"I perceive, to my no small Surprise and Mortification, that some of my Countrymen (and those too, Persons of high Fortune and Distinction) seemed to be much alarmed, and to grudge, that a complete History of their own Country would run to more than one Volume, and cost them above half a Pistole. I was, therefore, obliged to restrain my Hand, ... for fear of enhancing the Price, to the immense Charge and irreparable Damage of such generous and publick-spirited Gentlemen."[1]
The Southern universities were meagrely attended; and though the sons of wealthy planters might sometimes be sent to Oxford or, more usually, to Princeton or to Yale, the discipline thus acquired made no general impression upon the class to which they belonged. In fact, the intellectual energy of the South found its only continuous and powerful expression in the field of politics. To government and statesmanship its leading minds gave much attention, for only thus could they retain in national affairs the supremacy which they arrogated to themselves and which was necessary to preserve their peculiar institution. Hence, there were to be found among the leaders of the Southern people a few political philosophers like Jefferson, a larger number of political casuists like Calhoun, and a swarm of political rhetoricians like Patrick Henry, Hayne, Legaré, and Yancey. But beyond the limits of political life the South was intellectually sterile. So narrowing and so hostile to liberal culture were its social conditions that even to this day it has not produced a single man of letters who can be truthfully described as eminent, unless the name of Edgar Allan Poe be cited as an exception whose very brilliance serves only to prove and emphasise the rule.