The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1874-11-19
Why Is TT

1t Is well nigh universally admitted that ths
South Is poor when compared with the North.
By the South Is meant the cotton.gr0wing
States; and by the North is meant all the
States more especially engaged in raising stock
and grain, and in manufacturing. It is hum
bling to ones pride to confess that the spot that
gave him birth is not in every respect the best
place on which the sun shines. The Eseui-
maux thinks there is no place like his frozen
| region:' and the man born in Ecuador, beneath
vertice sun, thinks his is the best country
in the world. Evidently the temperate zones,
and especially the north temperate zone, pos.
sesses advantages Which cannot be claimed for
extreme ATTITUDES. The location ofS6uth Car
olina, North Carolina and northern Georgia: is
as favorable for the accumulation of wealth as
any section on the globe. The soil is fertile
and we'll Yatered;. the climate is healtbyan
adapted to.a variety of staple products. Now
such being the facts in the case, it may be asked,
"why have not the people of the territory EN-.
braced iii the States mentioned increased in
wealth in the same ratio as some other sectious
of the country?" For this state of things
that is, for the general poverty of the South or
cotton. growing States-there are many reasons.
For period Of seventy five or eighty years the
results of the labor of the cotton-growing States
were invested ina kind Of property which new
er was profitable. 1t had nominal value only.
The accumulations Of near g century were
swept away in one moment The stroke Of a
pen cancelled it forever. Wemean the institu-
ton of slavery. Every Southern man knows
that the mass of the property Of the South con-
sisted mainly in slaves. No other Kind of
property was regarded as of much importance.
The abolition of the institution of slavery,
whilst it did not make the slaves rich, made
the masters poor. This, in part, accounts for
the fact that there are so many men In the
South really poor:- -
Another reason why the southern people are
so poor is, that for the last seventy-hve years
very little improvement has been made, COM
pared with what has been made at the North
and in the Northwest. The soil in those Sec
tions has grown richer yearly, whilst the fields
of the South have been so neglected that many
of them are irredeemably ruined. The i'm
proverents on land in the South, until very
recently, were regarded as nothing. A planta-
ton in the woods would sell for more than one
that had been settled for number Of years.
Another reason why the southern people are
poorer than those in the northern and north
western sections of the United States is, because
the southern people do not work as hard, nor
to as good advantage as the people Of. those
sections do. Time drags heavily on the hands
of more than half of the inhabitants Of our SUN
ny South. Statistics show that more than one
half of those who are able to labor, are really
nothing but gentlemen loafers, without any
visible means of making living. They secure
living from the laboring class as tick gets a
living off COW. 1t may safely be set down in
round numbers that one-half of the southern
people do nothing. They loaf with q ven-
geance, and the other half do not work like the
people of some other sections. a northern
man is always busy, and always in hurry. He
drives from day light to dark and the tools
with which he works are of the best kind. 9"7
There is another reason for the comparative
poverty of the Southern people. Theexceeding
fertility of our soil has tendency to make our
people prodigal- -prodigal not only of time, but
also of the productions of theso We depend
far more upon the spontaneous productions of
the soil than the inhabitants ofalmost any ether
civilized section of the globe.
The last, but by no means the least, reason
for southern poverty is found in the fact that
the South is exclusively an agricultural coun-
try that is, the people of the South are devoted
exclusively to agricultural pursuits. Thissim-
pie fact, Of itself, will keep the South poor for
all time. A people engaged in agriculture, and
in nothing else, never can keep pace with
people who are engaged both in agriculture and
manufacturing. Such people will always be
rowing against both wind and tide Yorkvss
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