Creative Books

] It is clear, also, that the Old
Dominion had passed the apogee of her political power.
It was not only the planters of Virginia that suffered in this
period of change. As the more extensive and fertile cotton-fields of
the new states of the southwest opened, North Carolina and even
South Carolina found themselves embarrassed. With the fall in cotton
prices, already mentioned, it became increasingly necessary to
possess the advantages of large estates and unexhausted soils, in
order to extract a profit from this cultivation. From South Carolina
there came a protest more vehement and aggressive than that of the
discontented classes of Virginia. Already the indigo plantation had
ceased to be profitable and the rice planters no longer held their
old prosperity.
Charleston was peculiarly suited to lead in a movement of revolt. It
was the one important center of real city life of the seaboard south
of Baltimore. Here every February the planters gathered from their
plantations, thirty to one hundred and fifty miles away, for a month
in their town houses.


Pages:
90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114