first Bourbon whisky was made in Georgetown in 1789.29 The widespread interest in this business is evidenced by this notice appearing in 1798 in the Lexington Herald: "To Distillers and others who may encline to carry on the business of rectifying spirituous liquor and the manufacturing cordials in an extensive manner, may now be supplied with the necessary articles for carrying on the same by applying at the sign of Andre M'Call's Apothecary's Shop near the Stray Penn, Lexington." 30

Great progress had been made in the manufacturing industry by 1810; and the interests of the people seemed to have been set upon it as of prime importance. The extent and variety of her manufactories bespoke a great future for the state. In this year a factory for manufacturing oil carpets was set up in Lexington. The editor of the Reporter announced that, "It is a proud satisfaction to us, that every day renders our country more independent of foreign aid, and conspicuous for improvements. The establishment of the Oil Floor Cloth Manufactory calls for the patriotic encouragement of our citizens." 31 But the production and the manufactories of hemp soon came to be the outstanding industry. In Lexington alone there were in 1810, nine ropewalks and four cotton bagging-mills. Other manufactories of hemp were twine, fish lines, seine-twine, and cables. Hats, boots, shoes, and sail-cloth were also made in considerable quantities.32 Within eleven years the hemp manufactories had increased forty times.33 Powder making was also an important industry. Salt petre was obtained from numerous caves in the state, used in the manufacture of powder. In 1810, 500 pounds of salt petre was being secured each day from the Big Bone Cave alone. Kentucky powder was finding its way into almost every state in the Union.3 Indeed, the lack of transportation facilities had taught the people to add to value by labor and decrease the size of their products.

34

The unbounded optimism and prosperity that generally characterized the times is seen in a letter from Col. Thomas Hart of Lexington to Governor William Blount in 1795. He stated that he was "living in affluence, and making money. He continued, "We arrived in this country about the first of June last and with us we brought between three and four thousand pounds worth of goods which we distributed amongst the stores we then had Established here. And after fixing ourselves to work in the manufacturing of [illegible, likely nails and rope] I sent my son back and he started in the month of November with between 7 and 8,000 pounds worth of goods, about 2,000 of which he put in the retail stores, and sold of the residue chiefly by wholesale, on which he received a profit of upwards of £1,700, wound up his business and is now on his way with Mr. Price (our son-in-law who I have prevailed on to throw aside his law Books, and enter into the Mercantile business) to Philadelphia and intends bringing [torn] of Merchandise back, and to make hay while the sun shines, as the old proverb is. Our nailing business is a very pretty thing in this country. 25 hands net me a clear profit of 20 dollars per day, and a rope manufactory that I have all ready to set going as soon as the winter breaks, will also be profitable, and I am building a large shop and I shall set four forges agoing at this Blacksmith business in a few days. I am afraid that you will think that I have too many irons in the fire and that some of them must burn, but when I assure you that I am but 29 Collins, History of Kentucky, I, 516.

30 April 17, 1798.

31 Quoted in Kentucky Gazette, May 29, 1810.

32 McMaster, History of the People of the United States, III, 505.

33 Kentucky Gazette, September 18, 1810.

34 Niles' Register, VI, 249.

65 years of age, and do not entertain company more than twice a week, you will not think me wrong especially when I tell you that I feel all that ardour and spirit for business I did forty years ago, and consider myself more capable to conduct it. O if my old friend, Uncle Jacob [Blount] were but living and in this country, what pleasure we should have in raking up money and spending it with our friends, but may not I, my dear friend (when your administration is out) hope for the pleasure of seeing you your worthy lady and family in this country, it really is one of the finest in the world. * * *" 35

The more important manufactories of the state in 1810 were: 15 cotton manufacturing establishments, producing over 4,000,000 yards of cloth of all sorts, valued at more than $2,000,000, with 23,599 looms and 21 carding machines; 13 mills producing hemp bagging for cotton bales and 38 rope-walks, consuming 5,755 tons of hemp; 33 fulling mills; 4 furnaces; 3 forges; 11 naileries making 871⁄2 tons of nails; 267 tanneries; 9 flax seed oil mills; 2,000 distilleries; 6 paper mills; 63 gunpowder mills, producing 115,716 pounds of powder; 201,937 pounds of salt petre produced; and 36 salt works making 342,870 bushels of salt.36 Seven years later Lexington alone boasted of the following establishments: 12 cotton manufactories; 3 woolen mills; 3 paper mills; 3 steam grist mills; gunpowder mills capitalized at £9,000; a lead factory; iron and brass foundries capitalized at £9,000; 4 hat factories; 4 coach factories; 5 tanners and curriers; 12 hemp manufactories for making cotton bagging and hempen yarn with a total investment of £100,400; 6 cabinet makers; 4 soap and candle factories; 3 tobacco factories; and various other manufactories with an investment of £120,000. The total capital invested in all the Lexington factories was estimated at £467,225.37

During this period Kentucky bid fair to become one of the most important manufacturing centers of the nation. She called upon both state and nation to aid and protect her growing industries. In January, 1809, the Kentucky House passed a resolution that after the following June 20th, members of the Legislature should wear home-made products. There were only two dissenting votes, one of which was that of the contentious Humphrey Marshall. In the heat of the debate that followed was developed one of the reasons for the duel between Clay and Marshall, heretofore described.38 The style set by the Legislature seems to have been followed very considerably. In referring to the crowd that celebrated the Fourth of July in Lexington in 1809, the editor of the Reporter remarked that "It gave us pleasure on this occasion to observe a considerable number of our citizens clad in domestic manufactures." 39

The growing difficulties between the United States and Great Britain bore a direct relationship to the industrial situation in Kentucky as, indeed, elsewhere in the nation, due to the measures undertaken by the Federal Government. On December 21, 1807, Congress passed the embargo act, cutting off commercial intercourse with all foreign countries. At first approval was manifested generally, but within a short while the people were made to see and feel its effects more clearly, and a bitter opposition began to grow up against the policy. The farmers and especially the shipping interests of the New England States voiced a strenuous opposition. Not so, however, with the Kentuckians. They clearly saw the protection they were receiving for their manufactories 85 Dated February 15th. The original letter is in the Clay MSS. in the possession of Miss Lucretia Clay of Lexington. Hart was a member of the Transylvania Company.

86 American State Papers, Finance, II, 790-794.

37 Collins, History of Kentucky, II, 176.

88 Reporter, January 19, 26, 1809.

89 July 8, 1808.

1

from foreign importations. From the first they were enthusiastic for the Jeffersonian policy. Aided by their strong patriotism, they expressed through the Legislature the decision "That whether war, a total nonintercourse, or a more rigid execution of the embargo system, be determined on, the General Assembly, however they may regret the privations consequent on the occasion, will cordially approve and cooperate in enforcing the measure; for they are sensible, that in the present crisis of the nation, the alternatives are, a surrender of liberty and independence, or a bold and manly resistance." The Legislature also declared that the embargo "was a measure highly judicious, and the only honorable expedient to avoid war." 40

So bitter became the opposition to the embargo in New England and other parts of the country and so widespread and persistent were the evasions, that Congress repealed the act and substituted for it a nonintercourse law in 1809, which allowed trade with every nation except England and France. This new move was received with dismay in many parts of Kentucky. To the young manufactories just springing up, it meant destruction; the protection they had been receiving, and which had given them such vitality, was largely gone. A movement now sprang into new life to secure protection by a tariff, and thus have the Government definitely build up manufactories by law as a definite policy, rather than as an incident in dealing with foreign affairs. In fact, much earlier Kentuckians had been clamoring for a protective tariff. In 1802, numerous petitions were circulating for this purpose.41 But with the repeal of the embargo, a concerted movement grew up. Artisans and workmen throughout the state were requested to sign petitions to Congress and the Legislature voted to forward the efforts.42 The various manufactories of hemp had grown with great rapidity, and their interests had come to occupy an important position in the economic life of the people. It was definitely for their benefit that petitions began to go up to Congress.

The case for protection as seen by Kentuckians was clearly set forth in a petition to the House of Representatives of the United States on June 7, 1809. In order to understand the argument developed, it is given in full:

"To the Honorable, the Congress of the United States, the petition of the subscribers, manufacturers of hemp into linen, and inhabitants of the State of Kentucky, respectfully showeth:

"The subscribers having, since the passage of the acts commonly called the embargo' and 'non-importation acts,' engaged in the manufacture of hemp into linen, and many of them having expended great part of their respective capitals in preparing machinery and erecting buildings to carry on the same, beg leave, upon the approach of a new state of affairs, to call their situation to the attention of your honorable body. Whilst they rejoice, in common, with their fellow citizens, that the returning sense of justice of one of the great belligerent powers of Europe, as displayed in some recent communication to our Government, affords a hope that our country may escape the calamities of war, they must be permitted to state that this cause of national rejoicing will, in all human probability, be greatly oppressive to them. Their establishments have grown out of our differences with foreign nations. The 'nonimportation act,' which passed, as your petitioners always understand, as much to change the direction of some of the national capital from

40 Marshall, History of Kentucky, 459, 460.

41 Breckinridge MSS. (1802).

42 McMaster, History of the People of the United States, III, 507. See also T. G. Gronert, "Trade in the Blue-Grass Region, 1810-1820" in Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. No. 3, 313-323.

commercial to manufacturing pursuits, as with a view to bring a great foreign Power to a sense of justice, by prohibiting the introduction of coarse linens, etc., into the United States, gave being to their manufactories; and with the further patronage of your honorable body, will, beyond all doubt, rapidly increase in the Western Country. Already there is manufactured, in Kentucky, a quantity of baling linen sufficient for the consumption of the greater part of the cotton country; other manufactories are erecting, and several citizens are extending, their views to finer linens and sail cloth. Such, however, is the superiority of European capital and arts; such the cheapness of labor in Great Britain and Ireland; such the aid given there to manufactures by bounties from the Government; such the obstacles which an American manufacturer has to combat and overcome; and such the lessons furnished by experience; that your petitioners forebode the annihilation of their respective establishments, unless some aid is afforded them, at this moment, by the interposition of Congress.

"That this protection of your honorable body will be given to them at the present moment, they are the more persuaded, when they review the proceedings of every Congress which has sat, since the formation of the Federal Constitution. Every law which has been enacted; every declaration which has come to the People, from that quarter; has shown it to be the wish of Congress to make the United States independent of the world, as to articles of the first necessity, as she is in her political rights as a nation. And for this purpose Congress have laid duties upon all raw or manufactured articles, to an extent sufficient to prohibit their importation, whenever it was ascertained that the country could produce a sufficiency for home consumption. And, in some instances, protecting duties have been laid with such efficacy, as not only to produce internal manufactures, sufficient for the supply of the demand at home, but to become, also, articles of considerable amount in the scale of our exports.

"Not merely, however, have Congress in laying prohibitory or protecting duties evinced a disposition to encourage this encourage this species of domestic industry, but that body has also granted bounties to encourage the industry of an isolated part of the Union-a species of industry, too, in which but a small portion of the citizens could participate the fisheries. Far be it from the subscribers to repine at a policy of this kind, because it could not have an operation upon them, or affect the great mass of the People. They have no such views: for they well know that the United States compose an extensive nation; that her citizens are scattered over an immense extent of country, having various soils and climates, with pursuits as adapted or varied to their different local situations. And a government, forming laws for this scattered population, must necessarily consult the wants and necessities of every part of it, to promote the general good of the whole. A reference to the report of Mr. Secretary Jefferson will evince, that enlarged and liberal views of this kind induced Congress to grant bounties to the fisheries. But views of another nature seem also to have influenced that body. The encouragements given to their own fishermen by foreign nations, and the restrictions laid upon our oils and fish, in foreign ports, had threatened the fisheries with destruction; and the question came before Congress whether that business should be abandoned entirely or supported by the nation at large. The same question the subscribers consider as occurring in the present instance. Independent of the superiority which the British manufacturer possesses, in the low price of labor, the experience and skill of his workmen, and the strength of his capital, he enjoys advantages that are not known to an American manufacturer, in the bounties given by the Government to those who grow the raw material, and to those who export the manufactured

article. Whether an American manufacturer can resist a combination of advantages so unfavorable to his interests, without aid from Government, appears to the petitioners as problematical indeed.

"Your petitioners deem it material to represent that the non-importation act, by creating a demand for the articles which that act prohibited, has changed the direction of much capital and caused the erection of buildings, which must now become waste, without the interposition of Congress. That if it be important to encourage manufactures, and if they promote national wealth by encouraging internal industry; if they keep money at home by preventing it from going abroad for foreign productions; if they give life to the industry of the farmer, the planter, and the mechanic; there can be no question upon the subject. This is the time to encourage them effectually. If those which are erected be suffered to go to waste; if those recently established die with the law which gave them being; an age will pass away before other citizens will embark in the same business. Il success, upon the part of one manufacturer, will prevent others from engaging in the same pursuit; success that crowns every measure with popularity produces herds of imitators and followers.

"Nor can it be an unimportant consideration with Congress, that the encouragement of domestic manufactures will have a tendency to transplant the acts and capital of Europe to this country, by holding out inducements to artists and manufacturers to remove here.

"The subscribers cannot quit the subject without some remarks upon the peculiar situation of the country in which they live. Kentucky is rich in soil, but at a distance from the seas. She is capable of producing hemp for the whole supply of the United States-an article perhaps as much wanted as any other, both by the Government and by private citizens engaged in every pursuit in life; which, to an enormous amount, is annually imported from the northern parts of Europe, and which cannot be easily produced in case of war. If the manufacturers of Kentucky were sufficiently encouraged they would induce the farmers to cultivate it, so as to furnish a never-failing resource, whether in peace or war. The proximity of Kentucky to Ohio and Indiana subjects her to continual drains of treasure for United States lands. Large sums are annually taken off for foreign productions, and merchants in the Atlantic States, who are the real collectors of the revenue, pay for Kentucky her quoto to the treasury. Protected as she is by the Union, with this arrangement she is satisfied. But when the fishermen of the East are not only encouraged by protecting duties, but also by bounties; when, comparatively speaking, no public moneys are expended here, but all at Washington, and on the seaboard, in salaries, buildings, fortifications, upon the army and on the navy for the protection of commerce, in which, from her local and insular situation, she cannot participate; she would be better pleased if she was indemnified for these disadvantages by some encouragement of her industry; and that, perhaps, can best be done, with public benefit, by protecting duties to the manufacture of what promises to be her staple article."

This petition was signed by "John Allen and others." 43

The movement for protection was persistent; it could not be killed by the delays of Congress. On January 22, 1811, 113 citizens of Lexington and of Fayette County signed a memorial to the United States Senate, begging that the manufacturing interests be given protection. They charged that "In all the acts and deliberations of your honorable body, it appears to your memorialists that a predilection for the interest of commerce has always been discoverable, whilst little has been

48 American State Papers, XIII, Finance, II, 367, 368; see Kentucky Gazette, December 25, 1810. Annals of Congress, 1809, 1810, 2170-2173.