New States Quotes
He used the term “essay makers” to refer to the intellectual and political leaders of Virginia. At the time the only “mass medium” was the written essay and politicians and other leaders used that medium the way that many use radio, television, and the Internet today. Holding on to a bottle referred to an alcoholic who would not give up drinking even though it was killing him. Ironically slavery caused Virginia to go from a leading commercial and intellectual state of the Union to a less than average one as Virginian energies all went to maintaining the status quo and their institutions, while the Northern and Midwestern State worked to modernize and improve. It took until the latter years of the 20th century before Virginia began to be a modern commercial state, but the legacy of looking backward still remains with political and cultural conflict between the traditionalists in Virginia who are still angry about the Civil War loss and modernists who have in large part come from other states. Virginia was the last state to decriminalize adultery for example and many educated modernists would not live in Virginia or move their businesses there. The modernists seem to be changing Virginia to where it again may be a leading state of the Union.
