Fighting Fate

Of the first five Presidents of the USA, four were Virginians. What does that say? It says that the South, superb, serene, bestrode the land, a virgin queen. When the gauge of a nation's financial health was tobacco and cotton, America's wealth was centred on those vast plantations, the envy of all other nations. But - threat or opportunity - we find that change is never far behind our moments of repose or pleasure. The South had, in unstinted measure, a climate made for agriculture - but Fate is a voracious vulture, breeds the beef, then picks the carcass clean. In Massachusetts, new machines were making clothing cheaper, faster. King Cotton make way for new masters? Unthinkable? Well, think again! The North had lots of one thing (rain) which meant fast rivers. Water's free, and drives the new machinery, like Slater's Mill. And what is more, the North has coal, and iron ore! Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maine - the South looks with genteel disdain on dour gray states with ugly mines and foundries, north of Mason's line, but once that giant finds his feet, the South is dead, defeated, beat; gone with the wind that blew through Tara. No more tomorrows, Miss O'Hara. It's not for slavery or even states' rights that thirteen States resolved to fight. The South waged war, not to preserve Its unique vigor, valor, verve, or its "peculiar institutions": it fought the Industrial Revolution.