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The South Misunderstood.
SOME years ago, Dr. Thomas
Nelson Page delivered an address on "The Want of a History of the Southern
People." In this address he said:
"There is no true history
of the South. In a few years there will be no South to demand a history.
What of our history is known by the world to-day? What is our position in
history? How are we regarded? Nothing or next to nothing is known of our
true history by the world at large. By a limited class in England there is
a vague belief founded on a sentiment that the South was the aristocratic
section of this country, and that it stood for its rights, even with an
indefensible cause. By a somewhat more extended class its heroism is
admired sufficiently to partly condone its heresies. But these are a small
part of the public. By the world at large we are held to have been an
ignorant, illiterate, cruel, semi-barbarous section of the American
people, sunk in brutality and vice, who have contributed nothing to the
advancement of mankind; a race of slave-drivers, who, to perpetuate human
slavery, conspired to destroy the Union, and plunged the country into war.
Of this war, precipitated by ourselves, two salient facts are known-that
in it we were whipped, and that we treated our prisoners with barbarity.
Libby Prison and Andersonville have become bywords which fill the world
with horror. Why should this be, when the real fact is that Libby was the
best lighted and ventilated prison on either side; when the horrors of
Andersonville were greatly due to the terrible refusal of the Northern
government to exchange prisoners or to send medicines to their sick; when
the prisoners there fared as well as our men in the field, and when the
treatment of Southern prisoners in Northern prisons was as bad if not
worse, and the rate of mortality was as great there as in ours?"
Much of what Dr. Page has
said is correct. No true history of the South has been written. The South
has been greatly misrepresented because her history has not been given
fully to the world. But the feeling which existed a few years ago with
reference to the South is fast disappearing and the other sections of this
country as well as the world at large are realizing that the South is not
such a section as she has been represented to be. More and more the
historians are studying Southern conditions and learning that the Southern
people have figured in more ways than one in the history of America.
Slavery was an institution which flourish'ed and grew chiefly in the
South, and since the only struggle in America between the states resulted
in the extinction of that institution, the first thought in the mind of a
Northern man when the South is mentioned is the institution of slavery.
But as Southern life and Southern conditions are studied, historians are
beginning to associate the South with other events in American history,
and with institutional development other than slavery. Much of the
investigation in Southern history, which of recent years has been going
on, has been made not by Southern writers but by men of the North, who in
many instances have faithfully and consistently tried to be fair, but who,
because they have not been reared under Southern conditions, have been
biased by the environments of their youth and by their residence without
being aware of the fact. Notable among the writers who have given
prominence to Southern life and history are Rhodes, Fiske, and Albert
Bushnell Hart. The latter two, connected with the great Harvard University
have endeavored to present fairly Southern conditions, but neither has
been able to view the life of the South through the same glasses as a
Southerner.
Need of a History of the
South.
The time is, therefore,
ripe for the production of a comprehensive, broad and scholarly work by
Southern writers. Such a work must cover much un-traveled territory and
new sources of material, and necessarily cannot be all-inclusive or
entirely accurate, but in its general concept will be true to the South,
showing its influence in the building of the nation, with harshness and
bitterness eliminated. Such a work should turn the eyes of Southerners to
a more careful study of their own history, and should likewise rectify the
misconceptions of many Northerners, placing the South in its true position
with reference to the rest of the nation. The need of the presentation of
the history of the South is seen on every hand. School children in all
parts of the country know of the Mayflower, but few know of the Discovery,
the Godspeed and the Susan Constant. The relative importance of Virginia
and Massachusetts in colonial days is rarely fully appreciated, and few
will remember that Virginia was a colony of eleven plantations with a
Representative Assembly making laws for the government of the Colony,
planning for a college, asserting the rights of British subjects before
the Pilgrims had landed at Plymouth. Few also recall the impetus given by
the Virginia colony to colonial enterprise resulting in the establishment
of other American colonies and the development of the English colonial
empire. Few really recall the fact that the Pilgrims who sailed in the
Mayflower were searching for Virginia but were unexpectedly driven to the
bleak coasts of New England. This is not in any way intended to detract
from New England's influence in the development of the nation, but it is
the duty of a Southerner as well as the duty of a New Englander to
preserve the history of his own particular locality and to give that
locality its proper relation to the history of the entire country. The
local history of New England as well as its relation to the nation has
been in many ways thoroughly written. The South must do likewise with its
history, but to the present time only one phase - that which looked to the
disruption of the Union-has been written,-and that in voluminous works.
In writing the history of
the South a number of elements must be taken into consideration. First, it
is necessary to think of the states in their individual capacity. Each has
in some ways a peculiar life and a peculiar development which must be
recognized in the portrayal of its life as a whole. A comprehensive and
general treatment, therefore, of each state should be made. Moreover, the
relation of one Southern state to another, and finally the relation of the
Southern states to the Federal government, both individually and as units,
must come under the eye of the historian. In other words, we believe that
there should be a history of the Southern states individually, succeeded
by a comprehensive treatment of the political, economic and social history
of the states in their relations to each other and to the nation. In such
a history some states should be considered that were not members of the
Southern Confederacy, but which owe their development to the South, such,
for instance, as the border states of Maryland, Kentucky, West Virginia
and Missouri. Maryland is essentially Southern, while West Virginia and
Kentucky owe their origin to Virginians. This might also be said of
Missouri, which owes its growth to Southerners. In such a work there
should also be sketches of the lives and accomplishments of the statesmen
who have figured so prominently in the movements that have produced our
growth in territory and wealth, and have made ours the greatest government
on the earth.
South Settled Under
Conditions Different from Those of New England.
The question may be asked:
"What are the essential facts of Southern History?" This question can not
be easily answered because of the multiplicity of important events and the
lack of knowledge of many events which have transpired in various sections
of the South. A full appreciation of the South in history, however, means
some appreciation of its colonial life. In the latter part of the
Sixteenth century, Elizabethan England was budding into a commercial
nation. Trading companies had been organized in Holland, Scotland,
Germany, France and even Russia for trade and commerce, chiefly with the
East. England turned her eyes also to the Orient but more particularly to
the Occident. The phenomenal growth of Spain, due to the wealth secured
from South American and Central American countries and the West Indies,
excited the envy of English statesmen and merchant sailors. Moreover, the
difference in religion between Spain and England, as well as other
political causes, produced friction. The outcome was that the English
turned their eyes toward America with the hope of securing wealth by means
of commerce and colonization, and at the same time with the desire of
checking the Spanish empire in its progress and its acquisition of all the
western hemisphere. These mingled purposes resulted in attempted
settlements first in Newfoundland, and later, under Sir Walter Raleigh, in
the present state of North Carolina. Lack of proper organization and
failure to ascertain conditions prior to the establishment of a colony,
caused the abandonment of Raleigh's Roanoke settlement. With the success,
however, of the East India Company chartered by Queen Elizabeth, the
determination of the British to again attempt to colonize America resulted
in the chartering by James I. of the Virginia Company in two divisions,
the London and Plymouth Companies, both of which were commercial
enterprises not unlike the East India Company in plan and scope. A
successful colony was planted in Virginia on James River in 1607. The
first result of American communism there inaugurated was a failure, and
never since have communistic settlements proved successful in the new
world. Individual ownership of property and the final overthrow of the
company itself followed, but the good work of the company in establishing
representative government was left as a monument to its efforts. The rapid
growth of Virginia under representative government was a stimulus to other
schemes of colonization in the nature of proprietaries, resulting in the
planting of Maryland in 1634 as an individual proprietary under Lord
Baltimore, and the planting of the Carolinas as a partnership proprietary
in 1663 under eight Lords Proprietors. Both Maryland and the Carolinas
were carved out of territory originally granted to Virginia in her charter
and were settled for like purposes, the chief one being the development of
English commerce.
Quite different was New
England, which, taken all in all, developed from the settling in the new
world of men fleeing from religious persecutions, dissenters or would-be
dissenters coming to America to establish permanent homes and a government
or governments of a semi-theocratic order. Such was the Plymouth Colony of
1620, the Massachusetts Bay Colony of 1628, the New Haven Colony of 1638,
while Connecticut, settled in 1634, and Rhode Island, in 1636, were but
colonies of dissenters from dissenters. In the early planting of the
colonies of the South, no such condition was seen save in Maryland where
the first Lord Baltimore, when he applied for a grant of land in the new
world, undoubtedly was thinking more of a haven for Catholics than a
colony for his own enrichment. The later proprietors, however, were
considering their private interests to a much greater extent than the
question of any religious impulse. One of the fundamental facts,
therefore, of American history is that from the very beginning there was a
wide divergence between the Northern and Southern colonists in purpose and
spirit. The Northerners were home-seekers and English discontents; the
Southerners were money-seekers, in touch and sympathy with the home
government, and with them naturally came a number of adventurers. Between
these Southern colonies and the New England colonies, the English later
established other colonies, New York settled by the Dutch in 1614 being
conquered in 1664 in order that the English might control the Atlantic
coast, while New Jersey and Pennsylvania were settled partly for private
gain and partly for religious reasons; for to William Penn, a mixture of
the shrewd business man and a devout Quaker preacher, we owe more than to
anyone else the settlement by the English of the colonies which have grown
into the three states New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware.
The Spirit of Expansion.
It should also be noted
that the life of the South was extensive, wandering, roving, expansive;
while the tendency of New England was intensive. Climatic conditions and
the resulting natural pursuits of life had much to do with this fact of
Southern history. Cold New England was not suited to agricultural pursuits
and the people were forced into towns to devote themselves to small
industries and to seafaring. The Southern people lived apart, the lands
being fertile and profitable, and after the first ten years of communism
in Virginia, it was seen that to succeed the colony must encourage
agriculture. Hence we find that, though the population rapidly increased
in the Southern colonies, the new settlers moved constantly westward, and
the density of the population changed but slightly, while in the New
England colonies the density of population was constantly growing. The
expansive spirit of the Virginians and the Carolinians resulted in the
settlement of Tennessee and Kentucky just before the Revolutionary War and
in the seizure of the great Northwest Territory by Virginia troops during
the struggle against England. As a matter of fact, Virginians had before
the Revolution partly occupied and claimed all of the Northwest Territory
from which have been carved the five splendid states of Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. This western movement on the part of the
English in North America began with the Eighteenth century in the Southern
colonies, notably Virginia, and was aided somewhat by migrations from
Pennsylvania. But, generally speaking, it is due to the South even in
colonial days that the English showed their expansive tendencies in
America. The exploring expedition of Alexander Spotswood in 1716 into the
Shenandoah Valley, the expulsion of the Tuscaroras from the Carolinas
resulting in the western movement there, the settlement of the Watauga
District, the migration of some Virginians to lands along the head waters
of the Ohio and the occupancy of Kentucky by Daniel Boone were but
indications of the Southerners' desire for more land,-a desire that led
George Rogers Clark into the Northwest Territory, that caused the
acquisition of Louisiana, and finally the annexation of Texas. In not one
of these movements could New England be considered a part.
The Government of
Southern Colonies.
The last of the Southern
colonies was Georgia, established in the year of the birth of our great
Washington. It was established under somewhat different conditions from
the rest of the Southern colonies, the movement leading to the planting of
that colony being humanitarian, the desire being to establish a colony
where debtor prisoners particularly might get a new start in life. The
settlement was undertaken by an association of benevolent persons
organized into a corporation but with no desire to make money. In a little
while it seemed desirable to change the mode of government, and Georgia
followed in the same steps as the other colonies. In other words, Virginia
under the London Company and the Carolinas under the proprietaries had not
prospered and had passed into royal provinces under the government of the
king, Maryland being the only one of the Southern colonies that was a
proprietary at the time of the Revolution, though for a period, from 1690
to 1715, it was a royal province.
This in itself was
different, on the whole, from the New England colonies where the charter
colony prevailed and the royal province was obnoxious. The Southern people
preferred government directly from the crown; preferred in a sense to have
the same relation to the king that the people of England themselves had.
The commercial enterprises failing, they wished to be subjects of the
king. Their institutional development was, therefore, different from that
of New England and more like that of the mother country. As everything in
England was centered in the hands of the crown and parliament, so
everything in the Southern colonies was centered in the hands of the royal
governor and the General Assembly. The people of New England, -however,
turned back to an older form of English government, the local township
system, and local government was in a sense more important than that of
the central government under the governor and the General Assembly.
Especially was this true in Massachusetts after the people of
Massachusetts, in 1692, were compelled to accept a governor appointed by
the king. The unit in the South was the county, and all local government
was determined by legislative enactment of the General Assembly, while the
officers in the county were usually appointed by the royal governors.
This, of course, gave rise to some dissension, but it showed that, in
general, the Southern colonies were each trying to be a miniature English
kingdom, though without a class of nobles or privileged orders, but with
an established Church. Still there was as much of an aristocracy in the
South in government as there was in England, each Southern colony
restricting the right of suffrage to the land owners. The ruling class of
New England in early colonial days was limited to church members.
The South in the
Revolution.
In the South there was an
inherent love of England, in New England a bitter antagonism ; therefore
the opening of the Revolutionary period found the Southern people greatly
in sympathy with English government while the people of New England were
at discord with it. Against the Stamp Act and the other measures leading
to the Revolution, the South showed opposition in somewhat the same spirit
as when the Englishmen first began to resist King Charles I., later James
IL, and as some at the time of the Revolution were doing with reference to
George III. Southerners looked upon their fight as a struggle for the
rights of Englishmen, and it was only gradually that they were brought to
a conception of a desire for independence. The wish for independence was
probably not so quickly born in the South as in New England, but when once
desired it was more readily demonstrated. The outcome was that the
Southern states were the first to call for a Declaration of Independence,
and Southern leaders were among the strongest advocates of independence.
North Carolina and Virginia early asked that independence be established,
and Henry, Rutledge and Jefferson were ready for the movement for which
doubtless John Hancock and Samuel and John Adams had frequently prayed. In
the Revolutionary War, the South furnished her part of the troops and the
leaders, giving the peerless Washington as commander-in-chief of the
armies of the united colonies, while Virginia, on her own responsibility,
conquered the Northwest Territory, thus saving it from becoming a part of
Canada. When the independence of the United States was accomplished, the
Articles of Confederation had finally gone into operation by the
ratification of Maryland. The government was a loose confederation,
Congress having no power to enforce its acts or regulations, and to the
states themselves was left the power to decide whether or not they would
obey the mandates of the Congress. The result was that in many instances
Congressional action was absolutely ignored, hence a new form of
government was imperative. Among the first to take the lead was Virginia,
on whose suggestion a convention met at Annapolis, Md., in 1786, to
discuss the affairs of the country. The outcome of this conference was the
Philadelphia Convention of 1787 and the drafting of the document known to
us as the Constitution of the United States. Over this convention George
Washington presided, while the main principles of the constitution were
taken from the plan drawn by James Madison. The new constitution went into
effect on the ratification of eleven states, two not coming in until after
Washington had been inaugurated President-North Carolina inn the South and
Rhode Island in the North.
What It Meant to the
South to Join the Union.
The close of the
Revolutionary War saw the United States with an area of 827,844 square
miles, of which area the Southern states contained 402,985 square miles.
The population in 1790 was 3,926,214, of which population the South
contained 1,792,710. There were 757,208 negroes in the United States in
1790, all of whom lived in the South, except about 42,000. In other words,
about one-third of the white population of the country resided in the
South; that is, the white population of the North was about twice the
white population of the South which had control of the affairs of state,
for the other portion of its population was its property. Before 1790, all
the states in the North had abolished slavery except New York and New
Jersey, the former not abolishing it until 1799 and the latter not until
1804. We should probably consider Delaware as a Northern state, and it did
not abolish slavery until forced to do so by the Thirteenth amendment.
Thus with the opening of the Nineteenth century, not including little
Delaware, all the Northern states were free from the institution of
slavery, and its burden was placed entirely upon the Southern people.
Hence the observant one could see, when the United States was organized,
that the slavery question was to be an important one, and the South on
entering the Union played a most hazardous game.
In the convention itself at
Philadelphia, the question of slavery was a vital one, because the South
was unwilling that its slave population should be ignored in the
apportionment of representation in Congress, and a compromise was effected
whereby five slaves should count in the apportionment as the equivalent of
three whites. It was also agreed in the nature of a compromise between
extreme slavery and anti-slavery men that the slave trade should be
allowed to continue for twenty years. There was a decided sentiment on the
part of certain leaders, both North and South, in favor of the abolition
of slavery in all parts of the country, but on the other hand it was
clearly understood that the Federal government should in no way interfere
with slaves in the states, and upon this principle, definitely fixed in
their minds and consciences, the Southern people entered into the Union
cordially and heartily for the most part, but with fear and trepidation in
the minds of some. To the South the notion of sovereign independent states
entering into a Federal Union of defined limited powers was a clear
concept, and was probably so understood by the North at the time of the
adoption of the constitution. But the admission of the states of the
Northwest, which knew no existence outside of the Union, minimized the
importance of the concept of an independent state, and during a period of
seventy years many Northern people lost the conception of a Federal
government and recognized only a national existence. The United States
government was no longer an "experiment."
History does not portray as
faithfully as it should the self-sacrificing spirit of the South in
entering into the Federal Union. When one recalls that, in 1780, Georgia
included the present Alabama and Mississippi, that North Carolina owned
Tennessee, and that Virginia possessed what is now the present states of
West Virginia and Kentucky, and had good claim to the entire Northwest
Territory, it is easy to realize that, had these three states, together
with South Carolina, desired to organize themselves into a republic, the
United States as we know it to-day would never have come into being. The
Northwest Territory and the Southern states were a good three-fourths of
the area of the United States in 1790. The South was, therefore, necessary
to a great Federal government, and confidingly it did its part in the
establishment of the United States.
Southern Statesmen in
American History.
The South furnished to the
Union its Washington to be its first President, its Jefferson as the first
secretary of state, its Edmund Randolph as the first attorney-general, its
Madison to shape legislation in the first House of Representatives. In a
few years after the Federal government had been formed, it furnished John
Marshall as chief justice to so construe the law that the Federal
government became as strong and binding as if a nation had been created in
the beginning.
As the country grew, the
population of the South did not increase as rapidly as it did in the
North, for in 1790 the population of the two sections was nearly equal,
but by 1860 the population of the South was 12,103,147 and of the rest of
the country 19,340,174. It is thus seen that the great movements of
population were to the North and West rather than to the South. The South,
however, though its population in seventy years decreased from one-half to
nearly one-third of the entire population of the country, maintained a
greater influence in the affairs of the government, in proportion to her
population, than any other section of the country. Especially to be
considered is the fact that when the slave population is subtracted, the
North and West always had more than three times as large a population of
citizens. Bearing this in mind, we may note the following suggestive
facts:
Of the twenty-five
occupants of the White House, the South has contributed ten: Washington,
Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Tyler, Polk,
Taylor and Johnson; none elected since the War of Secession, and all
within the period of eighty years from 1789-1869. Southern Presidents held
the reins of government for nearly fifty-three years.
Of the twenty-six
vice-presidents, seven were from the South: Jefferson, Calhoun, R. M.
Johnson, King, Tyler, Breckenridge and Andrew Johnson.
Of forty secretaries of
state, the South furnished twelve, as follows: Thomas Jefferson, Edmund
Randolph, John Marshall, James Madison, Robert Smith, James Monroe, Henry
Clay, Edward Livingston, John Forsyth, Abel P. Upshur, John C. Calhoun and
Hugh S. Legare.
Of the forty-three
secretaries of war, the South furnished fifteen, as follows: James
McHenry, James Monroe, William H. Crawford, John C. Calhoun, James
Barbour, John H. Eaton, Joel R. Poinsett, John Bell, George W. Crawford,
Charles M. Conrad, Jefferson Davis, John B. Floyd, Joseph Holt, Stephen B.
Elkins and Luke E. Wright; none since 1860 except Elkins and Wright.
Of the thirty-seven
secretaries of the navy, there have been sixteen from the South: Benjamin
Stoddert, Robert Smith, Paul Hamilton, John Branch, George E. Badger, Abel
P. Upshur, Thomas W. Gilmer, John Y. Mason, William B. Preston, William A.
Graham, John P. Kennedy, James C. Dobbin, Nathan Goff, Jr., William H.
Hunt, Hilary A. Herbert and Charles J. Bonaparte. Four of these were since
the War of Secession.
Of the twenty-two
secretaries of the interior, the South contributed nine, as follows: A. H.
H. Stewart, Jacob Thompson, Carl Schurz, L. Q. C. Lamar, John W. Noble,
Hoke Smith, James A. Pearce, D. R. Francis and E. A. Hitchcock.
Of the forty-two
secretaries of the treasury, ten were from the South: George W. Campbell,
William H. Crawford, Roger B. Taney, George M. Bibb, Robert J. Walker,
James Guthrie, Howell Cobb, Philip F. Thomas, Benjamin H. Bristow and John
G. Carlisle; two since 1860, Bristow and Carlisle, both of Kentucky.
Of forty-two
postmasters-general, the South has furnished fourteen, as follows: Joseph
Habersham, William T. Barry, Amos Kendall, Charles A. Wickliffe, Cave
Johnson, Aaron V. Brown, Joseph Holt, John A. J. Creswell, James W.
Marshall, David M. Key, Horace Maynard, Montgomery Blair, William L.
Wilson and James A. Gary. Of the twenty since the war, six were from the
South.
Of the four secretaries of
agriculture, there has been from the South one, Norman J. Colman.
Of the forty-four
attorneys-general, the South furnished eighteen, as follows: Edmund
Randolph, Charles Lee, John Breckenridge, William Pinckney, William Wirt,
John M. Berrien, Roger B. Taney, Felix Grundy, John J. Crittenden, Hugh S.
Legare, John Nelson, John Y. Mason, Reverdy Johnson, Edward Bates, James
Speed, Amos T. Akerman, Augustus H. Garland and Charles J. Bonaparte.
Three out of ten since the war.
Of the eight chief justices
of the Supreme Court, the South furnished three, John Rutledge, John
Marshall and Roger B. Taney.
Of thirty-five speakers of
the House of Representatives, fifteen have come from the South, Nathaniel
Macon, Henry Clay, Langdon Cheves, P. P. Barbour, Andrew Stevenson, John
Bell, James K. Polk, R. M. T. Hunter, John White, John W. Jones, Howell
Cobb, Linn Boyd, James L. Orr, John G. Carlisle and Charles F. Crisp. For
fifty-eight years out of the one hundred and twenty of the existence of
Congress, Southerners have presided.
Of forty-four ministers to
Great Britain, six only have hailed from the South, and of forty ministers
to France, as many as seventeen were from the South.
These long lists will
clearly demonstrate that in the political life of the nation as a whole
the South has not been backward. In proportion to its white population, it
gave more than its share of leaders before 1860, but since that date it
has not been recognized to any extent in the government.
Southern View of the
United States Government.
From the beginning of the
United States government under the constitution, Southern leaders have
been custodians, as it were, of the constitution of the United States.
When Washington was undecided as to the right of Congress to pass certain
measures, he took the written opinion of two secretaries, Mr. Jefferson of
the State Department, and Mr. Hamilton of the Treasury Department. Mr.
Jefferson's opinion was that Congress could not legislate beyond the
definite prescribed powers granted it in the constitution, while Mr.
Hamilton held the view that whatever was for the general welfare of the
country lay within the purview of the Federal Congress. Here was a line of
demarcation. The Jeffersonian view was held from 1790 to 1860 quite
consistently in the South, while the North vacillated from Hamilton's view
to Jefferson's and back again. It is true that one Virginian was strongly
Hamiltonian, and fortunately for a strong Federal government he was chief
justice of the country for thirty years. It was during this long period of
chief justice of the Supreme Court that Marshall so construed the
constitution as to broaden the scope of Congress and to strengthen the
Federal government, but Southern legislatures and Southern statesmen were
consistent in their views, demanding a strict construction of the
constitution.
When the alien and sedition
laws were passed, Virginia and Kentucky championed state rights and in the
Kentucky resolutions of 1798-99 and the Virginia resolutions of 1798-99
they set forth the Southern doctrine, clearly demonstrating that the
Federal government was a creature of the states. The Federalists winced
under this doctrine, but though they never conceded in words the soundness
of it, the fact that the Federal Congress repealed the alien and sedition
laws was in a sense an acknowledgment of its correctness. Such a doctrine,
if accepted by all, would have led to the peaceable dissolution of the
Union, or would have kept Congress from interfering with state affairs.
There seemed, however, to have been on the part of neither Virginia nor
Kentucky, in passing these resolutions, any notion of a formal secession
from the Union, though some Virginians (notably John Taylor, of Caroline,
who as early as 1796 had suggested to Mr. Jefferson that it might be wise
for Virginia and North Carolina to secede from the Union and unite to form
a new republic) did dream of separation from the Union. Jefferson,
however, was always a Union man. The South regarded the Federal government
as a great experiment but thought that the states for the sake of union
should be long-suffering and forbearing, demanding their rights in
Congress. At times, some of the leaders of New England accepted the
doctrine of state sovereignty as fully as it was ever asserted in the
Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, notably Josiah Quinsy of Massachusetts,
who probably was the first man ever to suggest in the halls of Congress
any proposition of secession. In the debate of 1811 for the admission of
Louisiana as a state in the Union, he declared:
"If this bill passes, it is
my deliberate opinion that it is virtually a dissolution of this Union,
that it will free the states from their moral obligations, and as it will
be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, definitely to prepare
for a separation, amicably if they can, violently if they must."
In the midst of the 'War of
1812, Massachusetts by vote of her legislature called for a convention of
the New England states. On Dec. 15, 1814, delegates from Massachusetts,
Connecticut and Rhode Island, with unofficial representatives from New
Hampshire and Vermont, met at Hartford, and declared that "states which
have no common umpire must be their own judges and execute their own
decisions"-the same doctrine as enunciated by the Virginia and Kentucky
resolutions. A number of amendments to the constitution were proposed.
Behind the declarations of the Hartford Convention "was the implied
intention to withdraw from the Union" if its demands were not accepted by
the Congress of the United States. Again, when the question of acquiring
territory from Mexico was being discussed in the House of Representatives,
John Quincy Adams suggested that New England might secede from the Union.
In the early days of the republic, however, the South evidently did not
favor anything looking to secession but rather the assertion of the rights
of the states by their legislatures in something approaching
nullification, and the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions bore fruit in the
South Carolina nullification.
Slavery Agitation Makes
Sentiment for Secession.
That which brought the
South to a consideration of secession as a practical solution of its
difficulties came out of the attack on an institution which unfortunately
had been fastened upon it-the long and bitter controversy over slavery.
The petition of the Quakers of Pennsylvania to the first Federal Congress
asking for abolition of slavery was met with a declaration that slavery
was a state institution and not to be disturbed by Federal legislation.
This was the Southern point of view. The Southerners accepted in good
faith the abolition of the slave trade because it was provided for in the
constitution of the United States. But when Missouri applied for admission
into the Union as a slave state and Congress desired to exclude it, or to
admit it only if slavery should be abolished in its limits, a new question
arose-the question of whether it was within the province of the United
States government to deal with slavery in the territories or in
territories applying as states for admission into the Union. The question
was really never presented to the courts but was settled by a compromise,
it being agreed that Missouri should be admitted as a slave state, but
that slavery should be shut out of all other territories north of the
southern boundary of Missouri. The Southern people as a whole were
satisfied with this compromise, though there were many who, at the time
the measure passed in Congress, regarded it as unconstitutional and as a
very dangerous precedent, notably John Randolph, of Roanoke, and John
Taylor, of Caroline. The former though favorable to all movements for
emancipation of slaves (for at his death he liberated his own) felt that
the United States government had no constitutional right to interfere with
slavery either in the states or territories. John Taylor in his writings
on the constitution declared that Marshall's decision in the case of
McCullough vs. Maryland and the passing by Congress of the Missouri
compromise were preparing the way to break down the Federal government to
be followed either by the dissolution of the Union or by a centralized
national government which had not been contemplated by the "fathers."
At this period of our
history a great industrial revolution began in the South. Through the use
of the cotton-gin, first invented by Whitney in 1793, cotton production
became more profitable and the crop doubled from 1810 to 1820, and from
1820 to 1840 quadrupled, increasing from 400,000 to 1,634,954 bales. The
labor saved by the invention of the reaper by McCormick in 1831 made
possible a wonderful increase in the production of wheat in all parts of
the United States, especially the North. The natural result of this
revolution both North and South was an increased demand for labor. In the
South there was a call for more slaves for the cotton fields. Almost
simultaneously with the new industrial conditions came the Garrison
abolition movement. Some slight slave insurrections in the South caused an
uneasiness among the planter class, and a belief that the abolitionists of
the North were really in favor of liberating the slaves at whatever
expense, either by slave insurrections or a breaking down of the Federal
government. In fact, William Lloyd Garrison, recognizing that the
constitution upheld slavery in the states, characterized it "as an
agreement with death and a covenant with hell!"
At first the abolition
movement made no serious impression, however, upon the Federal government;
but when Texas was admitted to the Union in 1845 as a slave state, and
shortly thereafter the country was at war with Mexico, a war which was
advocated by Southerners and maintained chiefly by them, the abolition
sentiment of the North manifested itself strongly in Congress in
opposition to acquiring more territory into which slaves could be carried.
The abolition leaders believed that the expansion of the United States
dictated by Southerners had been for the sake of slavery. As they
conceived it, Jefferson had purchased the Louisiana territory in 1803 to
please the South and out of that territory had been made three slave
states, Louisiana, Missouri and Arkansas. The annexation of Texas added to
the United States an area of 265,780 square miles open to slaves, and the
result of the Mexican War indicated that much more territory would be
added ; hence David Wilmot, a strong anti-slavery leader from
Pennsylvania, introduced into the House of Representatives a measure that
if any new territory should be acquired from Mexico it should not be
opened to slavery. The opposition to slavery was so strong that this
measure passed the lower House but failed to be approved by the Senate.
The result of the war with Mexico was the annexation of what is now
California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and Utah. Including Texas, the
increase in the area of the United States from 1840 to 1850 was 921,907
square miles, a territory greater by 100,000 square miles than the
original United States in 1790. Since the formation of the United States,
the territory annexed amounted to 2,153,106 square miles, nearly three
times the original area of the United States. Of this area, 496,445 square
miles was open to slavery, while by the Missouri Compromise 1,000,534
square miles had been exempt from slavery. The question now was what
should be done with the new territory of 656,227 square miles acquired
from Mexico. The matter was brought to a head by California in 1850
applying for admission into the Union as a free state. After stormy
debates in Congress, California was admitted as a free state and the
question of slavery in the other territory acquired from Mexico was left
unsettled. In the eyes of the Southerners this restriction on their
institution was too great, and a convention of all the Southern states met
at Nashville in 1850 to discuss the matter, but it was not secession in
spirit. By the compromise of 1850, a sop was thrown to the Southern people
in a more stringent fugitive-slave law which was in every way
constitutional but which Northern states ignored, most of them passing
personal liberty acts which really prevented the apprehension of fugitive
slaves. In 1854, through the influence of Stephen A. Douglas, Congress
passed a bill providing for the organization of Kansas and Nebraska into
territories and leaving the question open as to slavery. Then followed a
mad rush on the part both of abolitionists and slaveholders to see who
could secure these territories. Over the admission of Kansas as a state
came a fight in Congress which could not be settled until after the
Southern states had seceded. In the meantime by the Dred Scott decision of
the Supreme Court of the United States the Missouri Compromise was
declared unconstitutional and all the territories of the United States
were opened to slavery. In other words, the Supreme Court had accepted the
Southern position. This decision made the Republican party and was
followed by Lincoln's election resulting in secession.
The Meaning of the
South's Attitude to the Federal Government.
The one great fact of
Southern history which has not been emphasized as it should be, is that
from 1789 to 1860 the South had not fought to break down the constitution
or to break down the Federal government, but to maintain the constitution
and to maintain a Federal government. Its policy during these years in
Congress was to demand that the constitution be preserved, that state
institutions should not be interfered with, and that the constitution
should be interpreted in the light of its adoption. A Southern history,
therefore, must tell in a dispassionate way these facts, and must save
from future prejudices any impression which may prevail that the South was
fighting for human slavery without regard to constitutional right or
without love of the Federal government. In other words, had the people of
the North been willing to have abided by the constitution of the United
States, and by the decisions of the Supreme Court, and to have enforced
the law of the United States with reference to fugitive slaves, the South
would not have seceded. The contribution of the South, therefore, before
1860 to the political history of this country was its efforts. to maintain
the rights of the states as such and to prevent centralization of power in
the hands of the Federal government. The War of Secession resulted from
the election of a President on a platform to exclude slaves from the
territories in opposition to a decision of the Supreme Court. The demand
of the South before 1860 for a strict construction of the constitution
was, therefore, a valuable asset to the country at large, and to-day it is
still of great importance.
The rights of the states as
such and the province of the Federal government as such are yet vital
questions. The best lawyers of the land to-day recognize that the Southern
view of the constitution was the correct one, and constant appeal is being
made to maintain state rights, and to prevent anything like the
establishment of imperialistic ideas in the nation. There is pending in
the Supreme Court of the United States at present a case with reference to
passenger rates fixed by the corporation commission of Virginia for the
railroads within the state. As yet the matter is not entirely settled, an
important point being the question of the right of the individual state.
Such decision as has already been rendered recognizes certain state
rights, yet inasmuch as the court declared that a single judge of a
subordinate court of the United States can enjoin an order entered by the
highest court of a state, one is compelled to look askance and wonder to
what extent our state governments may be humiliated by the Supreme Court
of the United States. While it is recognized that the War of Secession
forever killed state rights in the sense of any state peaceably seceding
from the Union, still it was not contemplated that the Federal government,
either by legislative or by judicial procedure, would have the right to
interfere with matters affecting peculiarly the people of any state. The
South, therefore, has from the beginning consistently faced the issue and
consistently fought centralization and imperialism. Its contribution,
therefore, has been a great one, and its attitude towards the Federal
government before 1860 should be recognized as of supreme importance to
the country. Our Northern friends should, therefore, be magnanimous and
acknowledge that the South in the period of Secession was fighting the
battle of state governments, just as our English friends acknowledge that
in 1776 we were fighting for British rights. Some Northern historians have
already been generous enough to concede this point, among them Professor
Burgess, of Columbia University, who, while he insistently claims that
secession was entirely wrong, likewise acknowledges that Reconstruction
was highhanded and ignored the rights of the states. The North is
beginning to recognize this fact with reference to Reconstruction and many
of its leaders are ready to join with the South to see that there is no
further repetition of the violation of the rights of individual states.
The War and
Reconstruction.
The war was a break in the
progress of the United States. It was a terrible financial and economic
blow to the South. No people fought more gallantly, no people fought more
determinedly, no people ever made in war greater sacrifices. They were
willing to surrender all for what they believed was right. Dr. Thomas
Nelson Page has well said:
"A proof of the deep
sincerity of their principles is the unanimity with which the South
accepted the issue. From the moment that war was declared, the whole
people were in arms. It was not merely the secessionist who enlisted, but
the stanch Union man; not simply the slaveholder, but the mountaineer; the
poor white fought as valorously as the great landowner; the women fought
as well as the men; for whilst the men were in the field the women and
children at home waited and starved without a murmur and without a doubt."
In 1860 the South had a white population of less than 9,000,000. From 1861
to 1865 she put into the field about 600,000 soldiers, an unusually large
proportion of the men to render military service. In 1860 the value of her
taxable property was more than six and one-half billions of dollars, which
was about 42 per cent. of the entire value of taxable property in the
United States. Since the white population of the South was only about 26
per cent. of the entire white population of the country, her per capita
ownership of property on this basis exceeded that of the rest of the
country. By the War of Secession she lost slaves and property of taxable
value of about two and one-half billions of dollars. The census of 1870
shows a valuation of taxable property in the South of four and one-half
billions, about 19 per cent. of the total taxable property of the country.
The per capita average of the South was far below the average of the
country at large.
The year 1870 found the
South in the throes of Reconstruction. Those who had been leaders in the
South, and the sons and descendants of these leaders, scarcely had time to
gain a livelihood. Their chief activity lay in planning to save the
Southern states from negro and "carpet-bag" domination. The Reconstruction
period was one of humiliation and selfcontrol on the part of the whites.
The Northern people have never been able fully to understand the Southern
opposition to the government of Reconstruction days. They really seemed to
believe that the chief desire was to keep the negro from voting. Had the
negroes been an inoffensive minority, disturbances would have been less.
But in view of the fact that the negroes (many whites having been
disfranchised) were, with a few carpet-baggers, giving bad government and
increasing the debts of already bankrupt states, for the sake of the
states themselves it was absolutely necessary that there should be an end
put to this rule. To be sure beyond all this there was an absolute
barrier, a barrier which prevents two races ruling in the same country;
for one or the other must be supreme. It was but natural that the whites
should rule and not the blacks, for were the negroes to migrate to the
North, the whites there would not yield to them the government without a
struggle. When we consider that the legislature of South Carolina
contained a majority of negroes, and its debt was increased in four years
from $5,407,306 to $18,515,033, when we recall that the situation was just
as bad in Mississippi and Louisiana, it is obvious that such bad
government had to end.
Race antipathy only
intensified such a situation. This the people of the North are beginning
to realize as the foreign element in this country increases. In an
economic sense the Pacific coast now appreciates the meaning of a race
problem on account of the number of Mongolians who have come there. The
Mongolian and negro races, therefore, are two problems with which the
United States has to reckon.
The whites regained control
of the state governments of the South some thirty years ago, and since
then have been ruling themselves. They have wondered, though, how the
political rights of the negro race could in the face of the Thirteenth,
Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments be curtailed. Finally by means of an
educational test to determine who should exercise the right of suffrage,
the state of Mississippi eliminated most of its illiterate voters, chiefly
negroes. Since then all of the states of the South have modified their
constitutions along the same lines. In addition to an educational
qualification there has been introduced into many of these constitutions a
special clause admitting to the suffrage, without reference to educational
qualifications, war veterans whether they fought for the North or for the
South, and sons of these veterans; in some cases grandsons are admitted,
and for none of these is the educational test required. The suffrage
provisions have the tendency to reduce greatly the vote of the colored
people in proportion to the vote of the whites, but the requirements in
several of the states of the prepayment of poll tax for several years
previous to the election have disfranchised a number of excellent
citizens, making in some ways the new constitutions in the South
unsatisfactory. But the new regime of a limited suffrage, though some
whites lose their votes, is better than the old regime with many
illiterate voters, much bribery and corruption. The new Southern
constitutions have greatly purified Southern elections, but counting the
disfranchised whites as well as the blacks, the number of voters has been
cut down nearly one-half in many states.
In studying the race
problem in this country, it is to be remembered that the North has never
done anything towards the solving of it. The Republican party came with
Reconstruction, the enfranchising of all the negroes, and the
disfranchising of many of the whites, thus degrading the white people of
the South, people of their own Anglo-Saxon stock, a few Northern
adventurers hoping to ride into power on negro suffrage. The idea as
expressed by Thaddeus Stevens was to maintain the supremacy of the
Republican party. The negro was encouraged to be insolent and "uppish,"
and as a result became indolent and useless in many cases. The Southern
people had, after getting rid of the Northern incomers, to remodel society
so as to make the negroes useful. This they have done, by maintaining a
school system for the negroes as well as for the whites. At the same time
the best thought of the Southern whites is devoted to a consideration of
the problem how to improve the negro race and make it more useful to
society.
The New South.
Since the War of Secession,
the South has not entered prominently into politics. It has consistently
fought for state rights and will continue to fight for them. It has
consistently maintained that the Supreme Court of the United States shall
not construe the constitution loosely but strictly, and in this one
particular it is of great service to the Union. But the main contributions
of the new South are industrial in their nature.
The population of the South
since the war has remained homogeneous. The native population has added,
within the period between 1880 and 1900, seven millions to their numbers.
The foreign-born population has added only 97,000. In 1900 the native
inhabitants formed 97.7 per cent. of the Southern communities and the
foreign-born only 2.3 per cent., while in 1900 in the North Atlantic
states the per cent. of foreign-born was 22.6. The foreign-born population
in the South to-day is practically smaller than it was twenty years ago.
The South is anxious for foreign population as seen by the fact that the
agricultural departments of all the states of the South are constantly
advertising for foreign immigrants, and North and South Carolina and
Virginia within the last few years have sent representatives to Europe
searching for immigrants. The great number of negroes in the South,
however, has prevented the incoming of foreigners. The lack of village
communities in many rural districts is another hindrance. It is only
within the last few years that foreign immigrants are being successfully
introduced by settling them in communities by themselves and placing them,
as it were, in a little village where they have their own school and their
own church. A hopeful sign for the industrial development of the South
also is the fact that the white population is increasing at a greater
ratio than the colored. A careful study of the movements of population
into other states shows that less whites are migrating from the South. The
negro is not thriving so well physically as he did in the days of slavery,
and had the abolition of slavery been delayed many generations, the
Southern states would in reality have had an overwhelming majority. The
abolition of slavery came at the right time-the curse of it was
Reconstruction. Mr. Bruce thinks that by the continuation of slavery for
thirty years longer "the numerical disproportion between the slaves and
slaveholders would have been as great as it was in the English West Indies
when emancipation was proclaimed in those islands."
With the abolition of
slavery, the trend of Southern population has been from country to town.
Farming lands are therefore cheaper in the South than anywhere in the
West, and necessarily new agricultural conditions must come; in fact, they
are already at hand. The census of 1900 shows that 17,000,000 Southern
people lived in the country but that the towns are rapidly growing; for
example, in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, the
growth in towns averaged more than 75 per cent. from 1890 to 1900. This
movement tends to increase factories of all kinds. At the same time, the
large plantations are being divided; for example, the average number of
acres in a farm in North Carolina in 1860 was 316; in 1900, 101 acres.
Like conditions prevail in all Southern states. Generally speaking, about
one-fifth of the farms of the South are owned by negroes, but the
proportion of acreage is probably not more than one-twentieth if we may
judge by the fact that in 1900 in Virginia out of a total of 19,907,883
the negroes owned 990,790 acres. Small farms with an intensive system of
cultivation now prevail in the South and within twenty years the
agricultural products have increased from $600,000,000 to $1,200,000,000
annually.
In 1900 the number of bales
of cotton produced was 10,000,000; in 1880 the production was only
6,000,000. As a result of this rapid increase hundreds of mills have been
put into operation. In 1880 the Southern states contained less than
one-fourth of the cotton factories of the Union ; in 1900 they possessed
nearly one-half. It is confidently expected that the census of 1910 will
show that the South has more than one-half of all the cotton factories of
the United States. The amount of money invested in this industry has
increased from $22,000,000 in 1880 to $132,000,000 in 1900. The result of
this growth has been the creation of a number of technical schools dealing
with many industrial problems, notably Clemson College in South Carolina.
The cotton factories along with the growth of iron, wood and tobacco
industries have increased the population of the cities.
The increase of farm and
factory products has necessarily caused an increase of transportation
facilities. The first railroad in the South was from Baltimore to Ellicot
Mills opened for traffic in 1830. In 1831 a railway was laid between
Richmond, Va., and coal mines in Chesterfield county. The first road in
the South to run over more than one hundred miles of track was the line
that connected Charleston with Hamburg in South Carolina. In 1860 the
entire mileage of railroads in the South was 10,352; in 1873, 18,000; in
1880, 21,612; in 1901, 54,654 miles. Nearly every state is now well
equipped with railroads, though there are still great lumber and coal
regions in the mountainous sections, undeveloped and lacking in railway
facilities. With the increase of railroads, there has come a wonderful
increase in the products of the mines; the output of the Southern mines in
1882 was $10,000,000; in 1890, $39,000,000; in 1900, $102,000,000. In 1880
the entire output of lumber in the Southern states was $39,000,000, while
in 1900 the value was $200,000,000, this great increase being due largely
to improved transportation facilities.
The material wealth of the
South has increased along all lines, and in 1901 there were 2,450 banks
with deposits of $638,000,000 and a capital of $191,000,000 representing
an increase in the financial facilities in the South of more than one
hundred per cent. in ten years. We should not fail also to mention that
the exports from Southern ports have increased during the period from 1880
to 1900 from $306,000,000 to $510,000,000.
Improved Educational
Facilities.
Since the War of Secession
one of the greatest changes which has taken place in the development of
the country is in the increase of its educational facilities. The South in
ante-bellum times had no system of public schools such as that of New
England, and its first real public school system began in the days of
Reconstruction, though, of course, there were some provisions made for
teaching poor children at the expense of the state even before the war.
The wealthy families of the South, however, had private tutors. Sometimes
a number of families in the community employed a teacher who taught in
what is known as an "old field school." To such schools were sent a number
of poor children whose tuition was paid out of state funds. The sons of
the rich planters who were taught by private tutors or at the old field
school were sent afterwards to an academy or to some small college, and
frequently to a university. The great mass of the Southern people were not
illiterate, as the children of persons of any means whatever were
educated, while about one-half of the poor children were also sent to
school at the expense of the state. Maryland and North Carolina had a
public school system before 1860, and South Carolina put one into
operation in 1811, though it was not strictly enforced, but in Charleston
it proved very successful. Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi,
Kentucky and Tennessee all had laws before 1860 providing for a public
school system. We may say truthfully, however, that the best thing that
was given the South by the Reconstruction constitutions was the system of
free public education. The old aristocratic class in the South naturally
opposed the free school, but after a few years such schools became more
popular and to-day are accepted as the basis of our educational life. In
two states, Kentucky and West Virginia, there is found a system of
compulsory education.
In 1900, there were 106,967
persons engaged in teaching in the South and in the same year $26,000,000
were expended for the support of public schools. Those of school age were
3,961,000, while the public school enrolment was 2,211,000.
The number in private
institutions was about 350,000. There were in the South 216 institutions
of higher learning for the whites with an annual income of about
$3,500,000. It is not to be forgotten that the negroes are receiving their
share of the educational fund and much more than their entire taxes for
educational and all state purposes. This speaks well for the magnanimity
of the whites and their desire to increase the efficiency of the negro
race, if education will do it.
Conclusion.
The Manufacturers' Record,
of Baltimore, recently summarized the condition of the South from 1880 to
1908 as follows: Increase of population from 16,369,960 to 26,S34,705;
increase of value of property from $7,000,000,000 to $20,000,000,000;
increase of value of manufactures from $257,000,000 to $2,100,000,000;
increase of value of cotton mills from $21,000,000 to $266,000,000;
increase of value of cotton crop from $312,000,000 to $614,000,000;
increase of expenditures for common schools from $9,000,000 to
$37,000,000.
This record of achievement
is small as compared with what the South may accomplish when its
population increases. Its population per square mile now is only about 31;
consider that New England has more than 100, and Illinois more than 93 to
the square mile; consider also the undeveloped resources of the South;
that 33 1/3 per cent. of its farming lands are unimproved and that other
lands capable of being drained contain an area nearly one-half as large as
the total of New England; that the South is the market garden of the North
and that annually it is shipping to the great cities many millions of
dollars worth of small fruits and vegetables; that it is producing in
commercial quantities more than fifty of the leading minerals and has a
coal territory of 148,000 square miles. Think of what the betterment of
its transportation facilities will mean, for should there be as many miles
of railroads in the South to the square mile as in the state of Illinois,
we would have four miles for every one now in existence.
What then constitutes the
chief things for us to consider in the Southern civilization of to-day?
First, the determination of the Southern whites to rule in the lands which
they themselves have developed-white supremacy but with civil rights to
all. Secondly, the great industrial change - the abolition of the large
plantation and the introduction of small farms ; greater diversity in
agricultural pursuits; the development of all kinds of manufacturing
enterprises; the development of transportation facilities; the increasing
of the efficiency of the entire population for civic and industrial duties
by public education.
The South is making
marvelous strides and its activities are being directed by its own people
who understand its own conditions. The South has accomplished much under
many obstacles; it will accomplish more since many of these obstacles have
been overcome, and its importance to the nation is being more fully
realized.
J. A. C. CHANDLER. |
