The Southern people do not lack in energy or enterprise, nor did they prior to 1860. Since the formation of this government they have demonstrated in every line of action, in political life, on the battlefield, in literature, in science and in great business undertakings, that in any sphere of life they are the peers of the most progressive men in the world. From the settlement of the colonies until 1860 the business record proves this. After 1865 the conditions had been so completely changed that the masses lacked opportunity, and to that alone was due their seeming want of energy. The population was largely in excess of the number required to do all of the work that was to be done. At least one-half of the whole population was without employment, for the war had destroyed nearly all the manufacturing interests that had been in existence; agriculture was almost the only source of work for the masses. With no consumers for diversified farm products it would have been folly to raise them. Cotton and cotton alone was the only crop for which a ready market could be found, and it was also the only crop which could be mortgaged in advance of raising for the money needed for its cultivation. The Northern farmer is enterprising. He raises fruits and vegetables and engages in dairying and kindred enterprises because he has a home market for these things. The Southern farmer had none and could not create one. He might deplore his enforced idleness when he saw his family in want, but that would not bring him buyers for his eggs or chickens or fruit when there was no one in his section to consume them. The almost unlimited amount of work for the mechanics and day laborers generally at the North enabled every man to find something to do. In the South there was almost an entire absence of work of this character. Men hung around the village stores because there was no work to be had which would yield them any returns. With the development of manufactures there came a great change. The opportunity for work had come, and the way in which the people who had hitherto been idlers rushed to the factories, the furnaces, and wherever employment could be secured demonstrated that they only needed the chance to prove their energy. The greatest blessing that industrial activity has brought to the South is that it is daily creating new work for thousands of hitherto idle hands, and creating a home market wherever a furnace or a factory is started for the diversified products of the farm. The latent energy of the people has been stimulated into activity, and the whole South is at work. But to fully understand the South in its relation to business matters, it is necessary to study its business history before the war had brought about a degree of poverty which has no equal in modern history.