Whitelaw Reid: “We may cramp her energies and distort her form, or we may make her a rival even of the Empire State of the Atlantic.”

Public sentiment was against the sale of lands to the Yankees; “Get white laborers,” they urged, “and in a year you’ll make enough to be able to hold on to your lands.

I never saw hands more cheerful or contented than some managed on this last plan were.

Extravagant living left nearly every planter enormously in debt when the war came.

I would rather give up my crop to the negroes than the lives of my wife and children.