25] THE TENURE OF LAND BEFORE i860 25 



it may be said that the planter's acres could be counted 

 by the thousands and his slaves by the scores. Such a 

 characterization makes the number of real planters very 

 small when compared with the total number of farmers 

 in the state. In every county there were gradations in 

 the area of holdings from a few acres up to thousands of 

 acres. In every county there were gradations in the 

 number of slaves held, from one up to fifteen, and in 

 most counties there were from one up to fifty slaves per 

 slaveholder. These gradations obscured any exact lines 

 of stratification. The door of opportunity was always 

 open for the man of push and purpose. 1 



Less than the lifetime of a generation elapsed between 

 the last land lottery and the revolution of the sixties. 

 During this period, as has been indicated above, large 

 holdings continued to be built up in number and size, 

 owing to the relative abundance of land and the econ- 

 omies of supervised large-scale production. 



All absolute standards both of morality and economy 

 condemn slavery. Regarded relatively, however, that is 

 to say, in relation to certain times and circumstances the 

 institution may be both beneficent and efficient. With- 

 out doubt slavery in the South was rapidly becoming an 

 anachronism. But in the crusade against the institution 

 the economist came to the aid of the moralist, and in an 

 exaggerated manner presented against the system two 

 main arguments — mutually contradictory in their bear- 

 ings upon the the economics of the problem. One had 

 reference to the inability of non-slaveholders to compete 

 with slaveholders; the other had reference to the un- 

 profitableness of slave labor. The first point contains an 



1 For a view of the situation somewhat similar to that here given see 

 U. B. Phillips, Georgia and State Rights, p. 107. 



