University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.

A long, and to us a comparatively interesting, conversation
followed, — Virginia, her resources, characteristics, scenery, and
general moral, affording the principal subject. In this conversation,
which occasionally ran into politics — in which some of the
party showed their teeth very decidedly — the whole of our
group was brought out, the ladies excepted. They had retired
for the night. Most of us had rambled in Virginia at different
periods; and it was in the delivery of recollections and impressions
that we passed naturally into discussion. I propose to
give bits only of this conversation, leaving out the bites — confining
my report to the innocuous portions of the dialogue, and
omitting certain sharp passages which occasionally followed the
thoughtless or the wanton shaft. One of our “Down-East”
brethren threw down the ball of provocation, dealing in a wholesale,
if not wholesome, diatribe against all Southern agriculture.
As his opinions are those of a somewhat numerous class, and as
they are working no little mischief at the present day, it may
be as well to record, with tolerable fullness, the portion of the
dialogue which ensued upon their utterance.

“You pass through Virginia,” said he, “as through a desert.
The towns are few, and these all look old and wretched. The
houses need paint, and are frequently in dilapidation. The culture
is coarse and clumsy, the implements rude, and the people
seem entirely ignorant of all improvements. They plough,
plant, and reap, precisely as their fathers did a hundred years
ago, and without doing any justice to their lands. The lands
have never been properly worked, and manures are but little
known, and less esteemed. In favorite regions, along water-courses
easily accessible, the plantations have been abandoned
as entirely exhausted — sold for a song, at an average, perhaps,
of a dollar an acre. The same lands, in the hands of New York
farmers, have been bought up, improved, made valuable for

wheat-crops, and raised to a value ranging from fifteen to seventy-five
dollars per acre. Thirty bushels of wheat have been
raised to the acre, on tracts which have been thrown out as barren.
A like history belongs to North and South Carolina, where
similar ignorance of farming, and of agricultural implements,
similar coarseness and clumsiness in the cultivation of the soil,
have led to similar results — the disparaged value of the lands,
their abandonment, and the neglect and dilapidation of towns
and houses.”

“You simply know nothing about the matter,” said one of the
party sharply in reply — “or rather, you know just enough of the
truth to involve yourself in a monstrous error. I too have travelled
in the regions of which you speak, and can venture to say
something on the subject, which has its bright as well as gloomy
aspects. It is not all gloomy, though it is seldom that the hurrying
traveller sees or suspects any other. That you see few
or no towns, and that these look desolate, are the natural effects
of the life of a people purely agricultural. The southern people
do not live in towns if they can avoid them. The culture and
command of extensive tracts of land and forest give them a
distaste to city life, where they feel restrained by a sense of
confinement, and by manners of artificial character — a rigid
conventionalism imposing fetters upon that ease and freedom of
bearing which belongs to the forest population. Besides, public
opinion in the South is unfriendly to the growth of large
cities, which many of their leading minds hold to be always of
the most mischievous moral tendency — as, indeed, the North
begins also to discover. Mr. Jefferson pronounced them the
sinks and sewers of the commonwealth, to be tolerated only as
among the dirty national necessities; and the instincts of the
great body of the agricultural population have led them rightly
in the same direction. They have learned to doubt the wholesomeness
of the atmosphere of city life. Regarding towns as
the mere agencies of the producer, they do not desire to see
them absorbing a larger population than is necessary to the
actual business which they have to perform.

“You, at the North, on the contrary, look to your flourishing
towns, your fine houses, great masses of brick and stone, with
thousands jostling in the thoroughfares, as proofs of prosperity

and civilization; though, of these thousands, thousands live by
beggary, by theft, chicanery, and the constantly active exercise
of a thousand evil arts — the inevitable consequence of
necessities which could not arise to the community were the
unnecessary members driven to an honest, healthy, industrious
occupation in neglected fields of agriculture. You judge mostly
by externals, which rarely show the truth — the people in cities
being chiefly learned in the art of concealing their true condition,
and making the best show to their neighbors; while the
Southern agriculturists know nothing of this art, exhibit themselves
precisely as they are; use no white paint to cover old
boards — no stucco to make common brick look like stone; and,
satisfied with the real comforts of their condition, never busy
themselves in the endeavor to impose upon their neighbors with
the splendors of a season which would only lead to bankruptcy.

“The dilapidated Virginia farmhouse, for example, will receive
more guests, at the family table, in one month, than the
marble palace in Broadway or Fifth Avenue will entertain in
one year. There will be always plenty and a generous welcome,
though the service be of delph and not of silver.

“That we have not towns and villages is the inevitable
result of staple cultivation. Every plantation is a village, and
where it is a large one, it will be found provided with all the
essential elements of progress and performance, precisely as
they are to be found in a village. Here, for example, is always
a blacksmith and a carpenter, possibly a wheelwright, and frequently
a shoemaker; while, in place of a hotel, for the reception
of the stranger, is the mansion-house of the planter —
wanting in paint, I grant — of ancient fashion, uncouth architecture
— the floors, perhaps, not carpeted, and the furniture of
that dark, massive mahogany which the city of New York
would revolt at, but which carries to my mind an idea of the
dignity of an ancient race, and that reverence for the antique
which is, perhaps, too much wanting in every part of our country,
except the old states of the South.

“This ancient mansion will be found usually with its doors
thrown wide — in sign of welcome. Lest you should doubt, as
you approach it, you behold the planter himself descending the
old brick steps to welcome you. You will be confounded to see

that his costume is neither fine nor fashionable — that he wears
a great broad-brimmed white hat, exceedingly ample, which
may have been manufactured for his grandfather. His coat
may be of white flannel, and out at the elbows; and his pantaloons
will be of domestic manufacture, homespun or nankin
cotton. If you are wise enough to look below the externals,
you will see, perhaps, that he has learned to despise them — at
all events, you will perceive that he has sacrificed for these none
of the essentials of the host, the gentleman, or the patriot. His
hospitality is unimpaired by his antiquity — nay, it forms a part
of it — and in the retention of the one, he has retained the
other as a matter of necessity. As a gentleman, he is frank
and easy of manner, unaffected in his bearing, and always solicitous
of your comfort and satisfaction. He does not suffer you
to perceive that he would have been better pleased that you
should have admired his fine house, and passed on without tasking
its hospitality. These are characteristics which must be
taken as an offset to those respects which you select for censure.
These, I have said, are the natural consequence of staple culture.
It is the farming culture which exhibits and requires
much nicety of detail. In the hands of the planter of a staple,
lands are held in bodies too large to be handled minutely. It
is the small plat only which you can put in bandbox condition.
Lands in staple countries are of less value than labor — in farming
countries, of greater value than labor. In proportion as the
population becomes dense, they rise in value. But few southern
planters desire a dense population. One secret of their hospitality
is the extensiveness of their ranges. A wealthy planter,
having from fifty to five hundred slaves, will have from a hundred
to a thousand head of cattle. He kills so many beeves
per annum, from four to forty, according to his force. That he
can order a mutton to be slaughtered, even though but a single
guest claims his hospitality, is due to his extensive tracts of
field and forest. He seldom sends any of his sheep, cattle, corn,
or other provisions to market. These are all retained for the
wants of the homestead.

“It will not do for you, recognising the peculiar characteristics
of his mode of life — their elegances, comforts, and bounties —
to cavil at deficiencies, which could only be remedied by his

abandonment of habits which are grateful to the virtues, and
which maintain in him the essentials of all high character —
dignity and reverence.”

“But there must be an end to all this hospitality. The southern
planter is not prosperous. His fields are failing him — his
staples are no longer valuable.”

“Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. Give us time.
Let time answer your prophecy; for it is prediction — not argument,
not fact — which you assert. There is no need that his
hospitality should be at an end. It only needs that it should
be more discriminating, and that the southern planter should
steadily close his door against those who come to eat his bread
only to denounce the manner in which it is made, and to sleep
securely beneath his roof only to leave curses rather than prayers
behind them. He must only be sure that his guest, when a
stranger, is a gentleman and an honest man; and he will probably,
with this modification of his hospitality, never be wanting
in the necessary means for satisfying it.

“But, touching his prosperity, I hold it to be the greatest
mistake in the world — examining things by just and intrinsic
laws — to suppose that he is not prosperous. The southern
planter does not derive from his labors so large a money income
as he formerly did, when the culture of his great staple was
comparatively in few hands. It is something different, certainly,
to receive twenty cents instead of one hundred for long cottons,
and six cents instead of thirty for short. But, in fact, the difference
does not substantially affect his prosperity, if he be not
already in debt. In the period of high prices for his staples, he
could readily abandon farming culture to his less prosperous
neighbors, leaving it to other states to supply his grain, his forage,
his vegetables, his cattle, mules, and horses, for which he
could well afford to pay from the excess of his income. But
with his resources reduced, his policy necessarily changes, and
is changing hourly, in recognition of new laws and new necessities.
This change effected, his property will continue as before,
though actually no great amount of money passes through his
hands. His fields, that were failing him when he addressed
them wholly to the culture of a single staple, are recovering,
now that he alternates his crops, and economizes, prepares, and

employs his manure. He ceases to buy grain and provisions.
He raises his own hogs and cattle, and his ploughs are driven
by mules and horses foaled in his own pastures. He discovers
that he is not worse off now, in raising the commodities themselves,
for the purchase of which he simply raised the cash before;
and he further discovers that, under the present system,
he learns to economize land and labor, to improve the quality
of the land, and the excellence of the labor; land rises in value
with the introduction of thorough tillage; and a cleanlier, more
compact method of culture, increases the health of the climate
as well as the prosperity of the planters. With thorough tillage
he can feed his stock, and thus lessen the extent of his ranges;
and this results in a gradually-increasing denseness of the settlements,
which are all that is necessary to rendering the state
as prosperous as the individual has been.”

“What do you mean by this distinction?”

“It is one that politicians do not often make, and it constitutes
the grand feature in which the southern states are deficient
to a northern eye. It occasions some of the difficulties in your
modes of reasoning. The wealth of the state must depend
mostly upon its numbers. The wealth of the individual will
depend chiefly upon himself. The people of a state may be all
in the enjoyment of comfort and affluence, yet the state may be
poor. This is the case with all the southern states, the government
of which has a sparsely-settled population on which to act.
Where the population is thinly planted, the roads will be inferior,
the public works infrequent and of mean appearance, and
the cities (which depend wholly upon a contiguous back country
for support) will stagnate in visible decline, wanting enterprise
and energy. The roads, the public buildings, and the cities, by
which the stranger judges of the prosperity of a people, will all
depend upon the population of a state. If this be large — if the
soil is well covered — the powers of taxation are necessarily
enlarged, without, perhaps, growing burdensome to any; but the
means of life will be correspondingly diminished in the hands
of the greater number. Want and poverty will trouble thousands;
a few will grow rich at the expense of the rest; with
the greater number, the struggle will be incessant from morning
to night, to supply the most limited wants of a painful existence.

But in the southern states, where the public works are few, the
public buildings humble, and the cities of difficult growth or of
stagnating condition, the great body of the people — nay, all
the people, bond and free — live in the enjoyment of plenty
always, and, in most cases, of a wondrous degree of comfort.

“To illustrate this more completely by parallels: Great
Britain and France are, of course, immeasurably superior, not
only to the southern states of the Union, but to all the states,
North and South, in the wonders of art, the great thoroughfares,
the noble buildings, and the gigantic cities. These are erroneously
assumed to be the proofs of prosperity in a nation, when it
is somewhat doubtful if they can be even regarded as just proofs
of its civilization. But, in Great Britain and France, millions
rise every morning, in doubt where they shall procure the daily
bread which shall satisfy the hunger of nature through the next
twelve hours. No such apprehension ever troubles the citizen
of the rural districts of the South. Rich and poor, black and
white, bond and free, are all superior to this torturing anxiety;
and the beggar, who in the great cities of Europe and America
is as frequent as their posts, is scarcely ever to be seen, even, in
a southern city — and then he is chiefly from a northern city,
whence he flies to a region, of the hospitality of which (in spite
of its failing fortunes) some vague rumors have reached his ears.
He flies from the proud and prosperous cities of the North, seeking
his bread at the hands of a people whom you profess to
despise for their decline.”

“With these convictions, why do you repine and complain?”

“I do neither. To do either is unmanly. That the southern
people do complain, more than is proper and needful, is surely a
something to be regretted; since he who pauses to complain
will probably never overtake his flying prosperity. But, that
there should be gloom and despondency is but natural with a
people who, without positively suffering in fortune or comfort, are
yet compelled, by large transitions of fortune, to contrast their
present with their past. It is not that we are ruined now, but
that we remember how fortunate we were before. If we compare
ourselves with other people, and not with ourselves, we
shall probably congratulate ourselves rather than complain.”

“With your views, you are then satisfied that your people

should continue rural occupations exclusively, to the rejection
of manufactures.”

“By no means. I am anxious, on the contrary, that our people
should embark in every department of art and trade for
which they themselves or our climate may be fitted, if only that
we may be perfectly independent of our northern brethren. We
have abundance of water-power, all over the South; we have
the operatives on the spot; and we raise all the raw materials
necessary for manufactures. Our water-power never congeals
with frost; our operatives never work short, or strike for increased
wages, for we always keep them well fed and well
clothed; we pension their aged; we protect and provide for their
young; and, instead of being sickly at the toils we impose —
puny and perishing — they are always fat and frolicsome, and
always on the increase; and cotton is every day passing into
more general use, as clothing for the poorer races of mankind.
But, in the introduction of manufactures, I do not propose that
we should neglect or abandon any of our staples: I propose
that we should only employ our surplus population and lands
for the purpose. There are large tracts of territory, for example,
in the Carolinas, which answer for neither cotton, tobacco,
nor the smaller grains. In these very regions, there is water-power
in abundance; and where this is not the case, there is
fuel in inexhaustible abundance, for the use of steam-power.
I propose to increase the wealth of the state by the application
of these regions to their proper use.”

“But if your whole country should become manufacturing,
why not? The profits of manufactures are vastly greater than
those of the cotton culture. I have seen some statistics of
South Carolina, where it is estimated that seven hundred operatives
will realize as large a result, in working up the cotton,
as a whole district of twenty-five thousand people in making
the raw material. They will work up seven thousand bales,
triplicating its value, while the twenty-five thousand average
but a single bale to each inhabitant.”

“This is the sort of statistics which delude the world. It is
perhaps true that a district of South Carolina having twenty-five
thousand people will send but twenty-five thousand bags of cotton
to market. It is also true, perhaps, that eight hundred

operatives in a manufactory will, by their labor, increase threefold
the value of eight thousand bales, making a total of market-values
equal to the twenty-five thousand bales. But when the
operatives have done this, they have done nothing more than
feed and clothe themselves, while, in fact, the cotton-planter has
sent nothing but his surplus crop into the market. He has lived
and fed well, with all his operative besides. Of the twenty-five
thousand persons in agriculture, twelve thousand enjoy luxuries,
as well as comforts, which are not common to the cities. They
have more leisure; they enjoy more society; most of them ride
on horseback, and the greater number of families keep carriage
or buggy. Nothing is said of the variety of food which they
command, or may command — the delights of their own homes,
in their own grounds, their own gardens and firesides; and the
ease, the independence and elasticity, which belong to him who
lives in the air and sunshine; in exercises which are grateful;
and retires from his toils at an early hour, to the enjoyments of
his homestead and his sleep. But talking of sleep reminds me
of supper. Captain, if my nose does not greatly err, we are in
the latitude of the old North State. I have been smelling tar
and turpentine for the last half hour.”