that were nation-wide. Perhaps 
the most noted was Waddell's, at Willington, South 
Carolina, where John C. Calhoun, A. B. Longstreet, 
W. H. Crawford, George McDuffie, H. S. Legare, 
James L. Petigru, Howell Cobb, and many other lead- 
ers of the Old South were trained. Sunbury Academy in 
Georgia was a leading secondary school of the South 
for forty years, and Liberty Hall in Virginia was equally 
famous. Many of the academies in time grew into insti- 
tutions of higher learning, as Davidson into the Uni- 
versity of Nashville, Prince Edward into Hampden- 
Sidney, Liberty Hall into Washington, Albemarle into 
the University of Virginia, and Transylvania into the 
university of the same name. 

It has long been a matter of dispute whether the first 
state university in the South was established by the 
sovereign state of North Carolina or the equally sov- 
ereign state of Georgia. The former, however, seems to 
have made a beginning of sorts in 1795 and to have been 
followed by Georgia and South Carolina six years later. 
With these the movement for state universities came to 
a close until the University of Virginia opened its doors 
in 1826. Alabama and Tennessee established their uni- 
versities in 1831 and 1832 respectively, while Missis- 
sippi and Louisiana delayed for fifteen years longer. 



EDUCATION 2 g s 



Kentucky had no state university, but Transylvania, for 
a period, was subject to state regulation and partially 
supported by state funds. Of these state-supported uni- 
versities, Virginia was by all odds the most famous. It 
owed its existence to the dying efforts of Thomas Jeffer- 
son, and throughout its entire organization reflected the 
ideals and ideas of that great reformer. 72 The surpassing 
beauty of its architecture distinguished it then as it does 
now. The high attainments of its faculty drawn from the 
best scholars of Europe and America, the liberality and 
freedom of its studies, its increasing traditions of liberty 
of thought and expression, were all matters of pride 
throughout the South. It exerted a profound influence 
on the history of the Old South and the roll-call of its 
alumni is almost a roll-call of Southern leadership. 
South Carolina College, at Columbia, owed both its 
existence and its location to the determination of the tide- 
water planters to unify the state, and to its teachings and 
influence was due in considerable measure the political 
unanimity of the South Carolinians. Thomas Cooper 
was its president for a number of years and brought to 
its administration the pugnacity and devotion to personal 
liberty that had previously distinguished him in North- 
ern politics. 78 Francis Lieber was once a member of its 
faculty. Transylvania, the first institution of higher 
learning west of the mountains, was during its most 
flourishing period under the administration of the fa- 
mous Doctor Holley and had a number of famous men 
on its faculty, including the learned and eccentric Rafin- 
esque. 

The Southern states exercised great self-control in 
supporting their universities. North Carolina supported 

72 R. J. Honeywell, The Educational Work of Thomas Jefferson, 67-134. 
78 Dumas Malone, The Public Life of Thomas Cooper, 1783-1839, 251-281. 



286 THE OLD SOUTH 

its university by land script and escheats. South Caro- 
lina College received six thousand dollars annually from 
the state. Georgia gave her university an endowment of 
eighty thousand acres of land and six thousand dollars 
annually for its support. The University of Virginia 
was given an annual grant of fifteen thousand dollars 
by its proud and hesitant legislature. The public land 
states of the newer South were given land grants by the 
United States, but these were as badly mismanaged in 
the South as similar ones were in the North. In every 
case the universities had to rely chiefly on tuition fees 
to keep the wolf from the door. The wonder is that with 
such small resources the universities were able even to 
stay in existence; that they did and in addition per- 
formed their allotted tasks of training the Southern 
leaders shows that the spirit of sacrifice was abroad in 
the South as elsewhere. 

In addition to the state universities there was an un- 
usually large number of denominational institutions in 
the South designed to further the cause of higher educa- 
tion. Tennessee and Kentucky ranked first in the number 
of colleges of this kind ; Texas and Arkansas struggled 
for the last place. The colleges of Virginia were prob- 
ably the strongest in the South. William and Mary 
represented Episcopal control; Emory and Henry, and 
Randolph-Macon, Methodist; Richmond, Baptist; and 
Roanoke, Lutheran. In North Carolina, Wake Forest, 
Davidson, and Trinity represented Baptist, Presbyter- 
ian, and Methodist respectively. In South Carolina, the 
Methodists had Wolford, the Baptists, Furman, and the 
Lutherans, Newberry. In Georgia Oglethorpe was a 
Presbyterian school, Mercer, Baptist, and Emory, 
Methodist In Kentucky, Transylvania was at different 
times controlled by Presbyterians and Methodists, and 



EDUCATION 2 g 7 



when the latter became dominant the Presbyterians es- 
tablished Centre. It is a matter of debate whether edu- 
cation is a benefit to religion; there is no doubt that 
religion has often been the best ally of education. 

The Southern ante-bellum colleges were not coedu- 
cational, although a small per cent of the academies 
were. Women, as a matter of fact, were not provided for 
in the Southern educational philosophy since the South 
had no disposition at all to encourage feminine leader- 
ship. For women the South considered education more 
in the light of a social adjunct than anything else. Con- 
sequently the "female academies" of the South were 
more in the nature of finishing schools than of institu- 
tions of learning. Their chief aim was the imparting of 
social graces and the adding of such knowledge as was 
useful for social success. They were probably not any 
worse in the South than in other parts of the United 
States. The most noted of them were the Ursuline 
Convent in Louisiana, La Grange Female College in 
Georgia, Science Hill in Kentucky, Mary Baldwin and 
Hollins in Virginia, and Warrenton Female College 
in North Carolina. 

As for statistics, the South had in 1860 two hundred 
and sixty colleges and universities, with fifteen hundred 
teachers, and over twenty-five thousand students. This 
was more than half the colleges of the United States, 
and practically half the teachers and students. Through- 
out the South the enrollment in colleges and universities 
was very small, very few institutions going over five 
hundred students and most of them hovering around a 
hundred. The course of study was very limited, although 
not more so, perhaps, than in other sections of the United 
States. Practically all the Southern leaders in national 
affairs were college graduates and so were the most 



288 THE OLD SOUTH 

prominent of those in state politics. A college degree in 
the Old South carried with it a considerable amount of 
social prestige and was a decided assistance on the road 
to political prominence. 

The obligation of the state to provide free elemen- 
tary education was an idea that developed very late in 
the history of the South. Idealists like Jefferson had 
preached and had fought for it, but they had died dis- 
appointed men. It was the problem of their indigent 
but ambitious children that finally forced the Southern 
people to embark on the policy of establishing free 
schools. Some of the Southern states had attempted to 
provide for their indigents by appropriating money to 
pay their tuition fees in the academies, but this arrange- 
ment had the effect of dividing the students into classes, 
and of stigmatizing one class as pauper. For this reason 
only a comparatively few of the indigent children were 
allowed by their families to take advantage of state aid. 
There was obviously but one way out of the dilemma 
and the South took it, but took it belatedly and with 
evident reluctance. It provided free schools for all chil- 
dren, thereby avoiding all distinctions of rich and poor. 
In the South Atlantic states the free school movement 
gained impetus as a result of the constitutional reforms 
of the thirties; in the Southwest the movement was 
furthered, perhaps, ^by the rising of Jacksonian de- 
mocracy. 

Of the Southern states South Carolina stands out con- 
spicuously for its early establishment of free schools, 
for the support it gave them, and for its methods of 
management. An act of the legislature in i8n estab- 
lished in each district as many free schools as the district 
had representatives in the state legislature; each school 
was to receive three hundred dollars annually for its 
schools for each representative it had. The schools were 



EDUCATION 289 



free to all, but if they became over-crowded preference 
was to be given to the poor. This last provision had the 
result in some measure of classing the schools as chari- 
table institutions and for this reason there developed a 
certain reluctance on the part of the wealthy in making 
use of them. Also, it may be noted that since representa- 
tives in South Carolina were apportioned on a mixed 
basis of taxes and population, the act had the effect of 
making schools most numerous in that part of the state 
which needed them the least and made use of them most 
infrequently. It would be easy to point out other defects 
in the system, such as the sums appropriated for the 
support of the schools. But at any rate aristocratic South 
Carolina did have a democratic school policy and did 
support the schools with regularity. It also kept the 
school administration in the hands of the state officials 
and did not make the schools themselves dependent on 
local option. After the action of South Carolina the free 
school movement in the South seemed to be in a state 
of complete paralysis for nearly thirty years, but in the 
roaring forties most of the other states took action begin- 
ning (somewhat inopportunely) with Kentucky in 1838 
and ending with Alabama and Texas in 1854. 

The Southern states provided for the support of their 
free schools in various ways. The public land states re- 
ceived a section of each township for the schools but 
these were so mismanaged and dissipated that they were 
of little benefit. Several of the states had what they 
called "literary funds" derived from the proceeds of 
escheated lands, stock in internal improvements, etc.; 
Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia were 
outstanding examples of this. When the surplus was 
distributed in 1837 the Southern states quite generally 
set aside their shares, wholly or in part, for the public 
schools. The very fact that the schools were supported 



29Q THE OLD SOUTH 

by special funds and grants shows that they were exotic 
and in the nature of hot-house plants. In most of the 
Southern states these special funds were sadly misman- 
aged, lost in dubious investments, and drawn on for 
current expenses when the state treasury ran low. Mis- 
sissippi probably had the worst record in the South, 
although the historians .of Kentucky would probably 
claim the honor for their own state. 

South Carolina was the only state to make the estab- 
lishment of schools mandatory; the other states made it 
optional with the county or the township. The county 
generally had control of the schools. To this permissive 
character of the educational system of the Old South is 
largely due the lack of schools in the poorer sections of 
the states. In no Southern state was there any state action 
looking toward compulsory attendance- The South 
stretched its philosophy to the breaking point in making 
education free; compulsory education would have scan- 
dalized it 

As to actual results, there were in 1860 over eighteen 
thousand schools and nearly six hundred thousand pu- 
pils enrolled. This was only one-sixth of the schools of 
the United States and about one-seventh of the students. 
The free school movement received its greatest support 
in the border states of the South. Of illiterate whites 
the South had in 1860 about half of the United States 
total of something over a million. Of course, practically 
the entire slave population was illiterate, and if slaves 
were counted it would give the South about four times 
as many illiterates as the remainder of the United States. 
It is quite evident that the Old South was not enthusiastic 
in the pursuit of knowledge - at least of such knowledge 
as could be imparted in its free schools. 

As to the character of the free schools at die South, 



EDUCATION 291 



not much can be said that is definite. The Southerners 
complained that the great mass of teachers both in the 
free schools and the academies were Northern and that 
they both taught Northern ideas and in return for it sent 
North great sums of Southern money. All this must be 
taken with more than the usual allowance of salt. The 
schools were almost entirely one room affairs and we 
have every reason to believe that the teaching was bad 
whether it was done by Northern teachers or by South- 
ern. It may safely be conjectured that the free schools of 
the South, like the colleges and academies, were inferior 
to those of the Northeast, but it is not likely that they 
could have been worse than those of the Northwest. The 
question of efficiency in education, however, is one that 
it is quite vain to discuss until the world makes up its 
mind as te the purpose of education and its nature. 



Literature 

It is more than probable that in the field of literature 
the people of the Old South deserved to be ranked as 
consumers rather than producers. It was not that they 
neglected to cultivate the literary field ; they did, with 
diligence and fine determination. But the net result of 
the labor which they took under the sun was a literary 
output in whose huge quantity only an occasional flash 
of quality made itself visible. Nor did Southern litera- 
ture differ materially from that of the North : through- 
out the United States in the ante-bellum period writing 
was much less a matter of inspiration than of manual 
labor. Most of it seemed to be produced by main force 
and the reading of it, if it were read at all, was confined 
to those who united strong will power with a stern sense 
of duty* It can at least be said of the literature of the Old 
South that it was no worse than that of the North. 

There can be little doubt that the most influential type 
of literature in the Old South was the newspaper. The 
Old South was well served in this field and the Southern 
newspapers compare favorably with those of other s6c- 
tions. In the South in 1784 there were but fifteen news- 
papers; in 1850 there were, excluding Delaware, 67 
dailies, 59 tri-weeklies, and 475 weeklies. Quite evi- 
dently the weekly was the favorite form of the news- 
paper in the South, as it was in the North. The greatest 
number of nil sorts was to be found in Virgiaia, That 
state had fifteen dailies; Louisiana had eleven, Ken- 
tucky nine, Tennessee eight, and South Carolina seven. 



294 THE OLD SOUTH 

If quantity production were a criterion of culture, it 
would be easy to locate the intelligent people of the Old 
South. 

The best known paper in the Old South was probably 
the Richmond Enquirer. It owed both its fame and its 
notoriety to the genius of its editor, Thomas Ritchie. 
Ritchie became its editor in 1804 an( l remained editor 
for forty years until he resigned it to his two sons. Ritchie 
was a strong state rights man who was able on occasion 
to harmonize his doctrines with the nationalizing ten- 
dencies of his Northern brethren. Under his direction 
the Enquirer came to be called the "Democratic Bible," 
and probably had the largest circulation of the Southern 
newspapers. It covered the entire South, and Ritchie's 
influence on the political development of the South can 
hardly be overestimated. Ritchie believed very firmly 
in the educational power of vituperation, and his En- 
quirer probably had a higher average in malediction 
than other newspapers of the time. He had many ene- 
mies as was to be expected, and some of these were quite 
his equal in the gentle art of abuse. Andrew Jackson 
called him the greatest scoundrel in America, the mild- 
ness of this dictum probably being due to the fact that 
the two men belonged to the same party. Horace Greeley 
referred to him as the Talleyrand of the press, and his 
manner of saying it left no doubt in the mind of anyone 
as to his opinion of Talleyrand. Hezekiah Niles said he 
was the prince and high priest of weathercocks. The 
most biting indictment came from John Randolph of 
Roanoke when he said that Ritchie was a man of seven 
principles - five loaves and two fishes, A man must have 
possessed elements of greatness to call forth such en- 
comiums as these. 

Still the Enquirer was not without competition even 



LITERATURE 295 



in its own home. There was a Richmond Whig as well 
as a Richmond Enquirer, and its editor, John Hampden 
Pleasants, was a man quite as determined as Ritchie and 
only a little less able. He was the editor of the #FA^ 
from 1824 until his death in 1846 and he made it a me- 
dium of personal expression quite as completely as 
Ritchie did the Enquirer. The two editors of different 
political faith fought each other for twenty years with 
every verbal weapon they could command. The war 
remained verbal, however, until the elder Ritchie re- 
tired to Washington to become the editor of the Union. 
The younger Ritchie, lacking his father's subtleness in 
abuse, called down upon himself a challenge from the 
editor of the Whig. In the fight that followed Pleasants 
was so badly wounded that he died in a few days. 

Charleston had its Democratic newspaper and its 
Whig newspaper just as Richmond had. The Charleston 
Mercury was the organ of Robert Barnwell Rhett and 
was the leading state rights jpajper in the South. It was 
a fire-eating, nullification paper whose chief purpose 
was to "fire the Southern heart" and to nerve South- 
erners to rid themselves of their "subserviency to the 
North." It was one of the leading and earliest advocates 
of secession in the South and can almost be looked upon 
as the official organ of this group in the South as the 
Liberator was of the abolitionists in the North. la all 
this it was opposed by the Charleston Courier which was 
edited by Richard Yeadon, The Courier was Whig and 
as such was bound to be conservative and moderate. 

Ranking with the Richmond and Charleston papers 
were the Louisville three - the Journal? the Courier, and 
the Democrat. The Journal? indeed, was one of the out- 
standing papers of the United States. Its editor was 
George D. Prentice, a Connecticut man, who came to 



296 THE OLD SOUTH 

Kentucky originally for the express purpose of writing 
a biography of Henry Clay, and who after writing it 
stayed on as an editor. Prentice was certainly the most 
influential Whig editor of the South and his editorials 
made the Journal just as Ritchie's did the Enquirer. 
Prentice specialized in ridicule and his most effective 
weapon was the short, pungent paragraph, generally of 
but one or two sentences but with each word biting and 
vitriolic. He was a staunch Union man and in the 
war his paper was perhaps the most effective force in 
preventing the secession of Kentucky: The Courier was 
the persistent rival and opponent of the Journal. It was 
ably edited by W. B. Haldeman and was one of the 
most outspoken and vindictive of secessionist organs. 
Prentice and Haldeman fought each other at every turn 
and the contest was not an unequal one except for the 
fact that Prentice wrote for a much wider audience 
than did his rival, inasmuch as the great mass of Louis- 
ville people were Unionists in their sympathies. In the 
early days of the war the Courier was suppressed 
but Haldeman continued to publish it from various 
places in the South, the particular place at any time 
being determined by the juxtaposition of the Northern 
armies. It is one of the little ironies of history that after 
the War between the States the papers were combined 
and still live under the name of the Courier- Journal* The 
Democrat under the editorship of William Harney was 
the organ of the Union Democrats as the Courier was of 
the state rights wing. During the war it opposed seces- 
sion but grew more and more restless as the Lincoln 
policies disclosed themselves until, near the close, it was 
almost a Southern paper again. 

In Tennessee the best known papers were probably 
the Memphis Appeal and the Knoxville Whig, The 



LITERATURE 297 



latter was edited by the notorious "Parson" Brownlow, 
who, in addition to his editorial cares, was a Methodist 
minister. The Whig was an extremely colorful sheet 
It was both nationalistic and anti-slavery and its editor 
lived a life of continual excitement in the midst of his 
exasperated neighbors. The Union sympathies of the 
eastern Tennessee people caused the Confederate gov- 
ernment a great deal of anxiety in the War between the 
States and there can be little doubt that Brownlow's 
attitude was very influential in determining their course. 
There were a number of other newspapers in the South 
less brilliantly edited than these which have been named, 
but still having more than a lqpl reputation. Among 



these was the Baltimore Sun which was regarded in 
Baltimore as an institution. In New Orleans the Pica- 
yune had much the sam^ place in the heart of the people 
as the Baltimore Sun had in Baltimore. It had an able 
rival in the Commercial Bulletin. In Mobile the Ad- 
vertiser divided the field with the Register. The latter 
was edited by John Forsyth. 

Of these papers the Richmond Enquirer had the 
widest circulation. Virginians were dispersed all over 
the South and they always carried the Enquirer with 
them to their new homes. Few of the others had any 
considerable circulation outside of their own cities ex- 
cept, perhaps, the Louisville Journal which was widely 
read throughout Kentucky* The readers of these news- 
papers read them less for the news than for the editorials. 
None of them deserved the name newspaper, for they 
carried very little news and what they did carry was 
not often new. In common with all papers of the United 
States at that time they ignored local news almost en- 
tirely, apparently considering it beneath the dignity 
of cold print Reporters were unknown and correspond- 



298 THE OLD SOUTH 

ence was draggled and uncertain. Their out of town 
news was commonly copied from their exchanges and 
the news from Europe was often months old. The ex- 
tension of the telegraph to the South was quickly utilized 
by the papers and telegraphic news began to make its 
appearance about 1845. It was generally all put together 
in one column headed "telegraphic news" and the reader 
could determine its content only by personal explora- 
tion. The Southern papers were very chary of headlines, 
and the few they did use usually gave little specific clue 
to what followed. "A Remarkable Occurrence'' might 
head the notice of a two-headed calf, a Kansas cyclone, 
or the charge of the Light Brigade. 

Evidently news was the least thing these newspapers 
were concerned about. They published a vast amount 
of poetry sometimes culled from the anthologies but 
more contributed by some of the sweet singers among 
the home talent. They printed short stories - and some 
that were not so short - both from the pen of the local 
geniuses and also from the works of celebrated authors. 
They always included columns and columns of moral 
and ethical discourses whose authors ranged all the way 
from Confucius to the editor himself. The only part 
of the papers more lugubrious than the essay portion was 
the section devoted to home-talent poetry. 

In mechanical make-up all ante-bellum newspapers 
North and South were very much alike. The size was 
generally limited to four pages. The first page was gen- 
erally given over solidly to box advertisements. Display 
advertising was unknown in the Old South and the 
advertiser generally contented himself with a small 
notice which he left unchanged from year to yean It 
is not likely that the advertisements had many readers 
or were expected to have ; they were inserted as a pa- 



LITERATURE 299 



triotic duty to assist the financial side of the paper and 
thus enable the editor to go about his business of dis- 
charging political broadsides at his adversaries. 

The real business of the newspaper was not to print 
the news but to print editorials. They were read in direct 
proportion to the ability of their editorial writers. These 
editorials were almost always concerned with politics 
and they were designed as strong meat for men. The 
Southern editor took his politics in undiluted form. He 
expressed himself vigorously, striving to do his full 
duty by his readers without any fine regard for the feel- 
ings of those who opposed him. Every Southern political 
editorial contained the ingredients of a duel ; many of 
them were potential invitations to homicide. The South- 
ern editor lived an exciting life, ably assisted by his 
readers. For every Southern newspaper made a specialty 
of inviting letters from its readers and of printing them 
at great length. Consequently, "Vox Populi," "Grac- 
chus," "Poplicola," "Friend of the People," and many 
others filled up the papers with their views of the po- 
litical situation. Through its editorial page the Southern 
newspaper exerted a great influence over the people; 
through its correspondence it afforded the people a 
means of expression. 

The Old South was a fertile field for newspapers but 
it was a graveyard for magazines. Something over a 
hundred were born there between 1790 and 1850 and 
by the latter date all were dead but nine. Nowhere else 
in the United States was the mortality rate of periodicals 
so high as In the South, and one reason was that nowhere 
else in the United States was the birth rate so high. Few 
were the towns in the Old South which could not boast 
at some time of its magazine and almost equally few 
were those which could not boast of burying one. From 



300 THE OLD SOUTH 

the record one might easily infer that there was a great 
demand for magazines in the Old South but very little 
patronage for them. 

No city of the Old South was so fiercely determined 
to be cultured as was Charleston. Between 1790 and 
1860 no less than thirty-four magazines began life there 
and all but two of them terminated it there. The reason 
for this state of affairs is to be found in the fact that 
Charleston possessed a little group of men whose ambi- 
tions far outran their means and frequently outdistanced 
their talents. Chief among these were Robert Y. Hayne, 
James L. Petigru, Hugh Swinton Legare, and William 
Gilmore Simms. Some of these men were interested 
in all the Charleston ventures, and Simms in almost 
all. They planned magazines, issued prospectuses, wrote 
numerous and lengthy articles, and began publication. 
Each new enterprise was hailed with acclaim by the 
Charleston people, but subscribers remained coy and 
distant and the magazines after brief existence usually 
perished from financial inanition, 

The most pretentious and the most ambitious of the 
early Charleston periodicals was the Southern Review 
which began its existence in 1828 and departed this life 
in a little less than five years afterward. It was modelled 
after the North American Review and was highly 
charged with scholarship and metaphysics. It made a 
desperate effort to achieve immortality but failed, 
largely on account of a lack of subscribers. In the same 
year that the Review was launched the Southern Literary 
Gazette was born but it only lasted a year before it went 
the way of all flesh. In 1844 the two-year-old Southern 
Quarterly Review was removed from New Orleans to 
Charleston and began at once to sink into senile decrepi- 
tude. When in 1 849 it had reached "a condition of worth- 



LITERATURE 301 



leasness not even to be conceived," Simms became its edi- 
tor and by Herculean efforts kept it in existence until 
1855. It was probably the best of the Charleston maga- 
zines and had a circulation and a reputation that was 
not confined to the South. Its merits were largely due to 
Simms himself who contributed the greater number of 
the articles it contained. After laying the Southern 
Quarterly Review to rest, Simms was associated with 
Paul Hamilton Hayne in the publication of Russell's 
Magazine which lasted from 1857 until 1860. Except 
for the Southern Quarterly Review an account of the 
Charleston magazines is little more than exercise in 
epitaphs. 

The best of all Southern magazines in the ante-bellum 
period was undoubtedly the Southern Literary Messen- 
ger. It was founded at Richmond in 1834 and continued 
there its entire existence of thirty years. In its pages 
appeared the contributions of the leading writers, both 
prose and poetry, of the South and it deserves to be 
considered as the leader of the periodicals in that sec- 
tion. Its lists of contributors would be a roll-call of 
Southern writers, and the greatest name in Southern 
letters was for two years associated with its editorship. 
Edgar Allan Poe from 1835 to 1837 made it by sheer 
force of genius the best magazine in the United States, 
His poems and short stories appeared in it but it was 
his literary criticism that made it famous. After Poe it 
had a number of able editors including B. B* Minor 
and John R, Thompson, It continued to hold its con- 
tributors and its subscribers even after secession. 

Of a quite different type from either the Southern 
Quarterly Review or the Southern Literary Messenger 
was the Commercial Review begun in New Orleans 
by J. D B, DeBow in January, 1846. DeBow had 



3 02 THE OLD SOUTH 

already served his apprenticeship on the Charleston 
magazines and possessed considerable ability as a writer. 
He was a Charleston man but was led to start his pe- 
riodical at New Orleans because of his experiences at 
Memphis when he attended the great railroad con- 
vention there in 1845 a]Q d fell into the hands of the New 
Orleans boosters. His magazine, commonly referred to 
as DeBow's Review, was a trade journal pure and sim- 
ple, but the devotion of its editor raised it far above the 
ordinary level of such publications. He filled each 
number with articles dealing with the economic life 
of the Old South and wrote many of them himself. 
Today the old numbers of the Review are highly es- 
teemed by scholars for the light they throw on the con- 
ditions prevailing in the South at the time. For all his 
industry and merit, DeBow had a difficult time making 
both ends meet and his enterprise probably would have 
met an early death had it not been for the financial as- 
sistance he received from public spirited philanthro- 
pists in New Orleans. As it was, the magazine lived 
until New Orleans fell in the War between the States. 
The three leading periodicals of the Old South, then, 
had their homes in Richmond, Charleston, and New 
Orleans. Niles* Register begun in Baltimore in 1811 
is too well known to need description and was too little 
Southern to merit it in this place. As to the hundred 
and one others in the Old South, not even their names 
can be given and they would be quite meaningless if 
they should be. They were of all kinds and descriptions 
having nothing in common except a transient, troubled 
life and an early, impecunious death. There were maga- 
zines for the women, such as the Floral Wreath and 
Ladies Bower that burst into bloom at Charleston in 
1846 and the Magnolia of the same place three years 



LITERATURE 303 



before. In this class, too, belongs the Ladles' Book of 
New Orleans and perhaps the Southern Parlor Maga- 
zine of Mobile. Nashville had its magazine for boys 
in the Youths' Monthly Magazine and Charleston had 
one for girls in The Southern Rose. There were a num- 
ber of farm magazines but the South was too agricul- 
tural to appreciate them. 

The distinctive quality of the Southern magazines 
was sobriety. One gets the impression from reading them 
that they considered sprightliness a deadly sin and 
looked upon frivolity with horror. Their articles were 
so heavy as to be imponderable. They were monuments 
of erudition and dullness generally without a single 
relieving flash of humor or of wit. Compared to them 
the Congressional Globe made easy reading and the 
moral essays of Seneca were full of mirth. To the con- 
tributors to the Southern magazines life was real and 
desperately earnest, and their mission on earth was to 
instruct and elevate if it cost the life of the last sub- 
scriber. The wonder is not that the Southern magazines 
died so readily but that they lived so long; the gentle 
reader of the Old South must have been very gentle 
indeed. As anaesthetics or as remedies for insomnia the 
Southern magazines must have ranked high, but as lit- 
erature they must have been sorely discouraging to 
everyone, including their publishers. 

Yet it must be said for them that they were no worse 
than the average magazine in the North and West The 
entire United States was one vast Sahara as far as maga- 
zine merit was concerned. It is doubtful if any periodical 
could be found in the country whose articles had a light- 
ness of touch any more pronounced than those that ap- 
peared in the Southern magazines* The faults of the 
Southern writers were the faults of the times rather 



304 THE OLD SOUTH 

than of their section. Nowhere in the United States was 
there a magazine which a normal human being would 
read for pleasure. And the same thing might be said 
of the books. 

As one works his way through the literature of the 
Old South it becomes more and more evident to him 
that the best writers were the newspaper editors. They 
had two of the prime qualifications for writing: they 
had something to say and they were professionals in the 
art of saying it. It is quite beside the point that the great 
mass of what they said had far better been left unsaid : 
the same thing could be said of the great majority of 
human utterances, verbal and written, since the world 
began. Sometimes they had inspiration and when they 
lacked that they found an adequate substitute in earnest- 
ness. Nor is it to be counted as a defect of their technique 
that their manner of writing led often to the duel and 
the early grave. They had something to say and they 
said it well. Their writings were not lacking in content 
or in form. 

On the poets of the Old South no such favorable 
judgment can be passed. They were amateurs, not pro- 
fessionals, and they wrote not for a purpose but as a 
diversion. As one discriminating writer has said, the 
Southern poets regarded their poetry "as merely one 
of the ornaments of their culture." Ornamental poetry 
in all ages has had a habit of revenging itself on its 
creators by slipping off into oblivion and staying there. 
This is what most of the poetry of the Old South did 
and what more of it should have done. It had little sub- 
stance to it and precious little shadow; it was not rep- 
resentative of Southern life in any way; it was alto- 
gether divorced from nature. The Southern people were 
rough, robust, practical, and wholly human. Southern 



LITERATURE 305 



poetry was meticulously delicate and refined; it was 
polished to the point of debility, and expressed itself 
in images that were altogether foreign to the life of the 
Southern people and commonly to their comprehension. 
It was too artificial to be art. 

Whatever theory of poetry the Southern poets had 
was probably an ex post facto one. One generalization, 
at least, can be made. They all aimed at beauty as the 
final purpose of the poem. There was no didactic or 
instructive poetry written in the Old South ; when the 
Southern people wanted instruction they could find it 
readily enough in prose. Nor were any narrative stories 
told in poetic form by the Southern poets; that again 
was the province of prose. They looked upon poetry as 
they did upon music, as a pleasure-giving art, and they 
thought the poem fulfilled its mission in the world when 
it achieved beauty. 

After the literary pruning-hook has been conscien- 
tiously applied to the poetic output of the Old South 
hardly more than three names remain as the basis of a 
Southern anthology. First, of course, is the mighty name 
of Edgar Allan Poe, one of the half-dozen great poets 
of the English race. In discussing his standing as a 
Southern poet the only possible question is, not his rank 
as a poet, but his rank as a Southerner. A Southerner 
he certainly thought himself, at least, as anyone can 
find out by reading his later contributions to the Mes- 
senger. It is idle to debate the quality of his talent, as 
if talent could be catalogued and classified by parallels 
and meridians. His poems, other than the mere exercises 
in rhythm like "The Bells'' and "The Raven/' have all 
the characteristics of Southern poetry and none of the 
Northern. They are beauty raised to its highest power. 
If all his poems were lost but the incomparable "To 



306 THE OLD SOUTH 

Helen," it alone from sheer beauty of expression and 
imagery would render his fame secure. 

Sermons may be found in stones, and lessons in run- 
ning brooks, but it is certainly a most unusual thing to 
find poetry in a congressman. Yet that this improbable 
thing may sometimes come to pass is shown in the case 
of Richard Henry Wilde, His reputation rests on a 
single poem, but it rests in peace. "My Life is Like a 
Summer Rose" is only a short poem but it is sufficient 
to raise its author to the poetic Olympus and to keep 
him there. There is no mark of the amateur visible on 
this poem; it is the work of a man who had mastered 
his trade even if he did not often practice it Its art is as 
perfect as that of "To Helen," only the words are less 
closely attuned to the thought There could be only one 
method of barring Wilde from the poetic isles of the 
blest: to make entrance into them depend on mass pro- 
duction. 

Theodore O'Hara was a Kentuckian as Wilde was 
a Georgian. His poems are not the equals of Poe's and 
Wilde's in finish, but are perhaps more substantial in 
content. His "Bivouac of the Dead" was written as a 
memorial to the Kentucky dead who fell in an unworthy 
war against Mexico. But it quickly shed all limitations 
of time and place and became, like Gray's "Elegy," the 
common property of the race. There was a sombreness 
in the poetry of Poe which has often been noted and 
this same note of melancholy made itself felt in Wilde. 
It pervades the poetry of O'Hara. Perhaps there can 
be no great poetry without sadness ; perhaps there can 
be no great beauty apart from grief* 

In the final analysis the cause of the Old South in the 
field of poetry must depend on O'Hara, Wilde, and Poe. 
The overwhelming work of Lanier had not begun be- 



LITERATURE 307 



for the war; he had not yet written his "Sunrise" or 
"The Marshes of Glynn" or the tender "Ballad of the 
Trees and My Master" which were to mark him as 
probably the greatest poet of his race. There are, to be 
sure, a great many other names among the Southern 
poets but they are not so much poets as poetasters. They 
were the makers of pretty, graceful verses and they were 
nothing more than that. Timrod and Hayne, Legare and 
Meek, Thompson and Hope were the best of these but 
they do not belong to the same category with the three 
which have been named. To class them with Lanier 
would be to make a mockery of poetry itself. Neither 
can Simms and Prentice be placed with the poets, al- 
though the latter almost scaled the heights with "The 
Closing Year" and the former delivered a tremendous 
frontal attack in fifteen volumes, 

If the chief defect of Southern poetry was that it 
was too artificial, the chief defect of its humorous prose 
was that it was too natural* There was certainly nothing 
subtle or refined about it; there were no half-tones; the 
humor was as coarse as Southern life itself. The great 
part of it is absolutely unreadable today but it was thor- 
oughly enjoyed at the time it was produced and it still 
holds a certain degree of standing because of the tradi- 
tional delight it gave to people in the past The rudest 
part of America would not tolerate it for a day in the 
present times. Yet crude and coarse as it was, it was 
typical of life in the South; it fairly represented the 
life of the people while it caricatured it. 

The premier of Southern humorists was Augustus 
Baldwin Longstreet, brother of the Longstreet of war 
fame. He was a Georgian, as many of the Southern 
humorists have been, and was educated at WaddelFs 
Academy, in South Carolina, and at Yale* Neither of 



308 THE OLD SOUTH 

these places were calculated to develop a sense of humor 
nor was the practice of law which he began in Georgia. 
It may be that newspaper life has a certain tendency 
to excite the risibilities, for it is certain that Long- 
street's began to show itself when he became the editor 
of the Augusta Sentinel. To this paper he contributed 
his "Georgia Scenes," the work upon which his fame 
rests - more and more uneasily with the passing of time. 
The "Scenes," which were later brought out in book 
form, depicted or travestied the life of the poor people 
of the South, and each sketch describes some incident 
which the people of the time thought to be uproariously 
funny. If they thought it so, of course it was, but tastes 
change and the "Georgia Scenes" would hardly be ad- 
mitted to the Sunday comic supplements today. After 
writing this book, it is interesting to know, Longstreet 
grew into a serious-minded man, became a Methodist 
minister and a university president, and in both capaci- 
ties was seriously handicapped by the reputation for 
frivolity which he had made when young. 

No author was more of a favorite with the common 
people of the Old South than was W. T. Thompson. He 
was born in Ohio, but after experiencing almost as many 
vicissitudes as Aeneas himself, he finally drifted into 
Georgia and became associated with Longstreet in 
bringing out the Sentinel. In 1840 he was engaged in 
editing the Madison Miscellany and with the apparent 
intention of justifying its name he published certain 
sketches in it that he called "Major Jones' Courtship*" 
These were received by his contemporaries with wild 
glee, but to modern readers they seem forced in their 
humor and without interest of any kind. Like the "Geor- 
gia Scenes" they make very dull reading and Major 
Jones has not fulfilled his promise of immortality. 



LITERATURE 309 



That the business of being an editor is a mirth-pro- 
voking affair seems to be indicated by the fact that J. J. 
Hooper, like Longstreet and Thompson, had charge 
of a newspaper. It was while he was editing the Cham- 
bers (Alabama) Tribune that he brought out his book 
entitled The Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs. This 
work was accustomed to arouse great mirth in its readers 
of the Old South, and there are still people who insist 
on classifying it as a work of humor. It is inferior in 
every respect to the work of Longstreet and of Thomp- 
son and only the most unsophisticated reader could 
glean any amusement from its pages. 

The fourth of the Southern humorists was a man who 
showed much more talent in his work than did any of 
the three mentioned. J. G. Baldwin was a Virginian 
who removed to Mississippi and thence to Alabama 
where he practiced law for many years. In 1853 ^ e P u ^" 
lished his Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi. 
The book was a favorite one in what little was left of 
the ante-bellum period and it still holds an interest for 
its readers. Its humor is less wild and forced than that 
of Longstreet, Thompson, or Hooper, and it has con- 
siderable value to the historian attempting to reconstruct 
the life of the times. 

It may be noticed that Southern humorists, such as 
they were, flourished chiefly in the Southwest. As such 
their literature was more along Western lines than 
Southern. Certainly it is a far cry from William Byrd 
(The Dividing Line) to Hooper and Thompson and 
Longstreet. The dryest speeches of old John Randolph 
of Roanoke contain more real wit than all the produc- 
tions that have been noticed. There were other humor- 
ists in the South but their output did not raise the aver- 
age. Davy Crockett had his Autobiography and George 



310 THE OLD SOUTH 

D. Prentice had his Prenticeana, the: latter being noth- 
ing more than extracts from his editorials. As literature 
the humorous writings of the Old South have no stand- 
ing at all, but they served to make the people laugh and 
in doing that they perhaps justified their existence. We 
can only wonder, however, what kind of people these 
really were who found the Southern humorous writers 
amusing. 

Descending to the very lowest depths of Southern 
literature, we come at last to Southern fiction. A great 
deal of praise can be given to the editors of the South ; 
some few poets can be found who were not merely verse- 
makers; we can feel kindly to the humorists for their 
purpose, at least; but for the fiction writers nothing can 
be done but to offer an apology. It is the most dismal 
field in the whole area of Southern literature. All the 
ills that literature is heir to are to be found in it 

Happily the great mass of novels written in the Old 
South has been dragged by its own weight so far down 
into oblivion that no memory of it remains to vex the 
history of literature. The host of novelists is more ter- 
rible than an army with banners, but only three of them 
wrote things of merit and two of these three are very 
insecure in their place. It is very probable that the only 
real novelist of the Old South was John Pendleton Ken- 
nedy of Maryland. Two of his books long ago lost their 
appeal for adult readers, but will probably always re- 
main favorites with the youth of the land inasmuch as 
they are tales of adventure. One of these is Horse^Shoe 
Robinson and the other is Rob of the BowL Both are 
historical novels and their attraction lies entirely in the 
exciting plots. They have the same merits and demerits 
as Cooper's novels at the North and, like Cooper's 
novels, they will always be read by people whose lack 



LITERATURE 311 



of sophistication enables them to demand of a novel 
nothing beyond a plot. Swallow Barn is an entirely 
different sort of a book. It is a cross-section of life in the 
Old Dominion and is written in the easy, placid style 
of Sir Roger de Coverley. The characterization runs 
frequently into piquant satire, and the humor of it is 
quiet and often subtle. It runs leisurely along as un- 
hurried as the planter life it depicts. It resembles the 
"Sleepy Hollow" tales of Washington Irving and is as 
far removed from the forced wit and would-be humor 
of Longstreet and Hooper and Thompson as if it came 
from another world. It will probably live as the one real 
novel produced at the South before the Civil War. 

It is doubtful if N. B. Tucker's The Partisan Leader 
should be classed with the novels at all. It is less of a novel 
than a prophecy, and perhaps more of a piece of propa- 
ganda than either. Written long before the Civil War, 
it portrays a future war between North and South and 
the portrayal bears a startling resemblance to what really 
occurred. As a piece of imaginative work it must take 
high rank, but it belongs in the same class with Erewhon 
and Looking Backward. It may be mentioned that 
Tucker brought the Southern cause through in triumph 
in his imaginary war and in so doing illustrated the 
perils of prophecy, 

If there is any doubt about placing the works of 
Tucker in the list of Southern novels, there can, at least, 
be none about those of William Gilmore Simms. It 
would be improper to place them in the list of Southern 
novels because it would be improper to place them 
among novels at all. Simms was one of the first of a 
goodly company of Americans to apply factory methods 
to literature and to devote his literary talents to mass 
production* He began his career as a writer when he 



312 THE OLD SOUTH 

was nineteen and continued to write without ceasing 
until he died, aged sixty-three. Fifteen volumes of poetry 
and more than sixty volumes of prose issued forth from 
his literary workshop for the edification of an increas- 
ingly bewildered public. He, too, seemed to "specialize 
in omniscience," producing poems, plays, criticisms, 
biographies, histories, and novels with equal facility. 
In his leisure hours he edited a half-dozen' magazines, 
served in the legislature, travelled extensively, and 
played Maecenas to two generations of struggling liter- 
ati. No American before or since has ever directed such 
a literary bombardment against the gates of immortality. 
In his day he was the pride of Charleston and one of 
the wonders of America. Whatever posterity may think 
of him, if it think of him at all, his contemporaries had 
no doubt that he was the greatest literary genius of his 
age. 

Simms wrote his own epitaph in these words : "Here 
lies one who, after a reasonably long life, distinguished 
chiefly by unceasing labors, has left all his better works 
undone." Looking over the vast mass of his productions 
one is tempted to think that the word "better" might 
well be changed to "good*" Few of Simms's works rise 
above the level of mediocrity. His besetting vice as a 
novelist is the artificiality of his dialogue. No human 
beings ever talked to each other in the lofty strain that 
the characters of Simms habitually employ in their con- 
versation. Like most novelists of his time, Simms fell 
an easy victim to the insiduous disease of "fine writing/' 
and his entire output is vitiated by it His plots are not 
without interest; at least, they are up to the standard of 
novels in general. But the disgust of the reader with the 
strained and artificial dialogue is generally so intense 
as to render him incapable of appreciating any other 



feature of a book by Simms. His best novel - or his least 
bad -is generally considered to be Yemassee, but an 
improving taste in literature has consigned it to oblivion 
along with the others. 

A handful of editors whose work was good but neces- 
sarily ephemeral, one great poet and two of fair ability, 
an array of humorists whose very existence was an in- 
dictment of the public which appreciated them, and one 
novelist. This is the record of the Old South which con- 
tained in its gentry class the most cultured people of the 
United States. It is a record that needs explanation and 
two possible explanations occur. One is that the cultured 
people of the South were finding an outlet for their ener- 
gies in other ways - in politics, perhaps. Politics, at least, 
is a form of life ; literature at its best is only a mirror. The 
Southern people, perhaps, were too busy with life itself 
to be interested in making a representation of it The 
other explanation is not so much an explanation as an 
apology. Bad as the Southern record is, it is probably 
not below the average for the United States as a whole. 
It is certainly much better than that of the West in the 
same period. To the modern taste the literary achieve- 
ments of the United States before the War between the 
States seem very meager in quality. It seems to us im- 
measurably inferior to the writings of today. The judg- 
ment of one age in regard to a preceding one, however, 
can never be taken as an impartial judgment inasmuch as 
the judgment is rendered by one of the parties to the 
dispute and the other party is prevented from replying 
by the fact that it no longer exists. 

The Old South as a producer can be weighed in the 
balance, but there is no possible way of ascertaining its 
achievement as a consumer. How much did the South- 
erners read? We can count the books in the libraries of 



314 THE OLD SOUTH 

the South but that does not solve the problem for to have 
a book in a library is one thing and to read it is entirely 
a different thing. The census statistics show that the 
South had in its libraries more books than any other sec- 
tion if Pennsylvania and New York be excluded ; it was 
certainly far in the lead of the West The tradition is 
that the gentry class was a reading class and that its 
libraries were filled with the classics. How much truth 
there is in the tradition can only be conjectured, but 
even the fact of the tradition has a certain significance. 
Southern statesmen were accustomed to interlard their 
speeches with passages from the Latin authors, and even 
Benton had a Greek phrase for emergencies. Much of 
this probably only indicated a superficial acquaintance 
with books of quotations such as were very much in 
evidence throughout the country in the ante-bellum 
period. The tradition is that the private libraries of the 
South were more likely to contain books by English 
authors than they were to contain American productions. 
If this be true it must be accounted unto them for right- 
eousness. The gentry of the Old South has been charac- 
terized as a class which "belonged to the Episcopal 
church, voted the Whig ticket, and read Sir Walter 
Scott without hope of reward or fear of punishment" 
Certainly they might have done much worse ; probably 
a great many of them did. 



The Struggle for Independence 



The Struggle for Independence 

The War between the States followed a secession 
brought about on the issue of slavery and justified by the 
doctrine of state rights. Yet both the secession and the 
war drew their chief support from people who did 
not own slaves and had little interest in constitutional 
theories. Cause and justification alike were scarcely 
more than rationalizations; the inspiration of the war, 
so far as the responsibility lay with the Southern people, 
was a love for the South so intense that it may be called 
patriotism. It was as strong in one part of the South 
as another. It was common to the Atlantic states and 
to the newer states, the border states and the gulf states, 
the highlands and the coastal plain. It permeated the 
planter and the farmer, the slave owner and the non- 
slave owner; it was even to be found among the slaves. 
It transcended, and still transcends, all differences of 
geography, all conflicts of interests, all distinctions of 
politics, religion, and society. 

Yet the South did not take its full strength iato the 
war* Force alone prevented Maryland and Missouri 
from joining the Confederacy, while the course of Ken- 
tucky was determined by a love of inertia more powerful 
among its people than even their love for the South. The 
eleven states of the Confederacy had a population of 
approximately nine millions, of whom five and one- 
half million were white and three and one-half million 
were slave. The slaves supported the war unanimously 
(albeit somewhat involuntarily) ; the white people were 



3i8 THE OLD SOUTH 

by no means so unanimous. There can be no doubt that 
among the mountain whites there was widespread in- 
difference, and even hostility, to the war. Nothing could 
be more grotesque than to ascribe this mountain senti- 
ment to a spirit of nationalism and devotion to the Union. 
No people in the United States were more devoted to 
state rights and local self-government than were the 
mountain people; nowhere in the South could be found 
a people more Southern in sentiment or more contemp- 
tuous of the "Yankees." Their hostility to the Confed- 
eracy was merely a continuation of that sectional feeling 
which had manifested itself throughout the entire his- 
tory of the South. They opposed both secession and the 
war because they looked upon both as lowland move- 
ments. When in Virginia the mountain people used the 
opportunity of war to form themselves into the state of 
West Virginia, they were merely bringing to a successful 
conclusion a separatist movement which had beea fifty 
years in the making. Among the mountain people in 
general, inertia and an inherent dread of new things 
were powerful allies of sectionalism in determining 
opposition to the Confederacy. The attitude of the moun- 
tain people caused little embarrassment to the Confed- 
eracy for the mountain region was remote from the seat 
of war and the people were generally content with a 
passive disapproval, occasionally stirred to activity 
by the ministration of conscription and impressment 
officials. 

For the Southern people the War between the States 
was a war which they had not anticipated and for which 
they were unprepared. Following the John Brown raid 
the Southern states purchased some 350,000 stands of 
small arms and added them to the state arsenals. Ap- 
proximately 200,000 more were added by the seizure 



THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE 319 

of United States arsenals at the outbreak of the war. 74 
The South had few plants for the manufacture of arms 
and expected to make up its deficiency by importation 
from abroad. The chief deficiency was in artillery, but 
the war was expected to be chiefly an infantry war - as, 
in fact, it was. Importation was counted on, also, for 
keeping up the supply of manufactured goods necessary 
for the army. The leaders of the South foresaw an at- 
tempt at blockade, but knowing the length of the South- 
ern coast line and the impotence of the United States 
navy, they did not think it could be made effective. 

The South entered the war with man power and 
supplies assured sufficient for winning its independence. 
The enthusiasm of the people was unadulterated by 
doubt Their confidence was due partly to their provin- 
cialism, partly to their inherited spirit of aggressiveness, 
partly to their expectation of foreign aid. Because they 
controlled the Mississippi, they expected the passive, 
if not the open, support of the states of the Northwest 
for whose trade the Mississippi was, or at the least had 
been, the traditional highway. It was as a measure of 
conciliation that Confederate policy at the beginning of 
the war gave to the nominally hostile Northwest the free 
navigation of this river through the heart of the South. 
The South also expected sympathy and aid from that 
considerable portion of the western population which 
was of Southern descent. In this it was not disappointed, 
and it is probable that Northern "copperheads" gave the 
South more aid and comfort in the war than the South- 
ern mountaineers did the North, Southern expectation 
of aid, however^ was chiefly directed toward England, 
The belief that England must, at all hazards, have 
Southern cotton was almost aa article of religion with 

* 4 F. I* Owtluy, Statt Ri/fa in tkt Confederacy, 7-9. 



320 THE OLD SOUTH 

the Southern people. Firm in this belief the Southerners 
withheld their cotton at the beginning of the war in 
what was practically an unofficial embargo. No one 
doubted that such a measure would cause such suffering 
in England that public opinion would force the govern- 
ment to intervene on the side of the South. 

The confidence and aggressiveness of the Southern 
people inclined them to an offensive war, but the Con- 
federate authorities, relying more on geography than 
temperament, decided to make the war a defensive one. 
Southern geography was ideally adapted to defense. 
Both Southern flanks were secure ; the Atlantic because 
the United States had no navy, and the western because 
of difficulties of transportation. The attack had to be 
a frontal attack and to this the South seemed invulner- 
able. The Ozarks screened the trans-Mississippi, the 
neutrality of Kentucky was a barrier to any land in- 
vasion of the Mississippi Valley, and the mountains of 
Kentucky and western Virginia were impenetrable by 
invading armies. The Valley of Virginia could be easily 
defended against any enemy depending on the Shenan- 
doah or an unfinished railroad for its supplies. Appar- 
ently the only routes of invasion lay east of the Blue 
Ridge where two railroads led south from the Potomac. 
The eastern line, the Richmond, Frederick and Po- 
tomac, lay across lateral rivers and ran through a section 
so wild it was called the "wilderness." The western 
road, the Orange and Alexandria, was the most obvious 
route for the invader and Southern armies in the spring 
of 1 86 1 were concentrated for its protection. The point 
chosen for defense was Manassas where the Manassas 
Gap Railroad made possible the rapid shifting of reen- 
f orcements from the valley in case of need. The strength 
of this strategic position was evidenced in the two battles 
of Bull Run. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE 321 

The abandonment of neutrality of Kentucky in the 
fall of 1 86 1 laid the South open to invasion down the 
Mississippi Valley. From Columbus, Paducah, and 
Louisville railroad lines ran down the valley and were 
paralleled by the Cumberland and Tennessee, both of 
which were navigable. Anticipating the decision of 
Kentucky, the Confederacy rushed troops to Columbus 
and Paducah, threw an army across the Louisville and 
Nashville to take post behind the Green river, and 
strongly garrisoned Forts Henry and Donelson on the 
rivers at the state line. Albert Sidney Johnston, reput- 
edly the ablest general of the South, was in command 
with his headquarters on the Louisville and Nashville. 
The railroads could not be forced ; the Federal attack 
followed the rivers and met its initial success in the 
capture of Forts Henry and Donelson. But its signifi- 
cance was that Johnston felt constrained to withdraw 
the Confederate armies, leaving the Louisville and 
Nashville and the Mobile and Ohio in the hands of 
the enemy. 

With these two roads constantly bringing down sup- 
plies and reinforcements from the North, the remaining 
task of the Federal armies was to follow the Southern 
railroads and paralyze the transportation system of the 
South; the task of the Southern armies was to protect 
the roads. To this end Johnston stood at bay at Shiloh 
and his defeat there gave the Federals control of Corinth 
where the Mobile and Ohio crossed the Memphis and 
Charleston. For several months after Corinth fell the 
railroads secured a respite while Grant followed the 
will-o'-the-wisp of opening the Mississippi. The Mis- 
sissippi was of negligible military value to the Union, 
and of no commercial value to a Northwest whose trade 
for several years had been rapidly shifting to the At- 
lantic ports over the Northern railroads. Its loss could 



322 THE OLD SOUTH 

bring no great damage to the South, since the lack of 
trans-Mississippi railroads made it impracticable for 
the South to draw supplies from that region in any case. 
The siege of Vicksburg was in the nature of a last salute 
to the dead glory of Mississippi commerce. The folly 
of the Federals in besieging it was only exceeded by the 
folly of the Confederates in defending it. The days of 
grace allowed to the Confederacy by Grant's obsession 
with the Mississippi went so unutilized that following 
the fall of Vicksburg the western armies of the Con- 
federacy apparently reduced their military science to 
the single element of retreat The immediate result of 
this policy of retreat was the loss of Chattanooga, a two- 
fold disaster inasmuch as it gave the Federal forces 
access to the valley railroad both for cutting off Southern 
supplies and for a quick drive on Richmond from the 
South. The latter movement did not take place because 
Sherman allowed himself to be seduced into following 
Johnston into Georgia and so turned his back on the 
seat of war. With the capture of Atlanta he again had an 
opportunity of moving on Richmond via the Georgia 
road. Instead, to the relief of the Confederacy, he chose 
to march to the sea thus removing himself still further 
from the scene of conflict and giving the Confederacy 
time to concentrate its forces, Sherman's "marching 
through Georgia" had practically the effect of demobil- 
izing his army while Grant finished the war. 

Why did the Southern defense collapse so readily in 
the west and stand so firm in the east? The eastern army 
fought its first battles and won them when enthusiasm 
and confidence were at high tide. It established a Deputa- 
tion for invincibility which weat far toward making it 
invincible. Whatever else was needed for success it 
received from Lee. In the west the first attack fell on a 



_ THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE 323 

Confederate army which had already lost its enthusiasm 
and perhaps its confidence. In football parlance, Grant's 
move up the Tennessee and the Cumberland (February, 
1 862 ) was a delayed buck which took place almost a year 
after the ball was snapped. By that time the fervor of the 
South had spent itself ; by April, 1862, the lack of volun- 
teers brought about the passing of the first conscription 
act Other and more stringent acts followed with the 
result that 300,000 men were drafted in the South before 
the war was over - amounting to practically one-half 
the total of Southern soldiers. Even more indicative of 
Southern apathy was the claiming of exemption by 
practically fifty per cent of the drafted men and the 
hiring of substitutes by more than 50,000 of them. 75 The 
exempted occupations, such as that of mail carrier, rail- 
road and river employees, telegraph operators, miners, 
teachers, ministers, druggists, and physicians, reached 
a height of popularity in the South such as they had 
never before enjoyed. 76 Desertion from the Confederate 
armies became so frequent as to present the appearance 
of a major industry; the number of desertions during 
the war has been estimated at more than ioo,ooo. 77 Draft- 
ing, exemption, substitution, and desertion reached even 
higher proportions in the North than in the South. 
There is reason to believe that if the decision had been 
left to the people North and South, both sections would 
have voted to end the war in 1862 regardless of the 
attainment of its objectives. 

The waning of Southern enthusiasm was due to the 
prolongation of the war beyond all anticipation, to its 
defensive character for which the people were tempera- 



* Moore, CoMcriptimt ad Cwfut in th$ Confederacy, chapter ML 
, chapter ir. 
** BUft loan, Dfjwrifti* dnrinff the CMl Wat* 



324 THE OLD SOUTH 

mentally unfitted, and to the refusal of England either 
to aid the Confederacy in winning independence or to 
recognize it as already won. The Southern expectation 
of speedily winning the war was perhaps not unreason- 
able. At the beginning the Southern troops had the spirit 
of crusaders and although the troops themselves were 
undisciplined they had a multitude of leaders trained in 
the regular army. Outnumbered, under supplied, with- 
out reserves, the best chance of the South for winning 
lay in the speed and fury of its onset. The decision of the 
Confederacy to stand on the defensive was perhaps the 
most fatal step of the war. No other government in 
modern times has equalled the success of the Confeder- 
acy in cooling the ardor of its soldiers by inaction or 
dissipating their enthusiasm by restraint from attack. 
No other government has wanted to. 

The cotton embargo failed to move England notwith- 
standing the fact its success was repeatedly demonstrated 
by unanswerable logic and irrefutable arguments. It 
was only as the hope of intervention was repeatedly 
deferred that the South realized how much its confi- 
dence had depended on its expectation of English aid* 
But it was quite in vain that the South sent out its diplo- 
mats, organized English public opinion and doggedly 
withheld its cotton ; England was to be moved neither 
by persuasion nor pressure. The profits of neutrality 
were so great as to make its ethical appeal irresistible, 
For although there was great distress among the opera- 
tives in England when the smaller cotton mills closed, 
the high prices of cotton cloth brought huge fortunes 
to the larger mills, and English shipping benefited 
enormously by the destruction of the United States mer- 
chantmen at the hand of the Confederate raiders, 10 An 

* * F, X,. Owsley, King Cotton Difl&m &cy f 5%, 



THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE 325 

English government dominated by these interests could 
hardly be expected to aid in abbreviating a war which 
so liberally contributed to their prosperity. 

It is fairly evident that the reason the Confederate 
armies were so uniformly inferior in number to their 
enemies was not that the South lacked men but that it 
lacked soldiers. Yet even in numbers the armies were 
perhaps strong enough to win independence had they 
been well led and well supplied. One of the greatest 
hardships of the South in the war was the multitude of 
generals it inherited from the United States army. They 
were as a rule jealous of each other, incapable of co- 
operation, too full of their own importance to carry out 
the plans of their superiors, rarely securing or deserving 
the confidence of their subordinates. The storm petrel 
of the war was Joseph E. Johnston. 70 His vainglory and 
jealous insistence on his dignity spread discord through 
the eastern armies until a providential wound removed 
him from command. Upon his recovery he was sent west 
where, resentful of the terms of his command, he failed 
to cooperate with Pemberton and as a spectator wit- 
nessed the fall of the Mississippi Valley. 80 Later in his 
retreat toward Atlanta his refusal to communicate his 
plans to Davis or to his own generals brought about 
his removal. 81 Davis himself was a general and in his 
military capacity made notable contributions to the 
downfall of the Confederacy, His distrust of Johnston 
and constant interference in his plans was largely re- 
sponsible for the conduct of that gentleman. His selec- 

& A. P James, "General Joseph Bggleiton Johnston, Storm Center of the 

Confederacy/* In Mwmippi V*ll*y Hittorical R^m^w t vol. xnr, 34* 
*>T. It Hay, "Confederate Leadership at Vicktburg," In Mwwiffi FaUity 

Mut&rlcai R@mm vol. XI, 543. 

** T* R* Hay* ^The Davit-Hood-Jotmttoii Controversy of 1864," in JMTsmr- 
*, vol. 3ti 54. 



326 THE OLD SOUTH 

tion of Pemberton to oppose Grant at Vicksburg and of 
Hood to supersede Johnston before Atlanta were acts 
of misjudgment so profound as to approach sublimity. 
Davis throughout the war had great confidence in Bragg 
and kept him in positions of responsibility although 
Bragg's operations in Kentucky and Tennessee were of 
such a character as to make one wonder whether they 
were designed to assist the Confederacy or the Union. 
Yet Davis must be credited with the promotion and un- 
deviating support of Lee. Lee was so preeminent as to 
escape most of the bickerings and jealousies that beset 
Johnston. Yet a contributing cause to the loss of Gettys- 
burg was Longstreet's lack of cooperation. Except for 
Lee, the successful leaders of the South were not its 
professional officers, but its amateurs such as Bedford 
Forrest, John Morgan, and Stonewall Jackson. 

But the most fatal handicap of the South in its struggle 
for independence was neither the waning of enthusiasm 
nor the ineptitude of the leaders ; it was the resurgence 
of the doctrine of state rights. There was a valid basis 
for the assertion of state rights against the Union, be- 
cause the Southern states had interests antagonistic to 
those of the United States; there was no logic in assert- 
ing state rights against the Confederacy because all the 
states which composed the Confederacy had identical 
interests. But the South in self-interest had for so long 
opposed centralization of government, that it had come 
to believe centralization an evil in itself. The doctrine 
of state rights had so long been asserted as a means to 
an end that it finally came to be viewed as an end in 
itself. The jealousy of the states toward the Confederate 
government showed itself at the very beginning of the 
war and grew to such an extent as practically to prevent 
all community of action. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE 327 

It first showed itself in the refusal of the states to turn 
over to the Confederacy the state arms purchased after 
the John Brown raid and seized from the Federal forts 
and arsenals. The immediate result of this maneuver 
was that the Confederacy had to reject some 200,000 
volunteers for lack of arms. 82 Throughout the war the 
Southern states persisted in maintaining troops for local 
defenses. These state militias were legally exempt from 
Confederate control until the Conscription Act of 1864 
and were actually exempt throughout the war since the 
states defied the law. Over 100,000 men were thus kept 
out of the Confederate armies ; 8S for the most part they 
were also kept out of the war. For the state militias were 
notoriously the haven of those whose valor was liberally 
diluted with discretion. They were in effect state quaran- 
tines for sufferers from war-phobia. 

Not only did the states refuse arms and men to the 
Confederacy but they insisted on their right to appoint 
the officers for the troops raised within their limits for 
the Confederacy* Such officers were commonly distin- 
guished more for their political acumen thau for their 
knowledge of war. But nothing so outraged the feeling 
of the state rights devotees as did the Confederate laws 
for conscription, martial law, and impressment of prop- 
erty. The passing of the first conscription act brought 
down on the head of Davis a greater storm of obloquy 
than had ever assailed Lincoln* The states hampered the 
operation of the act in various ways, by building up their 
militias, by insisting that the conscription agents should 
be state officials, and (in North Carolina) by court de- 
cisions against its constitutionality, 84 The suspension of 

** F. L. Owiley, Stat* Rifktt, a*, 

**M*M, 37S- 

* A, B. M00re f Ctnscrittit* md Conflict, 207-305. 



328 THE OLD SOUTH 

the writ of habeas corpus (February, 1862) raised such 
a furor in the South as practically to nullify the law 
(actually so in North Carolina and Georgia) and to 
force its repeal the next year. The Confederacy took 
courage sufficiently to suspend the writ again in Febru- 
ary, 1864, but in the interim Vicksburg had fallen and 
Gettysburg had been lost. Throughout the war, state 
judges used the writ of habeas corpus to protect deserters 
from the Confederate armies. The law for the impress- 
ment of property, March, 1863, was the necessary result 
of the refusal of the Southern farmers and planters to 
sell supplies to the Confederate armies for Confederate 
money. The Southern states made a nullity of the law 
as far as they were able by insisting that property so 
seized should be valued by local appraisers. 85 At times 
the state militias were called out to prevent the seizure 
of property for the Confederacy. North Carolina and 
the Confederacy almost came to blows when Davis at- 
tempted to impress slaves for building a railroad from 
Greensboro to Danville. South Carolina would not al- 
low her slaves to be carried out of the state and Florida 
refused to allow her slaves to be impressed by any other 
authority than the state itself. Injunctions from the state 
courts in many instances prevented the Confederacy 
from removing branch line railroads for the repair of 
the main lines. 

The most flagrant exhibition of state rights was given 
by the states in their control of textile mills. w The textile 
mills of the South expanded greatly to meet the war 
needs. There were 122 mills in the South in 1864, Costly 
located In North Carolina (40), Georgia (36), and 
Virginia (26). The output of 54 of the 122 mills was 

* F. L. Owsley, Stain R*0fots> 
110149* 



THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE 329 

monopolized by the states for their own uses and re- 
fused to the Confederate government. North Carolina 
would not permit any of her textile products to be sold 
to the Confederacy. Each state insisted that such cloth- 
ing as it furnished the Confederate armies be limited 
to its own troops. The result was that the North Caro- 
lina and Georgia troops were generally well clothed 
while the soldiers from the other states were often clad 
in rags. At the close of the war the North Carolina 
soldiers in the Confederate armies were comfortably 
clothed and equipped and North Carolina had over 
90,000 uniforms in reserve. The states not only deprived 
the Confederacy of a great part of the domestic supply 
of clothing, but competed successfully for the control 
of importations. The seaboard states owned their own 
blockade runners and managed by various devices to 
secure the cargoes of private runners as well. In 1863 
the Confederate congress legislated to the effect that one- 
third the cargoes of private ships must be reserved for 
the Confederacy, but the chief result was that the states 
chartered the private ships. The law of 1864 giving the 
Confederacy authority over private shipping resulted 
in a wholesale transferal of such shipping to the states. 
State-fomented strikes of Confederate blockade run- 
ners were not unknown. In all the conflicts between the 
states and the Confederacy, North Carolina under Gov- 
ernor Vance and Georgia under Governor Brown were 
the most vigorous advocates of state rights. There were 
many times when these two states seemed to consider 
Davis a greater enemy than Lincoln, and to prefer the 
United to the Confederacy. Vance and Brown 

ably assisted in opposition by Vice-president 
Stephens, Rhett of South Carolina, Foote of Tennessee, 
Yancey of Alabama. Florida under Governor 



330 THE OLD SOUTH 

Milton had, perhaps, the best record for supporting the 
Confederacy. The South did not lose because it was out- 
numbered ; it had sufficient man power to gain its inde- 
pendence, but neither by force nor persuasion could the 
Confederacy keep its armies filled. Neither did it lose 
because of the blockade. 87 The United States even in 
1865 had but 600 steamers to guard the long coast line 
of the South and it has been estimated that the blockade 
runners completed successfully approximately 10,000 
trips. Only one-sixth of them were caught It may be 
doubted if the South failed to secure anything from 
abroad that she needed. Neither did the South fail 
because of lack of food and supplies. During the war the 
South gave up almost completely the raising of cotton 
and devoted itself to the cultivation of food crops. There 
was no time during the war when the South lacked food 
although there were times a-plenty when the soldiers 
went hungry. The sections of the South occupied or 
devastated by hostile armies were few ; for the most part 
Southern agriculture escaped unscathed and there were 
vast quantities of food supplies at the end of the war. 
Clothing was not so plentiful as food, but even of cloth- 
ing there was sufficient, either the product of Southern 
mills or of English, The South never lacked clothing 
although there were many times when the soldiers were 
barefoot and clad only in rags* 

The paradox of Southern plenty and Confederate 
need has two explanations. One explanation was the 
breakdown of the Southprn transportation system. The 
war began and ended on a railroad ; the first battle and 
the first surrender took place on a railroad. It was a 
railroad war in which the Federal armies by successive 
steps isolated section after section of the South from 

87 F. L. Owsley, King Cotton Diplomacy, chapter viii. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE 331 

the defending armies by capturing the railroads. But 
the railroads themselves were non-combatants. They 
fell because they were not defended. The Confederate 
armies failed in their defense because they were out- 
numbered, because they were badly led, because they 
were ill-supplied. For these conditions no one was to 
blame except the Southern people themselves. 

The war both gave and took away. The direst catas- 
trophe it visited upon the Southern people was to rob 
them of their confidence in themselves. The burned 
towns would be rebuilt, the railroads would once more 
be laid down, the devastated fields would sometime 
yield again* Even the grief for the heroic dead would 
in time become a memory that did not burn. But the 
spirit of the South was broken, perhaps beyond repair; 
its faith in itself destroyed, it may be beyond all hope 
of resurrection* Yet the war brought its gift to the South. 
The antagonisms of the war were soon forgotten; the 
remembrance of suffering and high endeavor endured 
as a heritage* In this memory the South was united, its 
people became more Southern. The spirit of Southern 
nationalism was increased by the war it brought to pass, 
grew immeasurably from the war which denied it 



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BETTS, E. C. Early History of Huntsville (Montgomery, 1916), 

BEVERIDGE, A. J. Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1858 (Boston, 1928), in 
2 vols. 
Probably the most impartial account of political questions, i845-i$6o 

BOLTON, Herbert E. and T. M. Marshall. Colonization of North 
America, 1492-1783 (New York, 1922). 

BRETZ, Julian P. "Early Land Communication with the Lower Mis- 
sissippi Valley," in Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. xin, 
p. 3-27. 

BRUCE, P. A. Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Cen- 
tury. An inquiry into the material condition of the people, 
upon the original and contemporaneous records (New York, 1907), 
in 2 vols. 

CALDWELL, J. W* "John Bell of Tennessee/* in American Historical 
Review, vol. iv, p. 652-664. 

CALHOUN, John C. Works, edited by R.KLCrattS (New York, 1853), 
6 vols. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 337 



Correspondence, edited by J. F. Jameson, in American His- 
torical Association Report, 1899, n (Washington, 1925). 

CALLAHAN, ]. M. "The Mexican Policy of Southern Leaders Under 
Buchanan's Administration," in American Historical Association 
Annual Report, 1910, p. 135-151 (Washington, 1912). 

CARPENTER, J. T. The South as a Conscious Minority, 1789-1861; 
a study in political thought (New York, 1930). 

Describes the methods by which the South defended itself against a 
numerically superior North. 

CHESNUTT, Mrs. Mary Boykin. A Diary from Dixie, edited by Isa- 
belle D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary (New York, 1906). 

CLAY-CLOPTON, Mrs. Virginia. A Belle of the Fifties; memoirs of 
Mrs, Clay, of Alabama, covering Social and Political life in Wash- 
ington and the South, 1853-66: put into narrative form by Ada 
Sterling (New York, 1904). 

COHBN, Sidney J, Three Notable Ante-bellum Magazines of South 
Carolina [Bulletin of the University of South Carolina, no. 42, 
pt n], (Columbia, 1915). 

COLE, A. C. The Whig Party in the South (Washington, 1913). 
Contains valuable charts of presidential campaigns. 

COTTERILL, R. S. "Beginnings of Railroads in the Southwest," in Mis- 
sissippi Valley Historical Review, vol vra, p. 3*8-326. 

"Federal Indian Management in the South, 1789-1825," in 
Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol, xx, p. 333-3S 2 - 

"The National Land System in the South, 1803-1812," in 



Mississippi Valley Historial Review, vol. xvi, p. 495-506. 
~~ "South Carolina Land Cession," in Mississippi Valley His- 
torical Review, vol xn, p. 376-384- 
"Southern Railroads and Western Trade, 1840-1850," in 

Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. in, p* 427-441. 
"Southern Railroads, 1 850-1860," in Mississippi Valley His- 
torical Review, vol. xn, p. 376-384. 
oULTin, B* M, "Ante-bellum Academy Movement in Georgia," in 

Georgia Historical Quarterly, vol v, p. 11-42, 

The Civil War and Readjustment in Kentucky (Chapel Hill, 

1926). 

Cwittitts * lucid description of Kentucky neutrality in the War between 
the Stftte** 

JUie in the Old South (New York, 1928) . 

A Short History of Georgia (Chapd Hill, 1933 ) 

Ofte of the state histories. 



338 THE OLD SOUTH 

CRANE, V. W. The Southern Frontier, 1670-1732 (Durham, N. C., 
1928). 

Invaluable for its account of the Indian trade and traders. 
CRAVEN, Avery O. Edmund Ruffin, Southerner (New York, 1932), 

Soil Exhaustion as a Factor in the Agricultural History of 

Virginia and Maryland, 1606-1860 [University of Illinois Studies 
in the Social Sciences, vol. xin, no. i], (Urbana, 1926). 
DABNEY, Virginius. Liberalism in the South (Chapel Hill, 1932). 
DAVIS, W. W. "Ante-bellum Southern Commercial Conventions," in 
Alabama Historical Society Transactions, vol. v, p. 153-202 (Mont- 
gomery, 1906). 
DEBow, J. D. B. Interest of the Non-Slave Holder in Slavery 

(Charleston, 1860). 
DENMAN, C, P. The Secession Movement in Alabama [Alabama State 

Department of Archives and History] , (Montgomery, 1933)- 
DODD, W. E. The Cotton Kingdom [Chronicles of America Series, 

vol. 27], (New Haven, 1921). 
DUMOND, D. L. The Secession Movement, 1860-1861 (New York, 

1930- 

, editor. Southern Editorials on Secession (New York, 193*)- 

ELLIOT, E. N,, editor. Cotton Is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments: 
comprising the writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, String- 
fellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartwright, on this important subject ; 
with an essay on slavery in the light of international law by the 
editor (Augusta, 1860). 

EPPES, Mrs. Susan Bradford (Mrs. Nicholas Ware Eppes) Through 
Some Eventful Years (Macon, 1926). 

FOREMAN, Grant. Pioneer Days in the Early Southwest (Cleveland, 
1926). 

Indians and Pioneers; the story of the American Southwest 

before 1830 (New Haven, 1930). 

The best account of the Southwest. 

Indian Removal (Norman, Oklahoma, 1932)* 

Practically a source book. 

GAINES, F. P. The Southern Plantation : a study In the development 
and accuracy of a tradition (New York, 1924). 

A criticism of the tradition. 

GRAY, L. C. assisted by E* K. Thompson* History of Agriculture in 
the Southern States to 1860 [Carnegie Institution of Washington 
Publications, no* 430], (Washington, I93j)> m 2 vols, 
An encyclopedia of information. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



339 



GREEN, F. M. Constitutional Development in the South Atlantic 
States, 1776-1860; a study in the evolution of democracy [The 
University of North Carolina Social Study Series], (Chapel Hill, 
1930). 
The best chapters are those dealing with sectionalism and reform. 

HAMILTON, P. J. Colonial Mobile ; an historical study largely from 
original sources, of the Alabama-Tombigbee basin from the dis- 
covery of Mobile Bay in 1519 until the demolition of Ft. Charlotte 
in 1821 (Boston, 1897). 

Particularly good for the French regime. 

HAY, T. R. "The Davis-Hood-Johnston Controversy of 1864," in 
Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. xi, p. 54-84. 

HAYES, C. W. and M. R. Campbell. "Geomorphology of the Southern 
Appalachians," in National Geographic Magazine (Washington, 
1894), vol. 6. 

HODDBR, F. H. "Sidelights on the Missouri Compromise," in Ameri- 
can Historical Association Annual Report, 1909, p. 153-161 (Wash- 
ington, 1911). 

"The Railroad Background of the Kansas-Nebraska Act/' 

in Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. xn, p. 3-22. 

HOUCK, Louis* A History of Missouri, from the earliest explorations 
and settlements until the admission of the state into the Union 
(Chicago, 1908), in 3 vols. 
Ill-written and incoherent, but good for details. 

HOUSTON, D. F. A Critical Study of Nullification in South Carolina 
[Harvard historical studies, vol. 3], (Cambridge, 1896). 

HutBBRT, A. B. Boone's Wilderness Road [Historic Highways of 
America, vol. 6], (Cleveland, 1903)* 

The Great American Canals, vol. I [Historic Highways of 
America, vol. 13], (Cleveland, 1904)' 

H UNDLBV, D, R. Social Relations ia Our Southern States (New York, 
1860). 

JACK, T. H. Sectionalism and Party Politics in Alabama, 1819-1842 
( Wisconsin, 1919). 

KSMBLB* Mrs* Franca Anne. Journal of a Residence on a Georgian 
Plantation in 1838-1839 (New York, 1864). 

Cemurrimss picture by att English abolitionist. 

Fronde. "RuneU's Magazine/' in South Atlantic Quar- 
terly, voL 18, p. 125-145, 
~ "Southern Rosebud and Southern Rose/' in South Atlantic 

Quarterly* vol. 33, p* 10-19. 



340 THE OLD SOUTH 

KETTELL, T. P. Southern Wealth and Northern Profits, as exhibited 
in statistical facts and official figures : showing the necessity of union 
to the future prosperity and welfare of the republic (New York, 
1860). 
Not to be trusted for details, but represents the Southern viewpoint. 

KNIGHT, Edward W. "The Academy Movement in the South," in 
High School Journal, vols. 11 and in. 

LA FORCE, L., W. Coofce, A. Keith, M. R. Campbell. Physical Geog- 
raphy of Georgia with introduction by S. W. McCallie, state geolo- 
gist [Bulletin no. 42, Geological Survey of Georgia], (Atlanta, 
1925). 

LEFTWICH, G. J* "Cotton Gin Port and Games' Trace," in Mississippi 
Historical Society Publications, vol. 7, pp. 263-70 (Oxford, Miss,, 

1903). 

LONN, Ella. Desertion during the Civil War (New York, 1928). 

MALONE, Dumas. The Public Life of Thomas Cooper, 1783-1839 
(New Haven, 1926), 

MARTIN, W. E. Internal Improvements in Alabama, in Johns Hopkins 
University Studies in Historical and Political Science (Baltimore, 
1902). 

McCLURE, Wallace. "The Development of the Tennessee Constitu- 
tion/' in Tennessee Historical Magazine, vol. I, p. 293-314. 

McGEE, W. J. "The Lafayette Formation, in I2th Annual Report 
of the United States Geological Survey. 

McLENDOK, S. G. History of the Public Domain of Georgia (At- 
lanta, 1924). 
Good for the Georgia land frauds. Contains the Georgia Compact. 

MERRITT, Elizabeth. James Henry Hammond, 1807-1864, in Johns 
Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science (Bal- 
timore, 1923), series axi. 

MINOR, B. B, The Southern Literary Messenger, 1834-1864 (New 
York, 1905). 

MITCHELL, Broadus. William Gregg, Factory Master of the Old 
South (Chapel Hill, 1928), 

Frederick Law Olmsted ; a Critic of the Old South, in Johns 

Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science 
(Baltimore, 1924). 

MOON JET, James. See United States Bur earn of American Ethnology. 

MOORE, A. B. Conscription and Conflict in the Confederacy (New 
York, 1924), 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 341 



MYER, W, E. See United States Bureau of American Ethnology, 
OLMSTED, F. L. A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States with remarks 

on their economy (New York, 1856). 
A Journey in the Back Country in the winter of 1853-4 

(New York, 1907), in 2 vols. 

OWENS, T, McAdory. History of Alabama and Dictionary of Ala- 
bama Biography (Chicago, 1921 ), in 4 vols. 
OWSLBY, F. L. King Cotton Diplomacy; Foreign Relations of the 

Confederate States of America (Chicago, 1931). 
Indispensable. A new interpretation of Southern diplomacy in the war. 

State Rights in the Confederacy (Chicago, 1925). 

Reveals the conflict between state rights and Southern nationalism. 
PARKS, Frances Taliaferro. "The attitude of Southern States toward 

Nullification in South Carolina in 1833," MS., Thesis for Honors 

Degree in History, Florida State College for Women, 1935. 
PETER, Robert and Johanna Peter. Transylvania University ; its origin, 

rise, decline, and fall, in Filson Club Publication, no. n (Louisville, 

1896). 
PHILLIPS, U. B. A History of Transportation in the Eastern Cotton 

Belt to 1860 (New York, 1908). 
American Negro Slavery : a survey of the supply, employment 

and control of negro labor as determined by the Plantation Regime 

(New York, 1918). 
A clastic In its field. 
-, editor. Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. 

Stephens, and Howell Cobb, in American Historical Association 

Annual Report, 1911, vol. n (Washington, 1913). 
Georgia and State Rights, in American Historical Association 

Annual Report, 1901, vol. n (Washington, 1902). 
--------- Plantation and Frontier Documents: 1649-1863; illustrative 

of industrial history in the colonial and ante-bellum South, collected 

from MSS. and other rare sources (Cleveland, 1909), in 2 vols. 
"The South Carolina Federalists/* in American Historical 

Review, vol. xiv, pt. i, p. 5^9-543; P* P 731-743- 
~~ "The Southern Whigs, 1834-18541" in Essays in American 

History dedicated to Frederick Jackson Turner (New York, 1910) . 
PfcYDRt A. Reminiscences of Peace and War (New York, 

C W, 4l Thc Natural Limits of Slavery Expansion/' in 
Valley Historical Review, voL 16, p. 151-171. 



342 THE OLD SOUTH 

ROGERS, E. R, Four Southern Magazines, dissertation for the degree 
of Doctor of Philosophy, University of Virginia (Charlottesville, 
1902). 

ROWLAND, Dunbar. History of Mississippi: The Heart of the South 
(Chicago, 1925), in 2 vols. 

ROYCE, Charles C See United {States Bureau of American Ethnology. 

RUSSELL, R. R Economic Aspects of Southern Sectionalism [Uni- 
versity of Illinois Studies in Social Sciences, vol. XI, no, i and ii], 
(Urbana, 1924). 

The most outstanding contribution in recent years to Southern economic 
history. 

SAUER, Carl O. The Geography of the Ozark Highland of Missouri, 
in Bulletin no. 7 of the Geographic Society of Chicago (Chicago, 
1920). 
Much, broader than its title indicates. 

SCHAPER, W. A, Sectionalism and Representation in South Carolina, 
in American Historical Association Annual Report, 1 900, vol. I, 
p. 237-463 (Washington, 1901), 2 vols. 
Depicts the achieving of unity in South Carolina. 

SHYROCK, R. H. Georgia and the Union in 1850 (Durham, N. C., 
1926). 

SIOUSSAT, St. George L. "Memphis as a Gateway to the West: a 
Study in the Beginnings of Railway Transportation in the Old 
Southwest," in Tennessee Historical Magazine, vol. ni, pt i, p. 
x-27;pt.ii, p. 77-114- 

SMEDES, Susan D. A Southern Planter, Thomas Smith Gregory 
Dabney, 1798-1885, fourth edition (New York, 1890). 
Probably the best reminiscence of life in the Old South. 

SMITH, E. C* The Borderland in the Civil War (New York, 1927), 

STEJPHEHS, Alexander H. A Constitutional View of the Late War 
Between the States ; its causes, character, conduct and results pre- 
sented in a series of colloquies at Liberty Hall (Philadelphia, 
1868). 

The first volume is an elaborate and ponderous defense of the con- 
stitutionality of secession* 

STONE, A. H, "The Cotton Factorage System of the Southern States/ 1 
in American Historical Review^ vol. 30C> p. 557-565. 

SWANTON, John R* Set United States Bureau &f 'American Ethnology* 

THWAITBS, R. G, Daniel Boone (New York, 1931). 

, editor* Early Western Travels : a series of annotated reprints 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 343 



of some of the oest and rarest contemporary volumes of travel, de- 
scriptive of the aborigines and social and economic conditions in the 
middle and far West during the period of early American settlement 
(Cleveland, 1904-1907), 32 vols. 

TRENT, W. P. William Gilmore Simms [American Men of Letters], 
(Boston, 1892). 

UNITED States Bureau of American Ethnology. Bulletin no. 73 : Early 
History of the Creek Indians and Their Neighbors, by John R. 
Swan ton (Washington, 1922). 
Indispensable for a study of Southern Indians. 

Bulletin no. 103, Source Material for the Social and Cere- 
monial Life of the Choctaw Indians, by John R. Swanton (Wash- 
ington, 1930- 

Forty-second annual report, 1924-1925, Social Organization 



and Social Usages of the Indians of the Creek Confederacy, by 
John R. Swanton (Washington, 1928). 

Forty-fourth annual report, 1926-1927, Social and religious 

beliefs and usages of the Chickasaw Indians, by John R. Swanton 
(Washington, 1928). 
Forty-second annual report, 1924-1925, Aboriginal Culture 

of the Southeast, by John R. Swanton (Washington, 1928). 
Nineteenth annual report, 1897-1898, Myths of Cherokee, by 

James Mooncy (Washington, 1900), part i. 
Fifth annual report, 1883-1884, The Cherokee Nation of In- 
dians, by Charles C. Royce (Washington, 1887). 

Chiefly concerns their relation! with the United States. 
* ~~ Forty-second annual report, 1924-1925, Indian Trails of the 
Southeast, by W. E. Myer (Washington, 1928). 

Contains t map 0f the trails* 

Bulletin no* 43, Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Val- 
ley and adjacent Coast of the Gulf of Mexico, by John R, Swanton 
(Washington, 1911). 

~~ Eighteenth annual report^ 1896*1897, Indian Land Cessions in 
the United States, compiled by Charles C, Royce with an intro- 
duction by Cyrus Thomas (Washington, 1899)* pt- a. 
VAHClt Rupert* Human Geography of the South ; a Study in Regional 

and Human Adequacy (Chapel Hill, 193*) 
Am and valuable contribution* 

John N* Memorials of Academic Life, being an historical 
of the Wtdddi family, identified through three generations 



344 THE OLD SOUTH 

with the history of higher education in the South and Southwest 
(Richmond, 1891). 

WADE, J. D, Augustus Baldwin Longstreet ; a study of the develop- 
ment of culture in the South (New York, 1924). 

WAGSTAFF, Henry McGilbert. State Rights and Political Parties in 
North Carolina, 1776-1861, in Johns Hopkins University Studies 
in Historical and Political Science, series xxiv (Baltimore, 1906). 

WEAVER, C. C Internal Improvements in North Carolina Previous 
to 1860, in Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and 
Political Science, series xxi (Baltimore, 1903), 

WESTON, G. M. Poor Whites in the South (Washington, 1856). 

WHITAKER, A. P. "The Muscle Shoals Speculation/ 1 in Mississippi 
Valley Historical Review, vol. xni, p. 365-386. 

The Spanish-American Frontier: 1783-1795; the westward 

movement and the Spanish retreat in the Mississippi Valley, with 
an introduction by Samuel Eliot Morison (Boston, 1927). 

The only satisfactory account of this period, 

The Mississippi Question, 1795-1803; a study in trade, poli- 
tics, and diplomacy (New York, 1934). 

WHITE, Laura, Robert Barnwell Rhett: Father of Secession (New 
York, 1931). 



Index 



Index 



ABOLITION MOVEMENT: 143-144, 195- 
196, 250 

Academies: 281-284 

Adams, J. I: 171 

"Address to the People of the South- 
ern States": 205 

Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs: 

3<>9 
Agriculture: colonial, 77-80; reform, 

197 

Alabama; territory, 125; statehood, 
125; sectionalism, 157; land sales, 
1820-1830, 166; Jaekaonian migra- 
tion, 172; river improvement, 180; 
Compromise of 1850, 211 ; secession, 
254 

Alberaarle: % 
Algonqulan Indians: 38-39 
Alien and Sedition Actt: 159 
American Revolution: 107 
Andrews, Bishop; 396 
AnaapolU: 83, 154 
Appalachian mountains: 17, x8 
Appalachian Valley: 28-29 

(Memphis) : 296 
^frafer; if I 
Architecture: 70-71 

territory, 136; itatehood, 
164, 173; MC*foft, as$ 
Pott: 129 

river; exploration, i$x 
(Oeorgit); 157, tS 
Atlanta; 1711 sa 
S. F: ox 

: 154 

J. 0: jo^ 

londel f %; growA f a*7 
4 Obb Railroad!: ito- 
ili 7 



Baltimore Convention (1860): 251-2 

Banks : in Mississippi Territory, 122 ; 
panic of 1837, 187-189 

Baptist church: 196 

Batesville (Arkansas) : 137 

Bayou Spadrie: 132, 133 

Belief ontaine : 132, 133 

Berrien, J. M: 205 

Biloxi Indians: 38 

Birney, J. G: 143, 195 

"Bivouac of the Dead' 1 : 306 

Black Warrior river: 123 

Blockade: 329, 330 

Blount, William: land speculations, 
100-103 > territorial governor and 
Indian superintendent, 104; sena- 
tor, 105; Houston county, in 

Bluflfton movement: 197 

Boone, Daniel: 95 

Boonesborough : 95, 98 

Boonville (Missouri) : 135 

Bourbon county: in, 115 

Bradford, John: 106 

Bragg, Braxton: 326 

Brown, John: 237, 249, 250 

Brown, Joseph E: 329 

Buchanan, James: 236, 238 

Burr, Amron: 131 

CAODO INDIANS: 130, 133 
Cthaba (Alabama); 122, 125 
Oallunm, John C: nullification, 147; 
secretary of war> 17* ; * f Southern 
Addresi,* 1 205; Southern conven- 
tion, 206, 2x4; South western con* 
volition, 216; Southern discontent,, 
241 ; education^ 284 
Californsa: 904 
Ctnapbell, J, A? ao8 



348 



THE OLD SOUTH 



Canton (Mississippi) : 123 

Cape Fear river: 179 

Cape Girardeau: 129, 135 

Carroll, Charles: 181 

Cartersville : 173 

Caswell, Richard: 101, 102, in 

Catawba Indians: 37 

Charleston: 155, 180 

Charleston and Hamburg Railroad: 
181 

Charleston convention (1860) : 251 

Charlottesville : 218 

Chattanooga: 173, 322 

Cherokee Indians: description, 39-4 2 
in revolution, 98; civilization in 
1830*8, 168; and Georgia, 168; re- 
moval, 171 

Cherokee Phoenix: x68 

Chesapeake and Ohio Canal: 178 

Chestertown (Maryland): 154 

Cheves, Langdon: 208, 212 

Chickasaw Bluffs: 115 

Chickasaw Indians: description, 46- 
47 j and French, 87; removal, 171 

Chisholm vs. Georgia decision: 159 

Chiswcll mines: 92 

Choctaw Indians: description, 45-46; 
land cessions, 116; removal, 171 

Christy, David: 233 

Claiborne, W. C. C: 115 

Clarke, G. R: 96, 101 

Clay, Henry: 202, 209 

Coastal Plain: 19-25 

Cobb, Howell: 248, 300 

Colerain (Georgia) : 112 

Columbia: 155, 181 

Columbus (Georgia): 173 

Columbus (Mississippi) : 123, 124, 172 

Commercial conventions: 197, 225-6 

Commercial Bulletin: 297 

Commercial Remew: 301-302 

Compromise of 1850: 210*2x1, 212 

Conecuh ( Alabama) : 122 

Confederacy: formed, 255; England, 
3*4 

Conscription: 323, 327 

Constitutional reform: 161-164 



Constitutional Union party: 234, 252 

Cooper, Thomas: 285 

Corinth: 172, 321 

Cotton: beginning, 109; fall in prices, 

189; in fifties, 229 
Cotton gin: 108 
Cotton Gin Port: 117, 155 
Cotton is King: 233 
Crawford, W. H: 284 
Creek Indians : description, 42-45 ; 

War of 1812, 119-120; removal, 171 
Cumberland Gap: 91, 116 
Cumberland Road: 166 

DANVILLE (Kentucky) : 103 

Davidson College: 286 

Davis, Jefferson: candidate for gov- 
ernor, 2x0; and Pacific Railroad, 
226, 235; president of Confederacy, 

aS5 3*5 

DeBow, J. D, B : 301 
Debts: of Southern states, 188 
Decatur: 123 
Delaware: 107 
Democratic party: sectional basil of, 

159-161 ; attitude to California, 204; 

effect of Compromise of 1850 on, 

234; Southern control, 244 
Demopolis (Alabama) ; 123, 124 
Denominational colleges: alfi 
Desertion: In Confederate armies, 

33 

Dinsmore, Silas: 1x9, lax 
Direct trade with Europe: 197, a5 
Dismal Swamp Canal; 154 
Dixon, A. C: 23$ 
Do-melton, John: in 
Douglas, S. A; 251, a$3 
Dred Scott decision; %%% 351, as$ 

EAST TsMvwtft and RatX* 

rouci: 220 

East Tcnnetice tod Virginia Rail* 

road: 220 
Elections; (18531), s$; (i*S*)t *$*t 



Emory ad Heary 



INDEX 



349 



England and Confederacy: 334 
Enquirer (Richmond) : 294 
Essay on Calcareous Manures: 198 
Essays on Domestic Industry: 197 
Europe: direct trade with, 197, 225 



ONE: 20, 23 
Farmers: 271-273 
Farmers* Register: 198 
Federal Road; 116, 117, 122, 166 

Florence: xz6, 124 

Florida; geology, 23; Spanish, 60-61; 

purchase, 126, 127; statehood, 203; 
secession, 254 
Plus A Tim$ of Alabama and Mis- 

sissippi: 309 

Foote, H, S: 205, 211, 2x2, 329 
Foreigners; in South, 262-263 
Forests: 69-71 
Porrett, Bedford: 326 
Fonythj John: 239 
Fort Adtrot: 112 
Fort Clark: 133 
Fort Dearborn: 115 
Fort Dottclaoo: 321 
F0rt Henry; 3*1 
Fort Pickering: n 
Fort Saa Lui*: 6o 5 
Fort Smith: 134 
Pert Sttnwix: treaty, 93 
Fort Stoddart: xx6 
Port Tombecbe; Sj 
Fort Toulouac: 86 
Fort Wilkinson: xxa 

104 

Franklin: of, ioi in 
Fret tM 

Doctrine: 4f a$0 
Ji4i 

fl t xoo, 105 
Lick i 17, 9* 

i t *49 *50 
til 

8: if 
Tracts i 



Garrison, William Lloyd: 144, 195 

Georgia: settlement, 86-87; revolu- 
tion, 107 ; slave trade, 108 ; western 
land, 109-110; land system, no, 
118; speculation, xxo-xix; cession 
of western land, 112; sectionalism, 
1 57-i5 8 ; reform, 163; river im- 
provement, 179; Wilmot Proviso, 
204; Compromise of 1850, 210; se- 
cession, 254 

Georgia Central Railroad: 183 

Georgia Compact: 112, 125 

Georgia Railroad: 183 

Georgia Road: 116, 122 

Georgia Scenes: 308 

Gist, Christopher: 92 

Grand Gulf Ridge: 30 

Grant, U. S: 322, 323 

Great Migration: 120 

Gregg, William: 197 

Guntersville: 172 

Guthrie, James: 223 

HALDEMAND, W. B: 296 

Hammond, James Henry: 199, 208, 247 

Hampden-Sidney College: 284 

Hard Labor, Treaty of: 93 

Harrison, William Henry: 146 

Harrodatown: 94 

Hawkins, Benjamin: 112, 115, 1x9, 

X2X 

Hayne, P, H: 301 

Htyne, R, Y: x2, 300 

Henderion, Richard: 95, 97, 98, xoo, 

1 02, 203 
Henderson (Kentucky) : 103 

Henry, Patrick: xxx 
Highland Rim: 25 
Hoiilnt College: 287 
Holly Springs: 172 
Holley* Horace: 285 
Hooper, J. J : 309 
llopewdl* Treaty of: xoa, 105 
Horn* shoe Bend: xao 



Houston, Sam: 202 
Houttoo anility: xxx 



350 



THE OLD SOUTH 



Huguenots: 64-65 
Hunter, R. M. T: 205 
Huntsville: 116, 121, 122, 123, 125 

ILLINOIS: attitude to Missouri con- 
troversy, 146 

Illinois county: 101 

Illinois Central Railroad: 220 

Immigration: 197, 262-263 

Indentured servants: 65-68, 80 

Indiana: attitude to Missouri con- 
troversy, 146 

Indiana Territory: 131 

Indians: description, 37-57; condi- 
tions in 1830, 166-177; removal, 
171-172; see particular tribes 

Irish: 263 

Iroquoian tribes: 39 

JACKSON, Andrew: 105, 120, 126, 188 
Jackson, "Stonewall": 326 
Jackson (Mississippi) : 124 
Jackson Purchase: 121 
James river and Kanawha Canal: 

178, 179 

Jefferson, Thomas: 144, *53 
Johnson, Reverdy: 238 
Johnson, Samuel: 102 
Johnston, A. S: 321 
Johnston, J. E: 322, 325, 326 

KANAWHA RIVER: 31 

Kansas: admission to Union, 258 

Kansas-Nebraska Bill: 236-237 

Kennedy, J. P: 310-311 

Kentucke county: 96 

Kentucky: settlement, 95; in revoln- 
tion, 98-99; separatist movement, 
101, 102; statehood, 103; section- 
alism, 156; roads, 177; river Im- 
provement, 1 80; Compromise of 
1850, axo; neutrality, 317, 3*1 

Kentucky Ga%ett$: 106 

Kingdom of Aceowac: &s 

King's mountain: 99 

Know Nothing putty; 238 

Knoxville: 105 



LA GRANGE FEMALE COLLEGE: 287 
Land cessions: Cherokee, 104, 126, 

118, 171; Chickasaw, 123, 171; 

Choctaw, 1*6, 120, 171; Creek, no, 

118, 120, 165, 171; Osage, 133 
Land officers: Mississippi Territory, 

115, 116, 121 ; Orleans Territory, 

132; Louisiana Territory, 132; Mis- 

souri Territory, 135; Arkansas, 

137; Louisiana, 137 
Land systems : Virginia, 97 ; Kentucky, 

103; Georgia, no, 118; Tennessee, 

117 

Lanier, Sidney: 306-307 
Lee, R. 1322, 326 
Legar, H. S: 284, 300 
Lewis and Clark expedition: 131, 145 
Lexington: 100 

Lexington and Ohio Railroad: 184 
Liberator: 195 
Liberty Hall: 284 
Licking river: xoo 
Lieber, Francis: 285 
Liguitic Ridge: 30, 32 
Lif and Labor in tht Old South: 34 
Lincoln, Abraham: 245 
Little Rock: 136 
Ixtchaber, Treaty; 93 
Longstreet, A. B: af4 307 
Longitreet, J* B : |6 
Louisiana: state, xSS-w; parties, 

i6x ; Compromise of 1850^ aio; se- 

cession* a 54 
Louisiana Purchase : 1*9 ; exploration, 

131; division, 130 
Louisville: xoo 
Louisville am! 



Louisville mad Forttind C*1: 
Loviiville, Clisrliitoii 
Railroad: ill 

Gtmritr: af j 



Loyal Land C<>mf>;m> ; 9% f 
14$, 195 



INDEX 



MACADAMIZED ROADS: 177 

McClary's Path: 115 

McDonald, C. J: 208, 212 

McBuffie, George: 284 

McKee, John: 119, 121 

McLane, R. M: 239 

Macon (Georgia) : 124, 182, 183, 218 

Macon, Nathaniel: 162 

Madison county: 1x6 

Magazines: 299-301 

Mail routes: Kentucky and Tennes- 

see, 106; Mississippi Territory, 124 
Manassas Gap Railroad: 320 
"Major Jones* Courtship": 308 
Manufacturing: 197, 231, 328-329 
Maryland: settlement, 62-63; section- 

alism, XSJE-XSS; "revolution of 



Mason, J. Y: 236 

Mason and Dixon line: 62; of In- 

dians, 38 
Mayilick: xoo 
May&ville: xoo 
MaysvllU nd Lexington Turnpike: 

177 

Mei% R, J; 119, wx 133 
Memphis; 114 
Memphis and Charleston Railroad: 

ax8, $ai 

Mtrcury (Cnarleiton) : 295 
Meridian: 1*3 
Methodist church: 2<;6 

War; 510$ 
Military Road: xas 
MUl*dg*viU: 118! iax, 1*4, 15* 

Joto; ja^-SSO 
Mimr, Tit; xo4 

terrtt0ry r m-xas; ttate* 



i If ; Sttttth*r 20^; ae- 

*$4 

tod Atkatlc Eailrotd; 
i% 

sis; territory, 134; 

i% 

X4S-I45,, $7 
4 



Mobile and Ohio Railroad: 220, 321 

Montgomery: 122 

Montgomery and West Point Rail- 

road: 218 

Morgan, John: 326 
Morganton-Watauga Trail: 105 
Muscle Shoals Canal: 179 
"My Life is like a Summer Rose" : 306 

NASHVILLE: founded, 98; land office, 
116 ; Southern convention, 208 ; rail- 
roads, 217, 233 ; capture, 321 

Nashville Basin: 25 

Natchez: m, 115, 116, 184 

Natchez Trace: 116, 124, 166 

National Bank: 187 

Natchitoches: 129, 132 

Negroes: free, 266 

Neutrality: of Kentucky, 256 

Newberry College: 286 

New Madrid: 129 

New Orleans: prosperity, 216 

New Orleans, Jackson, and Great 
Northern Railroad: 220 

Newspapers: 293-299 

North Carolina: settlement, 63-64; 
revolution, 107; land speculation, 
loo-ioa: ; sectionalism, 151-155 ; con- 
stitution of 1835, 162; political par- 
ties, 159; river improvement, 179; 
Compromise of 1850, 210; secession, 

* 5 6 

Northern-born in South: 264 
Northwest: Southern population, 141 
Nullification: 147-149; attitude of 
Southern states, 148 

Novelists: 3x0-313 



: 54, 76 

Ooonee: no 
Ogeechee: no 
Of ceeliee Canal : 179 
0*Hra, Theodore: 306 
0hi0: attitude to Miasouri contro- 
versy, *4& 

Company: 9% 94 



352 



THE OLD SOUTH 



Opelousas: 132, 137 

Oregon: 203 

Orleans Territory: created, 130; land 

offices, 132; population in 1810, 133 
Osage Indians: description, 129-130; 

land cession, 133 
Ostend Manifesto: 236 
Overseers: 268 
Ouachita: 137 
Ozarks: 18, 135 

PACIFIC RAILROAD: 226, 235, 236 

Palladium: 106 

Palmyra: 173 

Panic of 1837: 173, 187 

Paris (Kentucky) : 100, 106 

Partisan Leader t The; 208 

Peace Conference (1861): 255 

Pemberton, J. C: 326 

Personal Liberty Bills: 249 

Petigru, J. L: 300 

Phillips, U. B: 34 

Picayune (New Orleans) : 297 

Pierce, Franklin: 235 

Pike, Z. M: 131 

Pillow, G. J: 209 

Pine Barren Speculations: x*o 

Plantations: origin, 79; life on, 268- 

269 

Planters: characterization, 269-270 
Pleasants, J. H: 295 
Poets: 304-307 
Political parties: Federalist, xs$-*59? 

Republican, 159; Whig, 159-261 
Polk, J, K: 202 
Poor white trash: 273, 276-278 
Potomac river: 91 
Prentice, George D : 295, 296^ 307 
Proclamation of 1763: 93 
Public schools: 288-291 
Purchase of arms; 249, 319, 3357 
Pushmataha: 119 



Q0APAW iNEttAM: I30> IJ$ 

Quebec Act: 96, 101 
Quitnian, John A: 199, 24.7 



RAFINESQUE: 285 

Railroads: and western trade, 180, 

181, 182, 216-217; in War between 

the States, 320, 321, 330; see indi- 

vidual roads 

Randolph-Macon College: 286 
Register (Mobile): 297 
Regulators' War: 154 
Red river: "raft," 33-34 J exploration, 

131-132 

Republican party: 245 
Repudiation: 189 
Revolution: 107 
Rhett, R. B: 199, 208, 209, 247, 295, 

329 

Richmond and Ohio Railroad: 2x8 

Richmond College : 286 

Richmond Convention (1860); 251- 
252 

Richmond Enqnirer: 294 

Richmond, Frederickiburg, and Poto 
mac Railroad: 182 

Rights of Man; 106 

Ritchie, Thomas: 294 

Rivers and Harbors Bill: 203 

Roads: Wilderness* 94, 98, 99, 106; 
Cumberland, 104, x05 116; Natchez 
Trace, 116, 117, 123, 114; Federal, 
x*6, 117, lass, xa4; Georgia, 116, 
122; Gaiftes's Trace, 133 ; MSIItiry, 
123-124; Zane*i Trace, 1*4; an 
macadamized roadi 

Roanoke College: a!6 

RoEnoke Island: 61 

Roanoke river: imfwrenientSp 179 

R$b f tM^ Bowl: 510 

Robertson, Jtnaet: 95, 97, 104, ii 

Rogtttvilk (TeftnetsM) : 106 

Rome (Georgia); 171 

Rons, John: 16! 

RuHin, Edirjuju!: 19% 94! 
: 01 



SAC AM) Wm, t$$ 



; 60 
St. J0to* Colleg*: 154 



INDEX 



353 



St. Louis: 129, 131, 134 

St. Marks: 185 

St. Stephens: 115, 122, 125 

Ste. Genevieve: 129 

San Lorenzo: 112 

Santa Fe trade: 135 

Santee Canal: 179 

Santee Indians: 38 

Scotch-Irish: 64-65, 84-85 

Selma; 122 

Seminole Indians: 171 

Separation of churches: 195-196 

Sequoya: i6S 

Sevier, John: 101, io 104, 105, in 

Shtrkey, W. L: 206, 208, 209 

Shawnee Indian: 47-48, 120 

Shentndoah river: 32 

Sherman, W. T; 322 

Shiloh; 321 

Shipping: colonial, 82 

Sinarat, W. G: $00-301, 307, 311, 313 

Slaveholders; 265, 274-275 

Slavery ; origin, So; sentiment against, 

icS; in Mississippi Territory, 115, 

116; tlav population in 1860, 261, 

26$; sltye life, 3167-2% 
Slave trade; domestic, 191, &66; in 

Georgia, xo$; in South Carolina, 

101 

SvftSthland (Kentucky); 103 
8oul, Pierre: 236 
South Carolina: settlement 3-64; 

revolution, 107; tlave trade, xo8; 

cession of weiteni Iaa4 xo$ t 115; 

s? cf ion al bm 1 5 5- 1 56 ; constitution 

of 1790* 155; nulUficfttion, 147? 
af ilsOy 21 1 ; 

<mn, 254; inibiic sdumlts, !8-2 

Ctr0llt College: 15^, Ss 

01 govermtt-eflt: 



500 
300 
S&ttthftlft H;iiSroa<i: ail 

3,00 



Southwestern convention (1845) : 215 

Southwestern Railroad: 218 

Southwest Point: 104, 105 

Spanish Treaty, 1819: 136, 145 

Speculation: colonial, 91-94; Ken- 
tucky, 95, 96, 100 ; Tennessee, too, 
101, 102; Georgia, no, in; Mis- 
sissippi Territory, 122 

Springfield: 173 

State rights: 246-247, 326-329 

Staunton river: 81 

Steamboats: 124, 135 

Stephens, A, H: 238, 242, 255, 329 

Stuart, John: 93, 98 

Sun (Baltimore) : 297 

Sunbury Academy: 284 

Swallow Barn; 311 

Sycamore Shoals, Treaty: 95 

TAHLONTUSKEE: 133 

Talladega: 172 

Tallmadge amendment: 143 

Tariff; (1816), H*; (x4) H7* 
<*828) 147; (i*4, i4^), 198 

Taylor, John: 198 

Taylor, Zachary: 204 

Telegraph: 224-225 

Tellico Block House: 104, 105, 112 

Tennessee: statehood, 105; sectional- 
ism, 157; constitution of 1835, 163; 
Compromise of 1850, 210; seces- 
sion, 256 

Tennessee river: 31 

Territories: South of River Ohio, 105 ; 
Mississippi, *M; Alabama, 125; 
Orleans, 130; Louisiana, 131; Mis- 
souri, 134; Arkansas, 136 

Texftt: settlement, 201; slavery, 202; 
annexation, 202 ; admission, 203 ; se- 
cession, 254 

Thompson, W. T: 30$ 

4 To Helen": 305 

Tobacco; colonial, 81; after revolu- 
tfon, iS#-9*; IB iftieti, 229 

Tobacco mtnuf actures : i$o 

Toomb% Robert: 238 

Trade: direct with Europe, 197, &5 



354 



THE OLD SOUTH 



Trading posts: Cherokee, 105, 112; 
Creek, 112; Choctaw, 115; Chicka- 
saw, 115; trans-Mississippi, 132-133 

Transylvania Colony; 95, 96, 97 

Transylvania Company: 95 

Transylvania Seminary: 106, 284-285, 
286 

Transylvania College: 286 

"Tribute" to North: 192-194. 

Trinity College: 286 

Tucker, N. B: 208, 311 

Tukabahchee: 44 

Turner's Rebellion: 195 

Tuscaloosa: 123 

Tuscumbia: 123 

Tuscumbia and Decatur Railroad: 

184 

Tuskegee: 172 
Tyler, John: 255 

UNCLE TOM'S CABIN : 236 
Underground Railway: 195 
University of Virginia: 284-285 

VALLEY, the Appalachian: 28-29 

Vandalia: 94, 96 

Vance, Z. B: 329 

Vicksburg; 322 

Virginia: settlement, 61-62; revolu- 
tion, 107; cession of western land, 
101 ; social reform, 108 ; sectional- 
ism, 151-155; constitution of 1830, 
161-162; Wilmot Proviso, 204; 
Compromise of 1850, 210; .secession, 
256 

WADDBLI/S ACADEMY; 284, 307 
Wake Forest College: 286* 
Walker, Dr. Thomas: 9% 94 
Walker, William: 236 



Walker Tariff: 203 

War of 1812: 118-11:9 

Warehousing system: 199 

Warriors 1 Trace: 41, 54, 57 9 95 

Washington (Kentucky) : 100 

Washington College: 154 

Watauga: 95 

West and South: 233, 244 

West Florida: 118, 119, 130 

West Virginia: 318 

Western and Atlantic Railroad: 183 

Whig (Knoxville) : 296-297 

Whig (Richmond) : 295 

Whig party: origin, 159-160; annexa- 
tion of Texas, 202 ; election of 1844, 
202 ; Mexican War, 203 ; "Southern 
Address," 205; and Southern con- 
vention, 206 ; effect of Compromise 
of 1850, 234-235; election of 1852, 
235 ; Know Nothing movement^ 238 ; 
election of 1856, 238; secession, a 50 
251 ; election of z86o, 352 

White river; Cherokee reset vttioia, 
133; settlement, 135, x66 

Wilde, R. H: 306 

Wilderness Road: 96, 99, 105 

Wilkinson, James: loa, 119, 131 

William and Mftry** College: a$$ 

Wellington, S. C; ^84 

Wilmot Provito: 203, 304, 

Wolford College; 86 



YAUCST, W* JL: 199, 
Ymx Companies: xxx, last 
, Rkhtrds 495 
; $1$ 

War: S6 



ZAHI* TRACS; 



128826