In the middle of the nineteenth century, Americans both North and South could see that something cherished and familiar was being lost. Looking back only a few years, it was easy to see a society where (if the glaze of years could be trusted) everyone thought, spoke, and acted more of less alike, living harmoniously by a common tradition. That society, in retrospect, seemed to have been singularly uncomplicated and unworried- a loose amalgam of small cities, quiet towns, and peaceful farms, slow in movement, lacking railroads and telegraph lines and owning no factories of consequence, simple and self sustaining, owing the outside world no more than casual acknowledgment- a society stirred by perfectionist impulses, perhaps, but nevertheless living to itself alone.
From The Coming Fury, page 79
From The Coming Fury, page 79