If a power existed that cherished the project of keeping downthe rise of the American people and bringing them under subjectionto itself industrially, commercially, or politically, it could onlysucceed in its aim by trying to depopulate the Atlantic states ofthe Union and driving all increase of population, capital, andintellectual power into the interior.By that means it would notonly check the further growth of the nation's naval power, butmight also indulge the hope of getting possession in time of theprincipal defensive strategical positions on the Atlantic coast andat the mouths of the rivers.The means to this end would not bedifficult to imagine; it would only be necessary to hinder thedevelopment of manufacturing power in the Atlantic states and toinsure the acceptance of the principle of absolute freedom offoreign trade in America.If the Atlantic states do not becomemanufacturers, they will not only be unable to keep up theirpresent degree of civilisation, but they must sink, and sink inevery respect.Without manufactures how are the towns along theAtlantic coast to prosper? Not by the forwarding of inland produceto Europe and of English manufactured goods to the interior, for avery few thousand people would be sufficient to transact thisbusiness.How are the fisheries to prosper? The majority of thepopulation who have moved inland prefer fresh meat and fresh-waterfish to salted; they require no train oil, or at least but a smallquantity.How is the coasting trade along the Atlantic sea-board tothrive? As the largest portion of the coast states are peopled bycultivators of land who produce for themselves all the provisions,building materials, fuel, &c.which they require, there is nothingalong the coast to sustain a transport trade.How are foreign tradeand shipping to distant places to increase? The country has nothingto offer but what less cultivated nations possess insuperabundance, and those manufacturing nations to which it sendsits produce encourage their own shipping.How can a naval powerarise when fisheries, the coasting trade, ocean navigation, andforeign trade decay? How are the Atlantic states to protect themselves against foreign attacks without a naval power? How isagriculture even to thrive in these states, when by means ofcanals, railways, &c.the produce of the much more fertile andcheaper tracts of land in the west which require no manure, can becarried to the east much more cheaply than it could be thereproduced upon soil exhausted long ago? How under such circumstancescan civilisation thrive and population increase in the easternstates, when it is clear that under free trade with England allincrease of population and of agricultural capital must flow to thewest? The present state of Virginia gives but a faint idea of thecondition into which the Atlantic states would be thrown by theabsence of manufactures in the east; for Virginia, like all thesouthern states on the Atlantic coast, at present takes aprofitable share in providing the Atlantic states with agriculturalproduce.
All these things bear quite a different complexion, owing tothe existence of a flourishing manufacturing power in the Atlanticstates.Now population, capital, technical skill and intellectualpower, flow into them from all European countries; now the demandfor the manufactured products of the Atlantic states increasessimultaneously with their consumption of the raw materials suppliedby the west.Now the population of these states, their wealth, andthe number and extent of their towns increase in equal proportionwith the cultivation of the western virgin lands; now, on accountof the larger population, and the consequently increased demand formeat, butter, cheese, milk, garden produce, oleaginous seeds,fruit, &c., their own agriculture is increasing; now the seafisheries are flourishing in consequence of the larger demand forsalted fish and train oil; now quantities of provisions, buildingmaterials, coal, &c.are being conveyed along the coast to furnishthe wants of the manufacturing population; now the manufacturingpopulation produce a large quantity of commodities for export toall the nations of the earth, from whence result profitable returnfreights; now the nation's naval power increases by means of thecoasting trade, the fisheries, and navigation to distant lands, andwith it the guarantee of national independence and influence overother nations, particularly over those of South America; nowscience and art, civilisation and literature, are improving in theeastern states, whence they are being diffused amongst the westernstates.
These were the circumstances which induced the United States tolay restrictions upon the importation of foreign manufacturedgoods, and to protect their native manufactures.With what amountof success this has been done, we have shown in the precedingpages.That without such a policy a manufacturing power could neverhave been maintained successfully in the Atlantic states, we maylearn from their own experience and from the industrial history ofother nations.
The frequently recurring commercial crises in America have beenvery often attributed to these restrictions on importation offoreign goods, but without reasonable grounds.The earlier as wellas the later experience of North America shows, on the contrary,that such crises have never been more frequent and destructive thanwhen commercial intercourse with England was least subject torestrictions.Commercial crises amongst agricultural nations, whoprocure their supplies of manufactured goods from foreign markets,arise from the disproportion between imports and exports.
Manufacturing nations richer in capital than agricultural states,and ever anxious to increase the quantity of their exports, delivertheir goods on credit and encourage consumption.In fact, they makeadvances upon the coming harvest.But if the harvest turn out sopoor that its value falls greatly below that of the goodspreviously consumed; or if the harvest prove so rich that thesupply of produce meets with no adequate demand and falls in price;while at the same time the markets still continue to be overstockedwith foreign goods -- then a commercial crisis will occur by reasonof the disproportion existing between the means of payment and thequantity of goods previously consumed, as also by reason of thedisproportion between supply and demand in the markets for produceand manufactured goods.The operations of foreign and native banksmay increase and promote such a crisis, but they cannot create it.
In a future chapter we shall endeavour more closely to elucidatcthis subject.
NOTES:
1.Statistical Table of Massachusetts for the Year ending April 1,1837, by J.P.Bigelow, Secretary of the Commonwealth (Boston,1838).No American state but Massachusetts possesses similarstatistical abstracts.We owe those here referred to, to GovernorEverett, distinguished alike as a scholar, an author, and astatesman.
2.The American papers of July 1839 report that in themanufacturing town of Lowell alone there are over a hundredworkwomen who have each over a thousand dollars deposited to theircredit in the savings bank.