But in the South the situation was quite different.

And for this fact the explanation was found in history.

The South certainly could not fix the blame upon Nature.

In natural wealth--in forests, mines, quarries, rich soil, in the unlimited power supplied by water courses--the Southern States formed perhaps the richest region in the country.

These things North Carolina and her sister communities had not developed; more startling still, they had not developed a source of wealth that was infinitely greater than all these combined; they had not developed their men and their women.