The West and Manufactures.-In addition to the commercial bonds be-tween the East and the West there was growing up a common interest in manu-factures.As skilled white labor increased in the Ohio Valley,the industries springing up in the new cities made Western life more like that of the industrial East than like that of the planting South.Moreover,the Western states pro-duced some important raw materials for American factories,which called for protection against foreign competition,notably,wool,hemp,and flax.As the South had little or no foreign competition in cotton and tobacco,the East could not offer protection for her raw materials in exchange for protection for indus-tries.With the West,however,it became possible to establish reciprocity in tar-iffs;that is,for example,to trade a high rate on wool for a high rate on textiles or iron.
The South Dependent on the North.-While East and West were draw-ing together,the distinctions between North and South were becoming more marked;the latter,having few industries and producing little save raw materi-als,was being forced into the position of a dependent section.As a result of theprotective tariff,Southern planters were compelled to turn more and more to Northern mills for their cloth,shoes,hats,hoes,plows,and machinery.Nearly all the goods which they bought in Europe in exchange for their produce came overseas to Northern ports,whence transshipments were made by rail and water to Southern points of distribution.Their rice,cotton,and tobacco,in as far as they were not carried to Europe in British bottoms,were transported by Northern masters.In these ways,a large part of the financial operations con-nected with the sale of Southern produce and the purchase of goods in exchange passed into the hands of Northern merchants and bankers who,naturally,made profits from their transactions.Finally,Southern planters who wanted to buy more land and more slaves on credit borrowed heavily in the North where huge accumulations made the rates of interest lower than the smaller banks of the South could afford.
The South Reckons the Cost of Economic Dependence.-As Southern dependence upon Northern capital became more and more marked,Southern leaders began to chafe at what they regarded as restraints laid upon their enter-prise.In a word,they came to look upon the planter as a tribute-bearer to the manufacturer and financier."The South,"expostulated De Bow,"stands in the attitude of feeding ...a vast population of [Northern]merchants,shipowners,capitalists,and others who,without claims on her progeny,drink up the life blood of her trade....Where goes the value of our labor but to those who,taking advantage of our folly,ship for us,buy for us,sell to us,and,after turning our own capital to their profitable account,return laden with our money to enjoy their easily earned opulence at home."
Southern statisticians,not satisfied with generalities,attempted to figure out how great was this tribute in dollars and cents.They estimated that the planters annually lent to Northern merchants the full value of their exports,a hundred millions or more,"to be used in the manipulation of foreign imports."They calculated that no less than forty millions all told had been paid to shipowners in profits.They reckoned that,if the South were to work up her own cotton,she would realize from seventy to one hundred millions a year that otherwise went North.Finally,to cap the climax,they regretted that planters spent some fifteen millions a year pleasure-seeking in the alluring cities and summer resorts of the North.
Southern Opposition to Northern Policies.-Proceeding from these prem-ises,Southern leaders drew the logical conclusion that the entire program of economic measures demanded in the North was without exception adverse to Southern interests and,by a similar chain of reasoning,injurious to the corn and wheat producers of the West.Cheap labor afforded by free immigration,a protective tariff raising prices of manufactures for the tiller of the soil,shipsubsidies increasing the tonnage of carrying trade in Northern hands,internal improvements forging new economic bonds between the East and the West,a national banking system giving strict national control over the currency as a safeguard against paper inflation-all these devices were regarded in the South as contrary to the planting interest.They were constantly compared with the restrictive measures by which Great Britain more than half a century before had sought to bind American interests.
As oppression justified a war for independence once,statesmen argued,so it can justify it again."It is curious as it is melancholy and distressing,"came a broad hint from South Carolina,"to see how striking is the analogy between the colonial vassalage to which the manufacturing states have reduced the planting states and that which formerly bound the Anglo-American colonies to the British empire....England said to her American colonies:'You shall not trade with the rest of the world for such manufactures as are produced in the mother country.'The manufacturing states say to their Southern colonies:'You shall not trade with the rest of the world for such manufactures as we produce.'"The conclusion was inexorable:either the South must control the national government and its economic measures,or it must declare,as America had done four score years before,its political and economic independence.As Northern mills multiplied,as railways spun their mighty web over the face of the North,and as accumulated capital rose into the hundreds of millions,the conviction of the planters and their statesmen deepened into desperation.