The student of Southern history will reach this conclusion by following other lines of investigation. It is a well-known fact that in the decade before the Civil War annual commercial conventions were held in the leading Southern cities. These conventions tended also to become political in character and furnished an opportunity for the exploitation of some rather extreme propositions, such, for example, as that looking to the reopening of the foreign slave-trade. They serve to illustrate the important part played by the _ante-bellum_ towns in developing and intensifying the movement toward secession; but it is more to the point here to observe that they were preceded by a series of conventions more strictly commercial in character--gatherings that did all they could to stir up the people of the South to the need of urban development and to open their eyes to the fact that their section was yearly falling behind in wealth and political power.[1] This first series seems to have begun with a gathering in Augusta, Georgia, in October, 1837, the object of the meeting being to allow merchants the opportunity to discuss projects for developing a direct trade between the South and Europe. As the only speeches that caused comment were made by two “Colonels” and a “General,” it is easy to perceive that even in such a convention the commercial classes were overshadowed. The delegates met twice, however, the next year, and afterwards at Charleston and Macon, the presence of delegates from all the Southern States being solicited and in part obtained. These meetings did what they could to arouse the South to commercial activity, on one occasion viewing “with deep regret the neglect of all commercial pursuits” that had thitherto prevailed among the youth of the section. That their efforts were no more successful than those of the contemporary railway promoters proves only that the failure of urban development in the South was due not to the supineness of the entire population but to the presence of an institution during the existence of which agriculture was bound to be the paramount industry. It is interesting to notice that these efforts toward urban development were contemporaneous with and in answer to the agitation of the early abolitionists; that they practically ceased during the movement for territorial aggrandizement in Texas and the Far West; and that they began in full force when it became apparent that the South had gained less of the new territory than she thought she would. So true is it that all Southern history has a political background!