The white South wished only to be let alone.
During this apathetic period there was some talk of the natural resources of the South; but there was little attempt on the part of Southerners to utilize these resources.

There was talk of interesting foreign capital, but little effective work was done to secure such capital.

Many men feared the new problems which such development might bring in its train, while others, more numerous, were merely indifferent or lukewarm.

Many of those who vaguely wished for a change did not know how to set about realizing their desires.

The few men who really worked to stimulate a quicker economic life about 1880 had a thankless and apparently a hopeless task.
Yet one must be careful not to write of the South as if it were a single country, inhabited by a homogeneous people.