Constitution and in the organization of the government were born outside the limits of the United States. For instance, the three great financiers, Robert Morris, Alexander Hamilton, and Albert Gallatin, were foreign born; James Wilson, who contributed powerfully to secure the ratification of the Constitution, was a Scot, and William Jackson, the defender of slavery, was an Englishman. But, with the exception of those foreigners who were already on the soil in 1775, the citizens of the United States in 1800 were born in America. They were descended from all the nations of northwestern Europe, and it will be interesting to note the racial origins of the inhabitants of the several sections. In New EngEngland and land and Virginia, there was less of the non-English eleVirginia. ment than in any other portion of the country; but even in New England there were descendants of Scots banished by Cromwell after the victories of Dunbar and Worcester, of Scotch-Irish immigrants from the north of Ireland, and of Huguenots who had fled from France at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In the newly settled portions of Virginia there were often descendants of Scotch-Irish immigrants and of German Protestants. But taking the New England states and Virginia as a whole, it may fairly be said that the bulk of the people were of English extraction. New The Middle states. In the Middle states there was the greatest diversity of population. New York City, originally settled by the Dutch, was a cosmopolitan city even at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War; on the banks of the Hudson and the Mohawk, there were large German settlements. In Pennsylvania and Maryland were people of many races and innumerable religious creeds, and in the extreme south were large numbers of Germans, French, Scots, and ScotchIrish. These various races were all drawn from the two great branches of the Aryan stock,- Germanic and Keltic, - which have always shown the greatest power of amalgamation. They lived happily together on American soil, 1800] Analysis of the Population 321 and, by a process of assimilation, laid the foundation of a strong aggressive race, the American people, which came into existence in the epoch between the inauguration of Thomas Jefferson and the accession of Andrew Jackson. towns. 215. Analysis of the Population. The collection of Cities and large portions of the populace in cities and towns had scarcely begun. Only about five per cent of the total population can be regarded as urban as distinguished from rural. This part of the people was gathered into eleven cities and towns, only five of which - Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, Boston, and Charleston - would now be regarded as urban. Philadelphia, the largest of them, contained seventy thousand inhabitants. It was the finest city in America, and patriotic Americans regarded it as surpassing Paris and London in elegance: the principal streets were lighted, many of them were paved, a system Y Stedman and Area. Exports and imports. of drainage was already devised, and water was supplied to the inhabitants by wooden pipes from an uncontaminated source outside the city. New York, with sixty thousand inhabitants, was behind Philadelphia in introducing improvements, but, even in 1800, it must have been an agreeable place of residence; the houses were then huddled together on the southern end of Manhattan Island, and Broadway was a fashionable drive. Baltimore, the third in point of population (twenty-six thousand), was situated south of Mason and Dixon's line; but it was a Pennsylvania seaport fully as much as a Maryland town, as it engrossed most of the commerce of the Susquehanna valley. Boston, with twenty-four thousand inhabitants, was a thickly built little town with narrow streets and a thriving commerce. Charleston contained twenty thousand souls, and bore a distinctively Southern aspect; it controlled the rice trade, and was the place of residence of the wealthy planters of South Carolina. Providence, Savannah, Norfolk, Richmond, Albany, and Portsmouth, each contained between eight and five thousand inhabitants. Washington, the new capital, had been recently occupied; it was hardly a village, except on paper, and contained only the Capitol, the White House, two departmental buildings, and a few boarding houses; the public buildings were still uncompleted; Mrs. Adams found the audience room of the White House convenient for drying clothes, and the representatives met in a temporary building erected in the middle of the unfinished Capitol. 216. Various Statistics. -The area of the United States was about eight hundred thousand square miles (849, 145), of which only three hundred thousand were partially occupied. The total valuation of the United States was estimated to be about eighteen hundred million dollars, or about three hundred and twenty-eight dollars per head (p. 590). Notwithstanding the obstacles placed in the way of the West India trade, and the dislocation of commerce, owing 1800] Occupations of the People 323 to the breach with France, the country was prosperous, and foreign trade had increased in a marvelous manner. The exports, excluding bullion, were valued at over twenty million dollars in 1790, and at over seventy millions in 1800. The imports had increased at a still more rapid rate; in 1790 they were valued at twenty-five millions, in 1800 at over ninety millions (pp. 489, 589). Manufac 217. Occupations of the People. - Agriculture was the Industries. principal occupation of the people, although the commerce of the Northern states was of great importance. turing had been begun, but as yet was in its infancy, and the fisheries remained a source of great proportional wealth. Wheat and other food grains were largely exported from the middle group of states, including those on Chesapeake Bay; New Jersey produced more than any other. In 1791 more than six hundred thousand barrels of flour and one million bushels of wheat were exported, and about double that amount in 1800. The soil and climate of New England were unsuited to agriculture on an extensive scale, but potatoes, onions, turnips, and carrots flourished and formed an important article of export to the West India Islands, whenever they were open to American commerce. Tobacco and rice were the great staples of the Southern states, and with naval stores and indigo were the most valuable exports of that section; the cultivation of cotton for export was just beginning to attract attention. Foreign commerce was thriving in 1800, and vessels fly- Commerce. ing the flag of the United States had already visited every sea; most of these merchant ships were very small, seldom exceeding four hundred tons, and the largest vessel in the navy measured only fifteen hundred tons. Coastwise navigation was still uncertain and dangerous, but more vessels Robert were employed, and departures and arrivals were more frequent and more punctual. The use of steam for motive power had as yet attracted slight attention: in 1803 there ch. ii; were probably only five steam engines in the country. Three years later (1806) Robert Fulton began the con- (M. A,). Fulton. Inventors, Thurston's Fulton struction of his steamboat, amid the jeers of suspicious and incredulous onlookers. The age of steam was near at hand. The manufacture of iron had been begun in early colonial days, but its successful development had been prevented by the repressive policy of the British Parliament. There were a few iron mills in Pennsylvania, and the manufacture of small articles, as nails, was actively prosecuted as a household industry in New England. The vast mineral resources of the United States were practically untouched. Cotton culture and manufacture. Robert Fulton 218. Cotton Culture and Manufacture. One of the things which impresses the student of the colonial and early constitutional periods, is the commercial and political intimacy which then existed between mercantile New England and rice-growing South Carolina. The planters of the latter colony were the customers of the slave dealers of the North, and the commerce of the Southern colony and state was largely in the hands of New England shipowners and merchants. The first thirty years of the eighteenth century |