Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War

by Eugenia Dunlap Potts

It is interesting to read of the first attempt at a sugar crop in Louisiana by a Frenchman named Bore in 1794. His indigo plant, once so profitable, had been attacked and destroyed by a worm, and dire poverty threatened. He conceived the project of planting sugar cane. The great question was would the syrup granulate; and hundreds gathered to watch the experiment. It did granulate, and the first product sold for twelve thousand dollars—a large sum at that time.

The maker of the cotton gin worked another revolution in commerce, and rice proved to be an unfailing staple. Armies of negroes tilled the soil, and were happy in their circumscribed sphere, humanely cared for by the whites.

Enter the home and lo! a palace greets you. Massive mahogany furniture, now, alas! in scattered remnants, meets the eye at every turn. Treasures and elegant trifles of many lands attest the artistic taste of the owners. Gorgeous china, plate and glass are there in everyday use. Fruits of the loom in rarest silk and linen, embellish the chambers and luxury sits enthroned. The chatelaine, gracious and cultured, is to the manner born: and from season to season she fills her house with congenial people who are invited to come, but not, as with present house parties, told when to go. As long as they found it comfortable and convenient the latchstring was out. A guest was never permitted to pay for anything; expressage, laundry and all incidentals were as free as air. The question of money, nowadays impertinently thrust forth, was never hinted at in the olden time. It was considered bad form, and the luckless boaster of "how poor he was" would have been properly stared at as a boor as well as a bore.

For pastimes men had fishing and hunting, and for women there were lawn games and indoor diversions. Speaking of the women of the South a writer aptly said: "They dwell in a land goodly and pleasant to the eye; a land of fine resources, both agricultural and mineral; where may be found fertile cotton fields, vast rice tracts, large sugar plantations, bright skies and balmy breezes. The whole land is plowed by mighty rivers, is ribbed by long mountain chains, and washed by the sea."

Fitting environment, we add, for the gorgeous residences, notably in Georgia and South Carolina, built by the nobility and gentry of the republic, and inherited by the descendants of the old colonial aristocracy. What wonder, that they held themselves aloof from the manual laborer, black or white, and that they were uncontaminated by the attrition of commercial competition. In the summer the family sought the cooler climate of old Kentucky or Virginia, or farther north to Saratoga, Long Branch, or some one of the then attractive resorts. They travelled in state, frequently bringing the family coach, and never without a retinue of servants. What a sensation they made! And money flowed like water. The young men, rich and idle, paid court to pretty girls, sure of a welcome from both parents and daughters, for to marry a Southern planter was to achieve a social victory for all time to come. The mechanical and athletic age had not yet dawned. The accepted escort must be a professional man, or else lord of a domain such as I have described. Pride and prejudice blinded judgment, and the aristocracy of merit alone was unappreciated.

And yet the Southern woman, even of great wealth, could not afford to be idle. She was not, save in exceptional cases, the useless, half-educated, irresponsible creature she has been represented. Some there are always and everywhere whose lives are given over to fads, fancies and frivolities. But the true mothers were priestesses at the home altar, and kept the sacred fires bright and burning. Their duty was to keep others busy, and to direct and oversee the vast domestic machinery of the home.

Their views were somewhat narrow, for as yet the bright sun of woman's emancipation was barely peeping over the horizon. Their minds did not grasp the vexed questions of theology, politics, or economics. They accepted the faith of their fathers, and shifted all burdens to stronger shoulders. They were eminently religious and charitable. Ways and means were at hand, and they did not bother their brains with isms and ologies. Regular attendance upon the nearest church, and reverence for the clergy, were prominent in their creed.

Education for the masses was not provided, as it is now; but the majority of the better class were finely educated, either at Northern schools, or by the governess, and tutor at home. In many cases where the wife was widowed, she nobly and intelligently arose to the management of business affairs. If misfortune came, and the woman felt obliged to earn a livelihood, it did not occur to her to seek it behind a counter or in a workshop as we do in this generation. She was inclined to walk in the old paths, and follow old customs. They believed their own skies were bluest, their own cornfields greenest, their tobacco finest, their cotton the whitest on earth. They were devoted to old friends, to old manners and customs, and gloried in their birthright.

In the line of literary productions the South was backward. Augusta Evans Wilson's remarkable novels, Beulah, St, Elmo, and others, were read and re-read, not for any lasting good, but for passing interest, and largely for the glamour that invested a Southern writer. Madame Le Vert produced "Souvenirs of Travel," among the very earliest of books on European scenes. Marion Harland's works were read, and possessed the selling quality notwithstanding the bitter taste left by her humiliated heroines. Caroline Lee Hentz, Mrs. Holmes, Mrs. Southworth, and a small army of essayists in the field, clamored for recognition; but time was when to see the Southern woman in print was an innovation displeasing to the household gods. Time came when the slumbering faculties were stirred into splendid and successful activity. The depth of the natures hitherto unsounded arose to the new demands right valiantly. We behold its fruits in the rearing of splendid monuments, the erection of noble charity institutions, the endowing of colleges, the equipment of missionaries, the awakening of wide philanthropies, and in the higher lines of Christian endeavor. The men who shouldered arms, from father to son, to defend their States rights, were the same who, in times of peace, knew no burdens of life save those they voluntarily assumed. The women who sewed night and day upon garments for field and hospital, were the same who were wont to employ their white hands with fragile china and heirloom plate, or dally with needlework in the morning room. These were the mothers who, standing by the slaughtered first-born, gave his sword to the next son, and bade him go at his country's call. There was the spirit of heroism not surpassed by the heroes of the sterner sex. They suffered privations and terrors without a murmur.

To visit one of these ante-bellum homes was a privilege indeed. And something of the spirit of the canaille of the French revolution must have animated the foreign hordes, who, not content with confiscating these captured palaces, ruthlessly cut and destroyed the richness and elegance they were beholding for the first time in their commonplace lives. It was not the spirit of conquest, but of vandalism, that animated them. Wanton destruction and not spoliation, common in war tactics, was their watchword. A domain fairer than Elysium opened to their astonished gaze, whenever they penetrated some sylvan grove where stood the plantation manor house.