1860]

Population

461

322. Transportation. The first period of railway build- Railway

building,

ing ended in 1849; there were then between six and seven 1830-60. thousand miles of railways in the country. Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were still open fields. Between 1849 and 1858 there was great activity in railway construction: more than twenty-one thousand miles were built in those years. There was then a slackening, owing to the panic of 1857, but by the outbreak of the Civil War there were thirty thousand miles in operation. The maps of the northeastern states had begun to take on that gridironed appearance which is so familiar to the map reader of the present time. At the same time that the railway system was being extended existing lines were connected and worked in harmony. In 1850 one could not go by rail from New York to either Boston or Albany, as the journey was broken in places by water transport; in 1860 one continuous line of rails stretched from New York to the Mississippi.

The great extension of the railway lines in the newer The land states west of the Alleghanies was due largely to the stimulus grants. which came from congressional grants of lands to the railroads in that section. This process was begun in 1850 by a grant in aid of the Illinois Central. Congress gave to the state of Illinois every alternate section of the public lands on either side of the proposed railroad, and the state, on its part, turned over the land grants to the railroad company in consideration of a cash payment and a percentage of the gross receipts of the road when built. This policy was repeated in the case of other roads, and no less than one hundred and eighty million acres of the public lands were given in aid of the building of railroads, especially in the "Old Northwest," but the privilege was sometimes abused by dishonest and greedy railroad promoters.

During the same period water transport, both domestic Steamboats. and foreign, greatly increased. There was often the most criminal recklessness in the management of steamboats, especially on the interior waterways. In 1852, on the motion of Senator John Davis of Massachusetts, Congress passed an

The mercantile marine.

Cause of prosperity, 1840-60.

excellent act for the regulation of steam traffic on the water. This law, with some changes suggested by later experience, is still in force.

American maritime industry was at its highest point in the decade before the war. In 1861 the tonnage of the United States exceeded that of any other nation: no less than five and one half million tons of shipping was registered under the American flag, in comparison with four and one half millions on the British shipping list. In 1860 three quarters of the exports of the United States were carried in American vessels.

66

323. Material Prosperity. Mr. Rhodes, in his interesting chapter on the condition of the country in 1860, asserts no one can doubt that from 1846 to 1857 the country was very prosperous." This prosperity was the result of a fortunate combination of many causes, among which may be mentioned the rapid settlement of the national domain, the great extension of lines of railroad, and the large increase of foreign commerce, especially with Great Britain. The first two of these have been described in preceding sections; it will be well to consider the last more in detail. The imports and exports of the United States had trebled in value since 1830. The increase in imports was due in part to the great demand for manufactured iron in the construction of railroads, and to the increased use of other foreign manufactures, owing to the low rates of impost under the Walker Tariff. In part, also, it was due to the importation of raw materials for the use of American manufacturers. The growth of exports was owing largely to the repeal of the British corn laws, and the establishment of free trade which took place at the same time. The repeal of the corn laws permitted the importation of cheap food stuffs into England. It greatly diminished the cost of living there, especially among the workers, and made it possible for them to accept lower wages. The abolition of duties on the raw material of manufacture, and the low cost of labor, enabled English manufacturers to gain control of the markets of the

1860]

Prosperity

463

world. British manufacturing industries were greatly stimulated, and the demand for raw materials kept pace with the increase in manufacturing. The cheap food stuffs and the most important raw materials were provided by the United States in 1860 one hundred and seventy-three million bushels of wheat were grown, of which twenty-five thousand were raised west of the Mississippi, and the corn crop of that year amounted to over eight hundred million bushels. The demand for cotton by British and Northern spinners had stimulated the cultivation of that plant; the South produced about seven eighths of all the cotton grown in the world; the crop of 1859 amounted to four million six hundred thousand bales, the largest crop grown before the war. The demand for cotton was constantly outstripping the supply; in 1860 the consumption exceeded even the large crop of that year; Northern manufacturers used one and one half million bales, and four and one half millions more were exported, mainly to Great Britain.

tries.

The epoch under review also witnessed a great increase in Manufacturmanufacturing enterprises in the United States, which is the ing indusmore notable in view of the fact that these were the years when the duties on imported goods were lower than at any time since 1824. Furthermore, the period of greatest expansion was in the decade 1850 to 1860, when the duties were at the lowest. A few figures will serve to show the extent and character of this growth: the capital employed in manufacturing had increased nearly fourfold, the number of hands employed had more than doubled, and the value of the manufactured product had grown from one thousand millions in 1850 to over four thousand millions in 1860. In this great industrial activity the South had little part: Virginia produced fifty and one half million dollars' worth of manufactured commodities; no other Southern state produced as much. New England still led in cotton manufacturing; in 1860 there were five million spindles in operation in the United States, of which over four million were in the New England states. The iron industry had also thriven,

and the mines of coal, iron, copper, and gold were beginning to yield their wonderful stores; but the period of expansion of the iron and coal industries belongs to the thirty years following the outbreak of the Civil War, and will be described in a succeeding chapter (p. 576).

Inventions. It has already been noted how unfruitful the American mind was before 1800. By 1830 its genius had begun to unfold itself, and the thirty years between Jackson's and Lincoln's inaugurations were marked by great and wonderful inventions. The electric telegraph and the reaper have been already mentioned (p. 426). The first locomotives built in the United States were framed on English models, and the coaches were like those still in use in England. Soon, however, new types were developed, better suited to American roads and to the needs of American travelers. The breech-loading rifle, the harvester, and the sewing machine all belong to the decade immediately preceding 1860. The year 1852 saw the electric fire-alarm system in successful operation, and in 1853 the first practicable steam fire engine made its appearance. In 1858 an electric cable was laid under the Atlantic Ocean; it stopped working, however, almost immediately, and the first successful cable was opened to business in 1866. By 1860 the growth of large fortunes had begun : this growth was coeval with the railroad and the telegraph, and at the same time poverty had become more marked. This was largely due to the poorer character of many of the immigrants who came over in these years.

The Panic of 1857. Rhodes's United

States, III, 38-55.

324. Financial Policy, 1857-61. It seems to be unfortunately true that commercial successes are always followed by periods of great depression. The outburst of activity of Jackson's "reign" was followed by the panic of 1837. Similar causes – too much speculation, too rapid railroad building, too great locking up of capital in mills and factories brought on a stringency in the money market, which in turn led to a financial crash in 1857. From this the country had scarcely recovered when the Civil War broke

out.

Many persons, instead of attributing the financial

1860]

Financial Policy

465

Rhodes's
United

States, III,

41-56.

stringency to its true cause, the great expansion of commercial credit, — believed it to be the result of the government's collecting more revenue than it expended. Congress, Tariff of therefore, modified the Walker Tariff by reducing duties to 1857. a lower point than they had reached since the enactment of the tariff of 1816. This was done in 1857, and for three years thereafter the people lived under a lower tariff than they had done since the War of 1812. The period of depression following the panic of 1857 caused the revenues to fall off, and in 1861 Congress again took the tariff in hand. A bill was introduced by Senator Morrill of Vermont, and Morrill passed before the close of Buchanan's term (1861). It changed the ad valorem duties of the Walker Tariff to specific duties, and generally increased the rates, especially on iron, and, in addition, laid a tax on wool imported. In 1860 the income of the general government was fifty-five million dollars, and its expenditures ten million more; the national debt at that time was less than sixty-five million dollars. It will be interesting to remember these figures when we come to consider the financial position of the government during the war, and, later, in the great period of material development which followed its close.

Tariff, 1861.

Rhodes's

United States, III, 57-59.

325. Mental Activity. The increasing fertility in inven- Mental tion came at a time when the people began to change their activity. ideas as to learning and the cultivation of the intellect. Popular lecturers, as Wendell Phillips, Henry Ward Beecher, and John B. Gough, traveled about the country instructing and stimulating thousands of minds through the medium of the "lyceum" system of lectures. Emerson, also, was listened to from the platform, and read with eagerness. Prescott, Bancroft, and Motley were doing their best work, and Francis Parkman had begun his study of "the warfare of the forest," which has since borne such splendid fruit. George Ticknor was bringing the literature of Spain to the notice of his countrymen; Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, Holmes, and Bryant were all writing. Bryant also edited a newspaper, and Horace Greeley had founded the New York