THE OLD SOUTH AND THE NEW 53 



drawn from this class, and surely the world never saw a body of 

 soldiers more distinguished for the qualities that win the respect 

 and admiration of mankind. 



The higher planting class of the South staked everything on 

 the issue of the war their lives, their fortunes, the framework 

 of their social life, their political supremacy, their all. When 

 the more violent influences which the destruction caused by the 

 conflict set in motion had practically finished their work, and this 

 was done in a very few years after the close of the contest, the 

 society in the rural districts of the South was like a vast field of 

 grain over which a reaper had passed, cutting off the heads of 

 the tallest stalks only, while it left practically untouched those of 

 less height. The great planters were, with hardly an exception, 

 ruined in the end, even though they succeeded for a short time in 

 holding on to their estates. But as a body, the small planters, 

 who had few slaves and who were cultivators of their own ground, 

 remained upon as good a footing as they occupied before the War 

 of the Secession began ; indeed, the general position of the lower 

 whites of the South to-day is, from an economic point of view, 

 far more advantageous than it was previous to 1860. 



This is due to several causes. First, in the breaking up of the 

 large estates, which, as we have seen, were for the most part 

 made up of the most fertile and most eligibly situated lands in 

 the country, the small proprietors, who, before the war, had 

 been confined to the ridges and creek bottoms, were able to 

 purchase ground of the finest quality, because offered for sale in 

 small tracts, without competition on the part of the former great 

 and wealthy proprietors. This class, of old, always overbid the 

 would-be buyers of small means. Many of the richest acres to 

 be found in the Southern States are now owned by such men, 

 who, had slavery been prolonged, would have spent their whole 

 lives in cultivating a poor soil with very small returns. 



Secondly, the complete alteration in the economic system of 

 the Southern States has directed the attention of their most 

 enterprising business men to manufactures of all kinds, but 

 especially to the manufacture of cotton. The development of this 

 branch of industry, which, before the war, was carried on in a 

 very limited way, has given employment to many thousands of 

 operatives, drawn entirely from among those persons of the rural 



