incomes of plantations, spent their winters in New
Orleans, their springs in Charleston, and their summers at the Virginia
springs. Among these, tutors were engaged to train children, and every
man had his valet, every lady her maid. Travel in Europe, sojourns at
Newport and Saratoga, and acquaintance with the best hotels of
Philadelphia and New York were common to this group of most attractive
people. When Congress was in session, they dominated the social life of
the capital, gave elaborate balls, and brought effective pressure to
bear upon aspiring Eastern and Western public leaders. Douglas had
married a beautiful North Carolina heiress, the wife of Jefferson Davis
was the granddaughter of a governor of New Jersey, and even William H.
Seward was strongly influenced by the graces of his planter friends.
Senators, representatives, and judges of the federal courts owned
estates in the lower South which yielded incomes ofttimes greater than
their official salaries. The very flower and beauty of the land were
Southern gentlemen like Robert E. Lee and Wade Hampton, or ladies like
the sprightly Mrs. Chestnut or the genial Mrs. Pryor.

Nor did the commercial and industrial life of the East fail to produce a
similar fruit. If the Eastern gentleman were less dependent on his valet
and less averse to work with his hands, he was nevertheless a gentleman,
and the chasm between him and the toiler in the mills was difficult to
bridge. There was nowhere in the United States a more exclusive society
than that in which the Danas and the Winthrops of Boston moved. And the
New England elite were never so happy as when they could run off to
England and frequent the dinners and receptions of the British
aristocracy; both the manners and the ideals of the Eastern upper class
resembled strikingly those of the "best people" of Old England. It was
all in striking contrast to the ideals of the Puritans of old times, but
it was natural. In New England, as in the South, democracy was flouted
and a privileged position greatly prized. The old American "equality"
was only skin deep, as any one would have recognized if he had attempted
familiarities with either the Eastern or the Southern social leaders.
The difference was that the one group lived in cities when they were at
home, and the other in the country.

Nor was this American social life scorned by European noblemen. Charles
Sumner was always welcome in the greatest houses of London, and the