The Agrarian West Turns to Industry.-Nor was this vast enterprise con-fined to the old Northeast where,as Madison had sagely remarked,commerce was early dominant."Cincinnati,"runs an official report in 1854,"appears to be a great central depot for ready-made clothing and its manufacture for the Western markets may be said to be one of the great trades of that city."There,wrote another traveler,"I heard the crack of the cattle driver's whip and the hum of the factory:the West and the East meeting."Louisville and St.Louis were already famous for their clothing trades and the manufacture of cotton bagging.Five hundred of the two thousand woolen mills in the country in 1860were in the Western states.Of the output of flour and grist mills,which almost reached in value the cotton crop of 1850,the Ohio Valley furnished a rapidly growing share.The old home of Jacksonian democracy,where Federalists had been almost as scarce as monarchists,turned slowly backward,as the needle to the pole,toward the principle of protection for domestic industry,espoused by Hamilton and defended by Clay.
The Extension of Canals and Railways.-As necessary to mechanical in-dustry as steel and steam power was the great market,spread over a wide and diversified area and knit together by efficient means of transportation.This ser-vice was supplied to industry by the steamship,which began its career on the Hudson in 1807;by the canals,of which the Erie opened in 1825was the most noteworthy;and by the railways,which came into practical operation about 1830.
With sure instinct the Eastern manufacturer reached out for the markets of the Northwest territory where free farmers were producing annually staggeringAn Early Train Named the De Witt Clintoncrops of corn,wheat,bacon,and wool.The two great canal systems-the Erie connecting New York City with the waterways of the Great Lakes and the Pennsylvania chain linking Philadelphia with the headwaters of the Ohio-gradually turned the tide of trade from New Orleans to the Eastern seaboard.The railways followed the same paths.By 1860,New York had rail connections with Chicago and St.Louis,one of the routes running through the Hudson and Mohawk valleys and along the Great Lakes,the other through Philadelphia and Pennsylvania and across the rich wheat fields of Ohio,Indiana,and Illinois.Baltimore,not to be outdone by her two rivals,reached out over the mountains for the Western trade and in 1857had trains running into St.Louis.
In railway enterprise the South took more interest than in canals,and the friends of that section came to its aid.To offset the magnet drawing trade away from the Mississippi Valley,lines were built from the Gulf to Chicago,the Illinois Central part of the project being a monument to the zeal and industry of a Democrat,better known in politics than in business,Stephen A.Douglas.The swift movement of cotton and tobacco to the North or to seaports was of common concern to planters and manufacturers.Accordingly lines were flung down along the Southern coast,linking Richmond,Charleston,and Savannah with the Northern markets.Other lines struck inland from the coast,giving a rail outlet to the sea for Raleigh,Columbia,Atlanta,Chattanooga,Nashville,and Montgomery.Nevertheless,in spite of this enterprise,the mileage of all the Southern states in 1860did not equal that of Ohio,Indiana,and Illinois combined.
Banking and Finance.-Out of commerce and manufactures and the con-struction and operation of railways came such an accumulation of capital in the Northern states as merchants of old never imagined.The banks of the four industrial states of Massachusetts,Connecticut,New York,and Pennsylvania in 1860had funds greater than the banks in all the other states combined.New York City had become the money market of America,the center to which indus-trial companies,railway promoters,farmers,and planters turned for capital to initiate and carry on their operations.The banks of Louisiana,South Carolina,Georgia,and Virginia,it is true,had capital far in excess of the banks of the Northwest;but still they were relatively small compared with the financial insti-tutions of the East.
The Growth of the Industrial Population.-A revolution of such magnitude in industry,transport,and finance,overturning as it did the agrarian civiliza-tion of the old Northwest and reaching out to the very borders of the country,could not fail to bring in its train consequences of a striking character.Some were immediate and obvious.Others require a fullness of time not yet reached to reveal their complete significance.Outstanding among them was the growth of an industrial population,detached from the land,concentrated in cities,and,to use Jefferson's phrase,dependent upon "the caprices and casualties of trade"for a livelihood.This was a result,as the great Virginian had foreseen,which flowed inevitably from public and private efforts to stimulate industry as against agriculture.