The South, if conquered, and honestly accepting the results of the war, needed encouragement and material help instead of discriminating injuries. Her condition was deplorable. All wars are destructive of property and production. To the South the war between the States was exhausting to the utmost degree. Its destructiveness is not computable by figures. The numerical inferiority of the army made it necessary to put into the effective military force every available boy and man; and these were thus withdrawn from productive labor. Much of the labor that remained was applied, not to the production of wealth, but to such manufactures as were needful only in war. For four dreadful years, like the _triste noche_ described by Prescott, with ports closed, and under the imperious necessity of evoking and utilizing every possible warlike agency, this cessation of wealth-producing industry, this drain upon material resources, this decimation of our best men, this waste of capital and exhaustion of the country from the Rio Grande to the Chesapeake bay, continued remorselessly. Superadd the emancipation of 4,000,000 slaves, the sudden extinction of $1,600,000,000 of property, the disorganization of the labor system, the upheaval of society, the "stupendous innovation" upon habits, modes of thought, allegiance, amounting almost to a change of civilization, and it will be easy to see that the South started upon her new career with nothing but genial climate, fertile soil, and brave hearts. Absence of capital, of concentrated wealth, made it necessary to begin _de novo_. Slavery and profitableness of crops had prevented diversity of pursuits. Agriculture, applied to a few products, was almost our sole occupation. Former habits had disinclined to mechanical pursuits or manual labor, and our towns, since 1865, have been crowded with young men, who have sought in clerkships, agencies, and professions the means of support. These employments, if furnishing remunerative wages, are not wealth-producing, add nothing to capital, and have aggravated the general impoverishment.