during the war. Charleston and Williamsburg gave the tone to good
society, and it was haughty and aristocratic in the extreme. While
Virginia has for the last half century been in a state of comparative
decay, South Carolina has, by its culture of cotton and rice, just been
able to hold its own; but the pride and exclusiveness of its people have
increased much faster than its material interests. Although the
Constitution of the United States guarantees to every State a republican
form of government, no thinking person who has resided for a single week
within the limits of South Carolina can have failed to see and feel
that a tyranny equal to that of Austria exists there. The freedom of
opinion and its expression were not permitted. Strangers were always
under espionage, and public opinion, controlled by an oligarchy of
slave-holders, overruled laws and private rights. Nowhere, even in South
Carolina, was this feeling of _hauteur_ so strong as in that portion of
the State which we are describing. On the large plantations the owners
ruled with power unlimited over life and property, and could a faithful
record be found it would prove one of vindictive oppression, productive
oftentimes of misery and bloodshed. Most of the wealthier planters in
the district have residences at Beaufort, to which they remove during
the summer months to escape the malaria arising from the soil around
their inland houses. This place may be considered the home of the
aristocracy. Here reside the Barnwells,[F] Heywards, Rhetts[G](formerly
called Smiths,) Stuarts, Means, Sams, Fullers,[H] Elliots,[I] Draytons
and others, altogether numbering about fifty families, but bearing not
more than twenty different names, who rule and control the country for
forty miles around. This is the most complete and exclusive approach to
'nobility' of blood and feeling on our continent. Nowhere else is family
pride carried to such an extent. They look with supercilious disdain on
every useful employment, save only the planting of cotton and rice.
Nothing in any of our large cities can equal the display of equipages,