Note 15 — Chapter IV · THE EXCEPTIONAL LARGE PLANTERS.

As “A Southern Lawyer,” writing for Harper’s Weekly (February, 1859), observes: “The sudden acquisition of wealth in the cotton-growing region of the United States, in many instances by planters commencing with very limited means, is almost miraculous. Patient, industrious, frugal, and self-denying, nearly the entire amount of their cotton-crops is devoted to the increase of their capital. The result is, in a few years large estates, as if by magic, are accumulated. The fortunate proprietors then build fine houses, and surround themselves with comforts and luxuries to which they were strangers in their earlier years of care and toil.”