Historic Papers
ON THE
Causes
OF THE
Civil War
BY
Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts
OF THE
Lexington, Ky., Chapter U.D.C.
ASHLAND
PRINTING CO.
LEXINGTON KENTUCKY.
Contents
The Old South
Read Before the Lexington Chapter U.D.C., February 14, 1909,
By Eugenia Dunlap Potts, Historian.
No pen or brush can picture life in the old Southern States in theante-bellum days. The period comprehends two hundred and fifty yearsof history without a parallel. A separate and distinct civilization wasthere represented, the like of which can never be reproduced. Socially,intellectually, politically and religiously, she stood pre-eminent,among nations. It was the spirit of the cavalier that created andsustained our greatness. Give the Puritan his due, and still the factremains. The impetus that led to freedom from Great Britain, came fromthe South. A Southern General led the ragged Continentals on to victory.Southern jurists and Southern statesmanship guided the councils ofwisdom. The genius of war pervaded her people. She gave presidents,cabinet officers, commanders, tacticians and strategists. Her legislationextended the country's territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
A writer aptly says: "For more than fifty formative years of our historythe Old South was the dominating power in the nation, as it had been inthe foundation of the colonies out of which came the Republic, and laterin fighting its battles of independence and in forming its policies ofgovernment. * * * Whatever of strength or symmetry the republic hadacquired at home, or reputation it had achieved abroad, in those earliercrucial days of its history, was largely due to the patriotism andability of Southern statesmanship. Why that scepter of leadership haspassed from its keeping, or why the New South is no longer at the frontof national leadership, is a question that might well give pause to onewho recalls the brave days when the Old South sat at the head of thetable and directed the affairs of the nation."
There was the manor and there was the cabin. Each head of the house wasa potentate in his own domain—an absolute ruler of a principality asmarked as in feudal times, without the despotism of the feudal system.
The plantation of the old regime was tastefully laid out for beauty andproductiveness. Flower gardens and kitchen gardens stret