CHAPTER III 

 THE OLD SOUTH AND THE NEW 



SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE OLD AND THE 

 NEW SOUTH 1 



PHILIP ALEXANDER BRUCE , 



BROADLY speaking, no institutions of the South were so pro- 

 foundly affected by the failure of secession as the social. It is 

 true that it was a great economic revolution to pass from slave 

 labor to free labor, but the ground is still chiefly tilled by the 

 hand of the Negro. The large plantation has been cut up into 

 numerous estates, but the same staples continue to be cultivated. 

 There has been a radical alteration in political conditions, but, 

 on the whole, the representatives of the Southern States in their 

 local legislatures and in the national Congress are drawn from the 

 same general class as they were in times of slavery. The eco- 

 nomic and political life of the South has been transformed, but 

 transformed to a degree that falls short of the change that has 

 taken place in its social life; here the change has been complete 

 so far as the rural districts, in which the overwhelming mass of 

 the Southern people reside, are involved. The French Revolu- 

 tion, with its drastic laws touching the ownership of land, did 

 not sweep away the aristocracy of France one-half as thoroughly 

 as the abolition of slavery swept away the old rural aristocracy 

 of the South. The social condition of this part of the Union is 

 now the reverse of what it was before the War of the Secession ; 

 then all that was best in the social life of the people was to be 

 found in the country ; now all that is best is to be found in the 

 city. 



The close of the great war marked the end of a society that had 

 safely passed through all the vicissitudes of several hundred 



i Adapted from "The Rise of the New South," pp. 421-435, Barrie, Phila- 

 delphia, 1 !)d."). 



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