Others with larger view proclaimed the new gospel for the whole South as a
section, rather adopting an attitude of aloofness toward the North,
wishing the Southern people to work out their great problem without
assistance from those who would be predisposed to meddlesome criticism. It
is true that reorganization for the South was the most national thing
Southerners could turn themselves to at that time, and in the judgment of
many still is, but speakers and writers often failed of just the most
fortunate expression of their purpose in that they did not strike the
national note very consciously.[148]
It is something to have gone through what the South went through and come
out not dispirited utterly, not defiant against fate or enemies, not
forgetful of the past, but, remembering the worst, determined soberly,
quietly, thoroughly to do the fundamental thing and do it nationally. It
was left for Charleston more than all others--noblesse oblige--to speak
this greatest message:
"The Southern people must be national themselves, in their aspirations and
conduct, if they would have the government truly national in spirit", and
have Garfield "President of the whole country, and not of a section, or
party, to have a government of 'the whole country', to be entitled to it,
we must think of the whole country as our own, and demand no more than we
are ready to give. It must come to this. In the near future the successful
leaders, South and North, will be those whose first thought is for the
Republic, men who are national in feeling and purpose; men who understand
that the political and social strength and safety of each State depend not
on isolation and separation, but on combination and union."[149]
By the late fall and winter of 1880 the mind of the South was ripe for
progress and accomplishment. Perhaps the first gropings after procedure
struck upon the consideration that manufactures would add another profit
to the profit of agriculture. The big, general conception was first
grasped without refinements or modifications or drawbacks; it was received
with almost childlike simplicity and faith.[150] But it came to be
ingrained. "The cotton which now comes into Charleston and is sold here
pays commissions to the factors and brokers, and when shipped leaves
behind it the price of the drayage, compressing and storage. Cotton which
comes into Charleston and is manufactured here is doubled in value, and an
amount equal, at least, to the value of the raw cotton when it reached the
city boundary is distributed among the people of Charleston. This is the
simple key to the prosperity which invariably attends the development of
manufactures. Manufacturing gives additional value to raw material, and
this additional value goes into the communities where the manufacturing is
done. At present Charleston does nothing to increase the value of the
cotton which comes here for sale. It leaves us as it finds us. The city
lives on the pickings and scrapings....