The South did take significant strides in the 1850s. The slave states more than quadrupled their railroad mileage, outstripping the northern pace which merely tripled mileage in that section. Capital invested in southern manufacturing rose 77 percent, exceeding the rate of population growth so that the amount invested per capita increased 39 percent. The value of southern-produced textiles increased 44 percent. But like Alice in Wonderland, the faster the South ran, the farther behind it seemed to fall. While the slave states’ proportion of national railroad mileage increased to 35 percent in
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