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Conclusion I n 1908, at the age of seventy-four, John Brevard Alexander sat at his desk in Charlotte to write his memoirs. In Reminiscences of the Past Sixty Years, the Confederate veteran and Mecklenburg County doctor fondly recalled his youth, a period he referred to as “the best days of our Republic” and “a civilization that has never been excelled.” He lamented that so much of this antebellum culture had vanished, such that “the civilization of the first half of the 19th century is but a misty remembrance of an almost forgotten period.” In Alexander’s narrative, the Civil War functioned as “a revolution of gigantic proportions” that cost the South “everything but honor.”1 Dr. Alexander saw suicide, divorce, and debt as symptomatic of the “Dangers of Civilization” that plagued North Carolina since the Civil War. “In the olden times,” Alexander noted, “we seldom heard of divorces—and then it was a long ways from home; but of late years we have a dozen cases in one court.” White North Carolinians’ understanding of debt, Alexander claimed, had been transformed for the worse since his antebellum childhood . “Fifty years ago dishonesty was under par; money was borrowed and loaned among neighbors without taking a take, or giving any evidence of debt, and to ask what interest was charged would be an insult.” He complained that the antebellum culture of debt had become a memory, such that “a man can now live in [an] elegant style—if he wants to, and never pay a just debt.” Similarly, suicide symbolized a form of social decay that had infected North Carolina to the extent that “it is patent to all observers that this fearful crime is increasing at a rapid pace.”2 Suicide, divorce, and debt functioned in Dr. Alexander’s narrative as barometers of social conduct and responsibility. He saw the Civil War as a Conclusion 218 point of deep social and cultural disjuncture, separating an idealized past from a corrupt present. Many black North Carolinians also came to the conclusion that the Civil War had resulted in profound moral upheaval. The nature of this change, however, was radically different from that envisioned by Dr. Alexander and other white North Carolinians. Many black North Carolinians believed that the moral condition of their community had improved dramatically since emancipation and that this improvement was manifested in particular behaviors. Bishop James W. Hood observed in 1884 that “there is no better evidence of a change of heart than a change in our conduct—our manner of life.”3 Despite repeated efforts by whites to keep African Americans from attaining political and economic power, black North Carolinians found solace in the belief that they had achieved significant advances on certain moral questions. “In spite of the present difficulty ,” noted the A.M.E. Zion Quarterly Review in 1902 in the aftermath of a militant white supremacy campaign that disenfranchised most black voters, “the fact remains that the Negro is doing better today than in any time in his history.”4 Suicide, divorce, and debt can be among the most profound and defining events in an individual’s life.This study has argued that they provide a meaningful window into both personal tragedies and broader patterns of social experience. The dramatic changes in both behaviors and attitudes toward suicide, divorce, and debt indicate that the Civil War had lasting repercussions in lives of and opportunities for white and black North Carolinians. From this perspective, the story of nineteenth-century North Carolina is one of deep discontinuityand revolutionarycultural change. Although persuasive continuity narratives can be constructed to describe economic or political conditions over the course of the nineteenth century, at a deeply personal level the Civil War forced white and black North Carolinians to see the world and their place in it with new eyes. This new perspective shaped the ways in which they judged their own conduct and that of others. Suicide, divorce, and debt also shed light on the complex story of community change over the course of the nineteenth century. Historians have often described the nineteenth century in terms of community decline and collapse. Robert Wiebe famously described this transition as one from isolated “island communities” to a national bureaucratic and impersonal state.5 His argument mirrored that of nineteenth-century intellectuals and social critics, who worried that modernity heralded the decline of traditional community values. Wiebe and his intellectual descendants envi- [3.143.168.172] Project MUSE (2024-04-24 14:01...

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