Chapter II

1830-1860

The years between 1830 and 1860 witnessed a remarkable expansion of the United States in area, population and wealth. By the annexation of Texas and by treaties with England and Mexico, nearly a million square miles of territory were added to the national domain and the western boundary was pushed to the Pacific Ocean. The total number of people increased in the thirty years from 12,866,020 to 31,443,321; the total wealth from about $2,000,000,000 to more than $16,000,000,000. It was a period of great prosperity for all branches of industry. As the tide of settlers swept over the fertile lands drained by the Mississippi River and Great Lakes, the agricultural production of the country increased with amazing rapidity. The production of corn in 1859 was almost 1,000,000,000 bushels; of wheat and oats 175,000,000 bushels each, and of cotton 4,300,000 bales, while the live stock of the country that year, including, among other animals, 25,000,000 cattle, 22,000,000 sheep and 33,000,000 swine, was valued at $1,000,000,000. The exploitation of the mineral resources of the nation was carried on more rapidly. From 300,000 tons of coal mined in 1830, the quantity grew to 13,000,000 tons in 1860; the iron mines turned out 1,000,000 tons of ore in 1860, the copper mines 7,000 tons and the lead mines 15,000 tons, while the production of gold in the far West, which began in 1849, averaged $55,000,000 annually during the following ten years. Manufacturing likewise grew in importance, the value of its products rising to nearly $2,000,000,000 in 1859. The tendency toward a territorial division of industry was accentuated during this period. Cotton cultivation became more than ever the dominant industry of the entire South; most of the manufacturing was done in the New England and Middle Atlantic States; the Northern Central States were devoted primarily to the production of grain and live stock.

The development of the country was accompanied by the construction of transportation facilities to care for the expanding trade. A large number of important canals were completed; the Ohio River was joined to Lake Erie; Pittsburgh and Philadelphia were connected by a rail and water line; the Illinois River was connected with Lake Michigan at Chicago; the St. Mary's Falls Canal was built to aid the navigation of the Great Lakes, and many other waterways of lesser importance were constructed. Railroads grew rapidly in favor and as time went on they were built in increasing numbers and the construction of canals was practically abandoned. Before 1840 over 2,800 miles of track were laid and by 1850 the mileage amounted to 9,000. The decade from 1850 to 1860 was a period of extensive railway construction, especially in the Northern Central States, where more than 10,000 miles were built. Early in the decade the trunk lines of the Eastern States were pushed across the mountains and through railway connection was established between the Mississippi Valley and the Atlantic Ocean. New York was connected with Chicago by a direct rail route in 1853, and with St. Louis in 1855, and in 1858 a railroad reached the Missouri River. In the South, roads were built into the interior from all the important cities on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. In 1860 there was a total of 30,626 miles of railroad in the entire country.

With the growth of population and wealth, the diversification of industry and the development of canals and railroads, there was a great increase in internal commerce. The trade of this period consisted of a few well-defined currents flowing between certain sections. A large volume of products, mainly agricultural, went from the Central States to the East, and a traffic of less volume but of greater value moved in the reverse direction. There was a heavy internal movement from the Northern to the Southern States and a light movement from the South to the North. Aside from these movements, there was an over-land trade by pack-horse and wagon with the Far West which became of particular importance after the discovery of gold. For the sake of greater clearness, these different currents of trade will be considered separately in the order named.

1. TRADE BETWEEN THE EASTERN AND CENTRAL STATES

One of the notable features of the internal commerce following 1830 was the rise of the trade on the Great Lakes. After the opening of the Erie Canal there was a large migration to the lands around the lakes; in a few years thousands of acres of land were cleared and put under cultivation; the center of cereal production shifted westward; and hundreds of shiploads of grain were borne over the lakes toward eastern markets. Ohio was the first state west of New York to ship grain over the lakes. By 1835, Indiana and Michigan were sending grain eastward over Lake Erie; in 1836 the first shipment from Lake Michigan was recorded; in 1838 a shipment of 78 bushels of wheat from Chicago marked the beginning of the cereal trade of that city, and in 1841 the first exportation of Wisconsin wheat left the harbor of Milwaukee.

The growth of the lake grain trade was exceedingly rapid. As soon as the Ohio Canal was completed (1832) there was a diversion of traffic from the Mississippi River to Lake Erie, and as early as 1838, the receipts of western wheat and flour at Buffalo were larger than the receipts at New Orleans. The repeal of the English Corn Laws in 1846 gave a great stimulus to cereal production in the United States. As the population of the Central States increased and as canals and railroads were built to connect all parts of the cereal belt with the lake cities, the lake grain trade constantly swelled in volume. In 1860 the receipts of grain by lake at Buffalo, Oswego, Dunkirk, Ogdensburg and Cape Vincent amounted to 62,000,000 bushels. The shipment from Lake Michigan ports that year were 43,000,000 bushels, half of which came from Chicago alone.

Though grain and flour constituted the most important part of the eastbound lake traffic, there was at the same time a considerable trade in other commodities. Large quantities of pork, bacon, beef, lard, and other provisions were sent to Buffalo for distribution eastward; hides, wool, whiskey and live stock formed an important part of the traffic. Millions of feet of lumber were transported annually from Michigan and Wisconsin to all the other lake states; the shipment of copper from Lake Superior began in 1845, and the iron ore traffic began ten years later.

The westbound shipments over the lakes were also large and valuable. In 1836, $9,000,000 worth of merchandise was sent to western states over the Erie Canal and the lakes, and by 1854 the amount reached $94,000,000. After the latter year there was a rapid decline in the merchandise traffic over the canal and lake route because of railway competition. The shipments to the West consisted mainly of dry goods, clothing, machinery, railroad iron, drugs, imported foodstuffs, household furniture, salt and coal.

The trade over the Great Lakes and Erie Canal was without doubt the most important feature of the commerce between the Atlantic States and the interior of the country between 1830 and 1860, but this route by no means absorbed all the traffic. The Main Line of the Pennsylvania canal system, completed in 1832, made it possible for Philadelphia and Baltimore to retain some of their trade with the cities of the Ohio Valley, but this trade, like the wagon trade preceding it, was largely one-sided, the westbound movement of light merchandise exceeding the eastbound movement of agricultural produce. The inclined planes which carried the traffic across the mountains proved to be an expensive and cumbersome device, and because of a lack of better transportation facilities, the trade of Philadelphia and Baltimore suffered constant losses, and for a time it seemed that New York was destined to monopolize the entire commerce between the Atlantic coast and the trans-Appalachian region.

In 1841, however, this situation was modified by the entrance of a new factor--the Western Railroad, the completion of which gave through rail connection between Boston and Albany. Because of its isolated position Boston had not shared in the direct trade with the Central States, but had been compelled to buy and sell through the merchants of New York and Philadelphia. The new railroad completely altered the position of Boston and brought an era of great prosperity to the city, at the same time demonstrating the practicability of the steam road as a carrier of nearly all kinds of freight.

The immediate success of this road was a signal for the beginning of more extensive railway construction, and the decade from 1850 to 1860 witnessed the entrance of the trunk line roads as competitors with the canals for traffic between the East and the West. The failure of the Pennsylvania Canal and the growing prosperity of Boston incited the people of Pennsylvania to take decisive steps to win back some of the trade lost by Philadelphia and in 1846 the Pennsylvania Railroad Company was chartered for the purpose of completing steam railway connection between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. By 1854, this line, the Erie, the New York Central and the Baltimore and Ohio all reached the Ohio River or Lake Erie. During the next six years these four lines took over two-thirds of the flour traffic and practically all the merchandise and live-stock traffic between the eastern cities and the trans-Alleghany region, leaving to the Erie Canal the forest products and grain. In addition to capturing a large share of the canal freight the railroads easily secured most of the traffic that was accustomed to go from the cities along the Ohio River to the eastern coast and to Europe by way of New Orleans. The lakes and canals had previously made some inroad on the commerce down the Mississippi, but notwithstanding their influence the river cities of Ohio and Kentucky continued to send the largest part of their exports southward until the railroads gave them a through route to the East. After 1855 the shipments down the river from Cincinnati and other important ports on the Ohio shrunk rapidly in volume and even before the war broke out their commerce with the East was much larger than their river trade to the South.

While the railroads in the North were making such marked changes in the course of internal trade, a similar transformation was occurring in the South. Trade between the eastern and western sections of the cotton states before 1849, aside from some traffic in slaves, was almost negligible. In 1849 when the Western Atlantic Railroad began to run trains from Chattanooga to the Atlantic coast, the planters of Northern Alabama and Tennessee, who had always sent their cotton to New Orleans and Mobile, turned to the markets at Charleston and Savannah. The cotton receipts at those two ports doubled in a single year, while the receipts at New Orleans fell off nearly 100,000 bales. The shifting of the center of cotton production farther westward enabled New Orleans to make up for its losses, but the South Atlantic ports easily maintained and increased their trade. They also competed with New Orleans and the cities on the Ohio River for the merchandise trade of Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee, and the provisions for Georgia and South Carolina began to enter the states overland from the West, the coasting trade on the Atlantic seaboard both gaining and losing by the changes.

2. TRADE BETWEEN THE NORTH AND SOUTH

The general character of the internal commerce between the North and South, between 1830 and 1860, differed but little from what it had been before the former year. There were no through rail connections between the two sections until near the close of the period, and consequently almost the entire commerce, aside from that in slaves and live stock, consisted of the trade on the waters of the Mississippi River system.

This was the golden age of the river trade. Each year it grew steadily in volume, reaching a point of prosperity in 1860 never equalled before or since. Until the railroads began to divert the traffic in flour and provisions after 1850, the cities on the Ohio River sent most of the produce collected at their markets to New Orleans to be shipped to Europe and the Eastern States or to be sold to the planters of the cotton belt. After 1850, as the surplus agricultural produce of the Ohio Valley was diverted from the river, its place was taken by that coming from the fertile region around St. Louis, where thousands of immigrants were settling in new homes. Moreover, the loss of traffic in agricultural produce from Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky was compensated for by the increasing volume of manufactured goods and coal coming down from Cincinnati, Louisville and Pittsburgh. Thus the downstream traffic from the Northern States, though suffering a heavy relative loss, made an absolute gain, and with the enormous amounts of cotton shipped down the river added to this traffic, the Mississippi carried considerably more produce to the sea than either the Hudson River or the eastern roads. As before 1830, the trade up the river failed to keep pace with the movement downstream. Of the shipments upstream, 75 per cent consisted of articles previously sent down and resold to planters of Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas. The district north of these states bought some sugar and coffee of New Orleans, but drew practically all its manufactures and other imported goods from the East.

The value of the receipts of produce at New Orleans advanced from $22,000,000 in 1830 to $185,000,000 in 1860. The largest part of the increase resulted from the growth of the cotton trade. The receipts of "Western produce," which in 1820 formed 58 per cent of the commodities entering New Orleans, constituted only 23 per cent of the total receipts in 1860. But though showing a relative decline, the receipts of foodstuffs and merchandise had a steady aggregate increase. As a cotton market, New Orleans had no close rival. Its receipts of this great staple in 1860 amounted to $109,000,000.

St. Louis was the city of next importance on the Mississippi. Until after 1855, St. Louis remained strictly a river city, almost entirely dependent upon the Mississippi and its tributaries for both the importation and exportation of the flour, grain, meat, tobacco, lead and other goods that entered and left its busy markets. After the city secured railway connection with the East in 1855 a large part of the traffic entering from that direction was transferred to the railroads, and some of the traffic leaving the city was diverted from the southern river route to the eastern railway route. However, the volume of trade taken from the Mississippi was not large at first and the movement of commodities southward showed no marked decline until the outbreak of the Civil War.

Next to the river trade, the trade in live stock and slaves was the most important element in the internal commerce between the North and the South. Each year large droves of horses, mules, cattle and hogs were driven into the South from the Northern and "border" states, the farmers all over the corn-raising section finding an unfailing source of gain in the demand for live stock in the southern cotton fields. The domestic slave trade commenced to be of importance after 1820, when cotton culture spread among the Gulf States. Slaves were bought in South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas, and exported from Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and Delaware. Though no statistics of the volume of the internal slave trade exist, evidence from contemporary accounts indicates that it was unquestionably extensive, probably reaching a value of $30,000,000 a year in the late fifties.

3. TRADE OF THE FAR WEST

Long before Texas and the California territory became a part of the United States, enterprising merchants on the western frontier began a merchandise trade with the Mexican settlements in what is now New Mexico. By 1843 this trade reached an annual value of $500,000. After the occupation of the territory by the United States troops it became much larger, reaching a total value in 1860 of $3,800,000. The chief shipping points were Independence and Kansas City, Missouri. Transportation was supplied by regular freighters who employed a large number of men to conduct the white-topped prairie schooners across the unsettled plains between the Missouri River and the mountains. New Mexico paid for its imports with bullion and wool produced in the territory, or with money secured by the sale of sheep driven to California, or by the sale of a scanty agricultural produce to government military posts and Indian agencies.

In addition to the wagon trade with New Mexico, the Missouri River cities carried on a similar trade with Utah after its occupation by the Mormons in 1848. When gold was discovered in Colorado in 1859 there was an immediate rush of settlers to that territory, which was accompanied by the rise of a large trade in tools and provisions. There was no regular overland freight traffic to the Pacific coast, the commerce of California with the rest of the country, aside from the sheep trade with New Mexico, being carried on around Cape Horn or across Central America. Within California itself there was an extensive trade between San Francisco and the agricultural, lumbering and mining districts of the surrounding regions.

4. CONCLUSION

The expansion of the volume of the internal trade of the United States during this epoch more than justified the expectations existing at 1830. The improvement of the facilities for communication and transportation, permitted a continually increasing accentuation of a territorial division of labor which fostered the growth of mutual dependence between regions where geographic, social or other conditions led naturally to the predominance of a special type of industry. The manufacturing and commercial population of the Northeast was fed by the farm products of the Central States and the inhabitants of the Central States drew their imported supplies, their clothing, shoes and large quantities of other manufactured goods and general merchandise from the Eastern markets. The South relied upon the North for food, manufactures and imports. The North in turn bought from the South raw materials for its cotton and sugar industries, and the Northern shipping interests carried to European markets the heavy exports of Southern cotton, the proceeds from which paid the Southern debts in Northern States and settled the large unfavorable balance of the Northern foreign trade.

The multiplication of factories in the North together with the spread of cotton culture in the South and the opening of foreign markets to American grain brought about the demand for cereal products, which the agricultural interests had been so anxious to create. When the market problem was solved, the tariff duties were reduced to a revenue basis.

In the solution of the transportation problem the people freely used their political institutions. Nearly all the numerous canals built after 1825 and several of the early railroads were public enterprises, undertaken by state governments. However, the states proved unable to cope with the problem of administering their railways and canals, and surrendered the field of transportation to private corporations, which were helped to carry out the work by generous and munificent gifts of land and money from federal, state and local governments.

Unfortunately the federal government did not attempt to establish a satisfactory currency system. In 1837 and again in 1857 the country was visited by a financial panic due in a large measure to extravagant speculation, much of which would have been impossible had the issue of money been properly regulated.

On the whole the period from 1830 to 1860 was one of great prosperity and contentment. The wealth of the nation grew enormously and for the most part it was equally distributed, there being few paupers and still fewer very rich individuals. The twenty years following 1840 have been called the "golden age" of American history, and as far as concerns the diffusion of material comforts they certainly deserve the name.

Notwithstanding the great material prosperity however, the flames of sectionalism, which had blazed forth during the contest over the adoption of the "American System" remained unquenched even after the question of protection had ceased to be an important political issue. Filled with animosity engendered by the thought that the economic progress of the North had been effected at the expense of the South, and fearful that the fulminations of the abolitionists and the successful efforts of the Northern political leaders to restrict the territorial expansion of slavery only foretold an ultimate intention of destroying that institution altogether, the Southern partisans decided to sever the political bonds between the two sections, the economic institutions of which differed so widely, and to establish a separate state whose political ideals would conform to its economic and social predilections. This decision the Southerners stood ready to enforce by an appeal to arms; the people of the North, preferring "to accept war rather than let the nation perish," made ready to prevent the proposed dissolution of the Union; and the era of general happiness and comfort ended amid the preparations for the impending struggle.