SIDE-LIGHTS ON CAROLINA HISTORY
My object in the following paper is not to present a summary of South Carolina history, enumerating well-known dates and facts already recorded by much better writers, but rather to furnish sundry varied items of information which, while not themselves entitled to rank as history, may yet serve a useful purpose as side-lights upon history proper.
South Carolina has always occupied an almost unique position in the family of States. Geographically small, numerically weak, she has nevertheless managed to make her influence felt throughout the Federation.
Thus much concerning her is known to the world at large, but the very peculiar conditions which existed for many years within her borders are not so generally known to outsiders. Yet it is these conditions which to a great extent moulded State character and influenced State politics. Indeed they are the key without which it would be impossible to explain many anomalies, in both her political and social history.
Presenting an unbroken front to the world, a solid unit on all questions of national policy, within herself she was divided into two jarring and irreconcilable factions. How this sectional antagonism originated, or when it first showed itself it is impossible to say. But the unnatural animosity once developed, the exceptional conditions existing in the State were unfortunately calculated to aggravate and perpetuate it. The root of the evil was that old grudge of the mass against class. Broadly speaking, the wealth and cultivation of South Carolina were confined to a single section of the State instead of being scattered throughout the whole. Orders and degrees of men have existed in all times and in all lands, but in South Carolina they were, so to speak, geographically distributed—the “orders” being found in the interior, and the “degrees” along the sea-board.
Thus, socially considered, a very broad line of demarcation separated the State into two distinct sections; and in many respects in manners, in habits, even in speech, the people of the two differed widely one from the other.
Along the coast lay the great rice-plantations, containing thousands of acres and worked by hundreds of slaves; their proprietors constituting the landed aristocracy of the State. In the interior, the plantations weresmaller, there were fewer slaves, and their owners were “farmers” rather than “planters,” devoting themselves to the cultivation of a variety of crops instead of confining their efforts to the exclusive production of a single staple.
Thus in a very important particular South Carolina differed from both Virginia and Georgia—the two members of the State-sisterhood which in many respects she most closely resembled: for in Georgia the sea-board bore so small a proportion to the interior that the influence of the coast-dwellers could not be a very appreciable factor in the general equation. And in Virginia, a difference of climate produced a corresponding difference in the mode of life of the country gentry—Virginia planters for the most part making their homes on their plantations the year round, whereas Carolina planters were compelled by considerations of health to abandon their plantations during the summer months. Though some went no farther than to settlements among the pine woods or along the seashore near at hand, the great majority either spent their summers in Charleston—the center of South Carolina refinement and cultivation—or traveled abroad into the great outside world, thereby rubbing off their rusticity and keeping themselves in touch with passing events and current interests. Necessarily, the combined advantages of wealth, education and travel produced in the coast-folk a polish of manner and a breadth of mind not possessed by the dwellers of the interior of the State who, year in and year out, vegetated contentedly on their native soil.
The difference between the denizens of the two sections was inevitable. The trouble was that, instead of regarding their superior advantages as entailing upon them corresponding duties towards their less favored neighbors, the people of the sea-board arrogated to themselves the position of critics, and looked down with scarcely veiled condescension and contempt upon their rustic brethren of the interior; by whom, it is unnecessary to say, this attitude was deeply resented.
But having meted out the blame that of right belonged to the “low-country” in this matter, justice demands the statement that—as in all family disputes—the provocation was by no means entirely on one side. Except in the matter of politics, the coast had little in common with the interior. As a class, the people of the “up-country” were ignorant and unpolished. Their lack of breeding disgusted, their want of cultivation repelled, their marvelous thrift and instinct for money-getting absolutely bewildered the low-country intelligence. And when brought together the people of the coast recoiled with the feeling that they were in contact with an alien race.
Both sections were in fault and both paid the penalty. The development of the interior was greatly retarded by its obstinate antagonism to all that savored of the more advanced civilization of the coast; and the coast suffered in its turn, by frequently finding itself in a weak minority as regarded measures of sectional advantage. Each faction of the State Legislature was determined to consult solely its own interests whenever these appeared to conflict.
Such was the condition of affairs up to the period of the Civil War. At its close, a new era dawned in the life of South Carolina. Previous conditions were now reversed. The sea-board—formerly the garden spot of the State—was left depopulated, beggared, ruined; while the interior had escaped from the terrible ordeal almost unscathed.
It was also evident that in recuperative power, there could be no comparison between the two sections; the conditions which had formerly operated adversely to the progress of the interior now conducing to its development.
First, and chief of its advantages, were to be reckoned climatic conditions permitting of white agricultural labor.
Secondly, the greatly lessened disparity in numbers between whites and blacks in its population.
Thirdly, a hardier and more homely mode of life, which enabled its people to adapt themselves with greater readiness to the new order of things.
Fourthly, the varied character of its industries; and
Lastly, a staple (cotton) naturally suggestive of manufacturing enterprise.
When these combined advantages are taken into account, and the section possessing them compared with the coast, whose sole source of revenue lay in the fertile, but miasma-laden rice fields, for the cultivation of which negro labor was an absolute necessity, it is seen at once how completely “old things had passed away!”
The mere reversal of former conditions, however, was certainly not calculated in itself to heal the sectional breach. But, fortunately, ameliorating agencies were at work—the gradual spread of education—increasing intercourse between the sections, the result of improved facilities of travel, and also of business enterprises in which both were interested. And far above and beyond all else in mollifying power, the four years of fellowshipin suffering for a common cause, which linked the erstwhile jarring sections together in a closer brotherhood than would probably have been brought about by generations of peace and prosperity.
The frightful race-problems with which South Carolina found herself confronted at the close of the Civil War, and the grim burlesque of government which followed, known as the “Reconstruction” period, during which chaos and crime ran riot in the land, served to weld still more firmly the new made bond. And when in 1876, after years of almost superhuman patience under provocation, the people of South Carolina decided that endurance had ceased to be a virtue, and rose in their righteous indignation; and in the face of overwhelming odds, by one supreme effort the State righted herself, “low-country” and “up-country” rejoiced together in true fraternal spirit.
Since that time the bond has continued to strengthen. And instead of being as of old, “a house divided against itself,” the State of South Carolina is gradually becoming one harmonious and homogeneous whole.
In the peculiar internal State-relations which we have been considering, South Carolina was unique. But in the social and domestic conditions now to be described, she was a true type and representative of the other Southern States.
It is an accepted truth that in all lands economic conditions determine social relations. In the South, the stability of the former insured a corresponding stability in the latter. To borrow a figure from geology, there were no “faults” in the stratification of Southern society. Each stratum rested secure and well-defined upon the one beneath it, with none of the perplexing sudden “dips” and “out croppings,” common in other parts of America. In that land of belated nineteenth century chivalry and feudalism, the long-exploded axiom that it took “three generations to make a gentleman” still held sway as the law governing social usage. As is the case with all laws, however, there were exceptions to this one. Men of force of character and intellectual gifts stepped over class barriers at one stride, and took their place at once in the very fore front of the social ranks.
Divisions and subdivisions of society existed, but into these intricate complexities it is not necessary to enter here. Enough to say that the “upper-crust” was composed exclusively of the landed proprietors and professional men. Of trade, this class had a holy horror, although they recognized“degrees” in infamy; holding with Cicero that, while the “retail” trader was to be regarded as “unmitigatedly base,” the “wholesale” trader might be accounted “mitigatedly” so.
Next to this topmost layer came the factors. The factor combined in his own person the functions of banker, commission merchant, and general factotum. He sold the planter’s crop, invested his proceeds, negotiated his loans, and advanced him money when required. Socially, the factor was the connecting link between the mercantile class and the landed gentry, to whom, indeed, he was often closely allied by blood. For it was the Southern custom to pass into a counting-house and thereby convert into “factors,” such planters’ sons as were considered incapable of receiving a classical or professional education, and showed no special aptitude for any particular calling.
Below the factor class were innumerable gradations gradually descending until, at the bottom of the social scale, were to be found the poor whites, or “crackers,” as they were contempteously termed. Of this element nothing need be said, as its influence wasnil; the Old South being practically composed of but two classes—its aristocracy and its negroes.
In those old days the tone of public morals was pure and high. As a rule, a Southern gentleman’s word was as good as his bond; for any imputation on his honor he regarded as a disgrace, and disgrace was the one thing he dared not face. To these people wealth was not the be-all and the end-all of existence. Not that they underrated its importance or despised its advantages, but their whole manner of life was a protest against making wealth the standard by which to gauge the sum of human achievement, affixing, as it were, a money value to all things in the heavens above and in the earth beneath.
Again, they were—not obstructionists indeed—but strong conservatives; holding that change is not necessarily synonymous with improvement, but that it sometimes means retrogression rather than advance. And holding this creed, they were not carried away by every vagary which presented itself, whether masquerading in the guise of social panacea or political hocus-pocus.
The conditions of Southern life naturally tended to produce and foster individuality, and perhaps the most marked trait in Southern character was an almost fierce independence and a hot resentment of any semblance of control. The Southerner was quick tempered and somewhat over hasty in taking offence at fancied slights. But there was nothing vindictive or malevolentin his nature, and, his outburst of temper over, if cool reflection showed him to have been in the wrong, he did not hesitate frankly to acknowledge himself in fault, and make ample apology for his mistaken judgment and hot words. As a class, Southerners undoubtedly held a very good opinion of themselves; and sometimes, where mental ballast was lacking, this comfortable consciousness of being at quits with the world went to the head, and effervesced in silly superciliousness and irritating condescension. But for the most part, the people bore themselves with irreproachable courtesy and the quiet dignity which springs from self-respect. As a race they were a brave, fearless people, truthful, honest, and generous to a fault.
Besides this common heritage however, the folk of the Carolina coast possessed certain endowments peculiarly their own—a finished grace of manner, a keen sense of humor, and a power of quick repartee—their birthright by virtue of descent from a Huguenot ancestry. This French element was in truth, a very appreciable quantity in the Carolina equation, exercising considerable formative influence on character as well as manners. Unlike the French settlers in other parts of the United States, the Carolina Huguenots, notwithstanding the inhospitable reception given them on their arrival in the colony, held their own manfully in their adopted country; and soon established such friendly relations with their English neighbors, that in the course of a generation or so, by intermarriage with these, they had ceased to be a distinctive class of the population, and were only to be traced by their French names, which they had bestowed upon half the families in the lower section of the State.
One trait remains to be mentioned—a trait common to the entire South. I allude to the ardent patriotism and intense State-love of the people. This is proved by the records of the Civil War, which show how gladly substance and life were both devoted to the service of their beloved country. Even now, a thrill runs through one, at the recollection of the heroic self-sacrifice and whole-hearted devotion of the united Southern people to their “Lost Cause.”
Charleston, S. C.H. E. Belin
(Conclusion next month.)
(Conclusion next month.)
(Conclusion next month.)