Lexington gazette. [volume] (Lexington, Va.) 1871-1962, 1909-02-24
The Old South Misrepresented
and misunderstood


of the Manufactures Record. pub
lished in Baltimore, has the fol
lowing to say in defense of the
manufacturing and mining, edu'
cation and religion in the Old
South:
Probably no other country was
ever 80 thoroughly misunderstood
and misrepresented as the Old
South. Many southern people have
known so little about their own
section, that they have made as
many plumbers in discussing it as
have northern writers. The Old
South was so busy making history
that it left the writing of history
to others. In that it made a great
mistake. From it's own people even
it has never received credit for it's
wonderful achievements. The
great majority of people are under
the impression that the South of
ante-bellum days was a purely az.
ricultural country without great
men. On the contrary the Old
South produced many of the great
est business men of the country;
men who in broad business ability
and in financial acumen had no
superlors, if equals, in the United
States. Certainty no ADLER men
have come to the front in these
latter times than the leaders in
railroad building,in manufactures,
in mining, in the development of
scientific agriculture than the men
of the Old South.
In the justly criticized prize es-
say on Lee, the author said:
intellectually the South was
practically dead. Most of the PEG
pie were densely ignorant; hence
the great religious and educational
movements which in the North had |
built church and schoolhouse at
every crossroads had swept by
them unheeded."
And yet the South with between
little more than 10000, 600 peo-
in 1850 out of total for the coun-
try of 100000 had 2O,S58
churches, while the rest of the
country had 49,, church build
ings. With nearly twice the
South's population, and three
times it's white population the
rest Of the country had only 60
per cent more churches than the
South. Even including the negroes
the South had one church for
every 528 OF its population while
the rect Of the country had one
for every 616 of its population.
Omitting the negroes and the
South, had one church for every
1913 of its white population or
Deerly twice as many per capita of
white population as the rest of the
country.
Comparatively few negroes at
tended formal schools in the South
before the war, but nearly 4,000,-
900 of them were in a schoo'
which had educated hordes of
beings fresh from the junsles of
Africa into habits of work and
the decencies of life, to say moth.
ing of religious convictions, which
have persisted in the few survivors
in spite of the decentralization to }
which they have been subjected |
during the past 40-odd years. Few |
of them learned to read and write,
to be sure, but in their cases, as in
other cases, illiteracy by no means ,
meant dense ignorance. In 250
years the negroes of the South ad-
vanced in positive knowledge q
farther than their ancestors in
Africa had advanced In $500
years.
1t may be well to recall the d
facts that in the 70 years of the c
old constitution 8 of the Is occu- 4
pants of the Presidency of the n
United States were southern born, q
their terms extending over 40 u
years, and that in the same period u
craftsmanship and south u
ern military genius, maintaining e.
it's record of the days of the Re- q
evolutionary war, ADDED. 100000 u
square miles of land to the terri Il
5ory of the United States, about II
two-thirds of it's present land area. p
1t is time for the people of the
south to give full measure of o
credit to the really wonderful in N
religious and business p
ife of the old South and to realize u
hat Lee and jackson and other L
nen who for four years met the u
contest of the mighty 81
truggle of 1861-65 were but the p
natural product of a civilization o.
which since the beginning Of the u
American government had exer- I"
Used such a preponderaJing in
luencs in shaping and guiding it's u
lestiny.
The announcement that the se