SOCIETY IN AMERICA

BY

HARRIET MARTINEAU,

AUTHOR OF "ILLUSTRATIONS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY."

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

NEW YORK
SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, ANN STREET,
AND CONDUIT STREET, LONDON.
1837.

CONTENTS.

VOL. II.

SOCIETY IN AMERICA

PART II. CONTINUED.

CHAPTER II. TRANSPORT AND MARKETS.

Nature has done so much for the United States in this article of their economy, and has indicated so clearly what remained for human hands to do, that it is very comprehensible to the traveller why this new country so far transcends others of the same age in markets and means of transport. The ports of the United States are, singularly enough, scattered round the whole of their boundaries. Besides those on the seaboard, there are many in the interior; on the northern lakes, and on thousands of miles of deep rivers. No nook in the country is at a despairing distance from a market; and where the usual incentives to enterprise exist, the means of transport are sure to be provided, in the proportion in which they are wanted.

Even in the south, where, the element of wages being lost, and the will of the labourer being lost with them, there are no adequate means of executing even the best-conceived enterprises,[1] more has been done than could have been expected under the circumstances. The mail roads are still extremely bad. I found, in travelling through the Carolinas and Georgia, that the drivers consider themselves entitled to get on by any means they can devise: that nobody helps and nobody hinders them. It was constantly happening that the stage came to a stop on the brink of a wide and a deep puddle, extending all across the road. The driver helped himself, without scruple, to as many rails of the nearest fence as might serve to fill up the bottom of the hole, or break our descent into it. On inquiry, I found it was not probable that either road or fence would be mended till both had gone to absolute destruction.

The traffic on these roads is so small, that the stranger feels himself almost lost in the wilderness. In the course of several days' journey, we saw, (with the exception of the wagons of a few encampments,) only one vehicle besides our own. It was a stage returning from Charleston. Our meeting in the forest was like the meeting of ships at sea. We asked the passengers from the south for news from Charleston and Europe; and they questioned us about the state of politics at Washington. The eager vociferation of drivers and passengers was such as is very unusual, out of exile. We were desired to give up all thoughts of going by the eastern road to Charleston. The road might be called impassable; and there was nothing to eat by the way. So we described a circuit, by Camden and Columbia.

An account of an actual day's journey will give the best idea of what travelling is in such places. We had travelled from Richmond, Virginia, the day before, (March 2nd, 1835,) and had not had any rest, when, at midnight, we came to a river which had no bridge. The "scow" had gone over with another stage, and we stood under the stars for a long time; hardly less than an hour. The scow was only just large enough to hold the coach and ourselves; so that it was thought safest for the passengers to alight, and go on board on foot. In this process, I found myself over the ankles in mud. A few minutes after we had driven on again, on the opposite side of the river, we had to get out to change coaches; after which we proceeded, without accident, though very slowly, till daylight. Then the stage sank down into a deep rut, and the horses struggled in vain. We were informed that we were "mired," and must all get out. I stood for some time to witness what is very pretty for once; but wearisome when it occurs ten times a day. The driver carries an axe, as a part of the stage apparatus. He cuts down a young tree, for a lever, which is introduced under the nave of the sunken wheel; a log serving for a block. The gentleman passengers all help; shouting to the horses, which tug and scramble as vigorously as the gentlemen. We ladies sometimes gave our humble assistance by blowing the driver's horn. Sometimes a cluster of negroes would assemble from a neighbouring plantation; and in extreme cases, they would bring a horse, to add to our team. The rescue from the rut was effected in any time from a quarter of an hour to two hours. This particular 3rd of March, two hours were lost by this first mishap. It was very cold, and I walked on alone, sure of not missing my road in a region where there was no other. When I had proceeded two miles, I stopped and looked around me. I was on a rising ground, with no object whatever visible but the wild, black forest, extending on all sides as far as I could see, and the red road cut through it, as straight as an arrow, till it was lost behind a rising ground at either extremity. I know nothing like it, except a Salvator Rosa I once saw. The stage soon after took me up, and we proceeded fourteen miles to breakfast. We were faint with hunger; but there was no refreshment for us. The family breakfast had been long over, and there was not a scrap of food in the house. We proceeded, till at one o'clock we reached a private dwelling, where the good woman was kind enough to provide dinner for us, though the family had dined. She gave us a comfortable meal, and charged only a quarter dollar each. She stands in all the party's books as a hospitable dame.

We had no sooner left her house than we had to get out to pass on foot a bridge too crazy for us to venture over it in the carriage. Half a mile before reaching the place where we were to have tea, the thorough-brace broke, and we had to walk through a snow shower to the inn. We had not proceeded above a quarter of a mile from this place when the traces broke. After this, we were allowed to sit still in the carriage till near seven in the morning, when we were approaching Raleigh, North Carolina. We then saw a carriage "mired" and deserted by driver and horses, but tenanted by some travellers who had been waiting there since eight the evening before. While we were pitying their fate, our vehicle once more sank into a rut. It was, however, extricated in a short time, and we reached Raleigh in safety.

It was worth undergoing a few travelling disasters to witness the skill and temper of the drivers, and the inexhaustible good-nature of the passengers. Men of business in any other part of the world would be visibly annoyed by such delays as I have described; but in America I never saw any gentleman's temper give way under these accidents. Every one jumps out in a moment, and sets to work to help the driver; every one has his joke, and, when it is over, the ladies are sure to have the whole represented to them in its most amusing light. One driver on this journey seemed to be a novice, or in some way inferior in confidence to the rest. A gentleman of our party chose to sit beside him on the box; and he declared that the driver shut his eyes when we were coming to a hole; and that when he called piteously on the passengers for help, it was because we were taking aim at a deep rut. Usually, the confidence and skill of the drivers were equally remarkable. If they thought the stage more full than was convenient, they would sometimes try to alarm the passengers, so as to induce some of them to remain for the next stage; and it happened two or three times that a fat passenger or two fell into the trap, and declined proceeding; but it was easy for the experienced to see that the alarm was feigned. In such cases, after a splash into water, in the dark, news would be heard from the box that we were in the middle of a creek, and could not go a step, back or forward, without being overturned into the water. Though the assertion was disproved the next minute, it produced its effect. Again, when the moon was going down early, and the lamps were found to be, of course, out of order, and the gentlemen insisted on buying candles by the road-side, and walking on in bad places, each with a tallow light in his hand, the driver would let drop that, as we had to be overturned before dawn, it did not much matter whether it was now or later. After this, the stoutest of the company were naturally left behind at the next stopping-place, and the driver chuckled at the lightening of his load.

At the close of a troublesome journey in the south, we drew up, with some noise, before a hotel, at three in the morning. The driver blew a blast upon an execrable horn. Nobody seemed stirring. Slaves are the most slow-moving people in the world, except upon occasion.

"What sleepy folks they are here!" exclaimed the driver.

Another blast on the horn, long and screeching.

"Never saw such people for sleeping. Music has no effect on 'em at all. I shall have to try fire-arms."

Another blast.

"We've waked the watchman, however. That's something done."

Another blast.

"Never knew such people. Why, Lazarus was far easier to raise."

The best testimony that I can bear to the skill with which travelling is conducted on such roads as these, and also in steam-boats, is the fact that I travelled upwards of ten thousand miles in the United States, by land and water, without accident. I was twice nearly overturned; but never quite.

It has been seen what the mail routes are like in the south; and I have mentioned that greater progress has been made in other means of transport than might have been expected. I referred to the new rail-roads which are being opened in various directions. I saw few circumstances in the south with which I was so well pleased. By the free communication which will thus be opened, much sectional prejudice will be dispelled: the inferiority of slave to free labour will be the more speedily brought home to every man's convictions; and new settlers, abhorring slavery, will come in and mix with the present population; be the laws regarding labour what they may.

The only rail-roads completed in the south, when I was there, were the Charleston and Augusta one, two short ones in the States of Alabama and Mississippi, and one of five miles from Lake Pontchartrain to New Orleans. There is likely to be soon a magnificent line from Charleston to Cincinnati; and the line from Norfolk, Virginia, to New York, is now almost uninterrupted.

The quarter of an hour employed in reaching New Orleans from Lake Pontchartrain was one of the most delightful seasons in all my travels. My notion of a swamp was corrected for ever. It was the end of April; and the flowering reeds and tropical shrubs made the whole scene one gay garden. It was odd to be passing through a gay garden on a rail-road. Green cypress grew out of the clear water everywhere; and there were acres of blue and white iris; and a thousand rich, unknown blossoms waving over the pools. A negro here and there emerged from a flowery thicket, pushing himself on a raft, or in a canoe, through the reeds. The sluggish bayou was on one side; and here and there, a group of old French houses on the other. It was like skimming, as one does in dreams, over the meadows of Sicily, or the plains of Ceylon.

That which may be seen on either hand of the Charleston and Augusta rail-road is scarcely less beautiful; but my journeys on it were by far the most fatiguing of any I underwent in the country. The motion and the noise are distracting. Whether this is owing to its being built on piles, in many places; whether the fault is in the ground or the construction, I do not know. Almost all the rail-road travelling in America is very fatiguing and noisy. I was told that this was chiefly owing to the roads being put to use as soon as finished, instead of the work being left to settle for some months. How far this is true, I do not pretend to say. The rail-roads which I saw in progress were laid on wood instead of stone. The patentee discovered that wood settles after frost more evenly than stone. The original cost, in the State of New York, is about two thousand dollars per mile.

One great inconvenience of the American rail-roads is that, from wood being used for fuel, there is an incessant shower of large sparks, destructive to dress and comfort, unless all the windows are shut; which is impossible in warm weather. Some serious accidents from fire have happened in this way; and, during my last trip on the Columbia and Philadelphia rail-road, a lady in the car had a shawl burned to destruction on her shoulders; and I found that my own gown had thirteen holes in it; and my veil, with which I saved my eyes, more than could be counted.

My first trip on the Charleston rail-road was more amusing than prosperous. The arrangements were scarcely completed, and the apparatus was then in a raw state. Our party left Columbia at seven in the evening of the 9th of March, by stage, hoping to meet the rail-road train at Branchville, sixty miles from Columbia, at eleven the next morning, and to reach Charleston, sixty-two more, to dinner. Towards morning, when the moon had set, the stage bumped against something; and the driver declared that he must wait for the day-spring, before he could proceed another step. When the dawn brightened, we found that we had, as we supposed, missed our passage by the train, for the sake of a stump about two inches above the ground. We hastened breakfast at Orangeburg; and when we got to Branchville, found we need have been in no hurry. The train had not arrived; and, some little accident having happened, we waited for it till near two o'clock.

I never saw an economical work of art harmonise so well with the vastness of a natural scene, as here. From the piazza of the house at Branchville, the forest fills the whole scene, with the rail-road stretching through it, in a perfectly straight line, to the vanishing point. The approaching train cannot be seen so far off as this. When it appears, a black dot, marked by its wreath of smoke, it is impossible to avoid watching it, growing and self-moving, till it stops before the door. I cannot draw; but I could not help trying to make a sketch of this, the largest and longest perspective I ever saw. We were well employed for two hours in basking in the sun, noting the mock-orange-trees before the house, the turkeys strutting, the robins (twice as large as the English) hopping and flitting; and the house, apparently just piled up of wood just cut from the forest. Everything was as new as the rail-road. As it turned out, we should have been better employed in dining; but we had no other idea than of reaching Charleston in three or four hours.

For the first thirty-five miles, which we accomplished by half-past four, we called it the most interesting rail-road we had ever been on. The whole sixty-two miles was almost a dead level, the descent being only two feet. Where pools, creeks, and gullies had to be passed, the road was elevated on piles, and thence the look down on an expanse of evergreens was beautiful. This is, probably, the reason why three gentlemen went, a few days afterwards, to walk, of all places, on the rail-road. When they were in the middle of one of these elevated portions, where there is a width of only about three inches on either side the tracks, they heard a shout, and looking back, saw a train coming upon them with such speed as to leave no hope that it could be stopped before it reached them. There was no alternative; all three leaped down, upwards of twenty feet, into the swamp, and escaped with a wetting, and with looking exceedingly foolish in their own eyes.

At half-past four, our boiler sprang a leak, and there was an end of our prosperity. In two hours, we hungry passengers were consoled with the news that it was mended. But the same thing happened, again and again; and always in the middle of a swamp, where we could do nothing but sit still. The gentlemen tried to amuse themselves with frog-hunting: but it was a poor resource. Once we stopped before a comfortable-looking house, where a hot supper was actually on the table; but we were not allowed to stop, even so long as to get out. The gentlemen made a rush into the house to see what they could get. One carried off a chicken entire, for his party; another seized part of a turkey. Our gentlemen were not alert enough. The old lady's table was cleared too quickly for them, and quite to her own consternation. All that we, a party of five, had to support us, was some strips of ham, pieces of dry bread, and three sweet potatoes, all jumbled together in a handkerchief. Our thoughts wandered back to this supper-table, an hour after, when we were again sticking in the middle of a swamp. I had fallen asleep, (for it was now the middle of a second night of travelling,) and was awakened by such a din as I had never heard. I could not recollect where I was; I looked out of the window, and saw, by the light of the moon, white houses on the bank of the swamp, and the waving shrubs of the forest; but the distracting din was like nothing earthly. It presently struck me that we were being treated with a frog-concert. It is worth hearing, for once, anything so unparalleled as the knocking, ticking, creaking, and rattling, in every variety of key. The swamp was as thick of noises as the forest is of leaves: but, five minutes of the concert are enough; while a hundred years are not enough of the forest. After many times stopping and proceeding, we arrived at Charleston between four and five in the morning; and, it being too early to disturb our friends, crept cold and weary to bed, at the Planters' Hotel. It was well that all this happened in the month of March. Three months later, such detention in the swamps by night might have been the death of three-fourths of the passengers. I have not heard of any mismanagement since the concern has been put fairly in operation.

There are many rail-roads in Virginia, and a line to New York, through Maryland and Delaware. There is in Kentucky a line from Louisville to Lexington. But it is in Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, that they abound. All have succeeded so admirably, that there is no doubt of the establishment of this means of communication over nearly the whole of the United States, within a few years, as by-ways to the great high-ways which Nature has made to run through this vast country. The evil of a superabundance of land in proportion to labour will thus be lessened so far, that there will be an economy of time, and a facility of intercourse, which will improve the intelligence of the country population. There will, also, be a facility of finding out where new supplies of labour are most wanted, and of supplying them. By advantageous employment for small capitals being thus offered within bounds, it may also be hoped that many will be prevented from straying into the wilderness. The best friends of the moral as well as economical interests of the Americans, will afford all possible encouragement to wise schemes for the promotion of intercourse, especially between the north and south.

I believe the best-constructed rail-road in the States is the Boston and Lowell, Massachusetts: length, twenty-five miles. Its importance, from the amount of traffic upon it, may be estimated from the fact that some thousands of dollars were spent, the winter after it was opened, in clearing away a fall of snow from it. It was again covered, the next night.

Another line from Boston is to Providence, Rhode Island, forty-three miles long. This opens a very speedy communication with New York; the distance, two hundred and twenty-seven miles, being performed in twenty hours, by rail-road and steam-boat.

There is a good line from Boston to Worcester; forty-five miles in length. Its estimated cost is 883,904 dollars. This road is to be carried on across the entire State, to the Connecticut; from whence a line is now in course of construction to the Hudson, to issue opposite Albany. There are proposals for a tunnel under the Hudson at Albany; and from Albany, there is already canal and rail-road communication to Lake Erie. There is now an uninterrupted communication from the Atlantic to the far end of Lake Michigan. It only remains to extend a line thence to the Mississippi, and the circle is complete.

The great Erie canal, intersecting the whole State of New York, is too celebrated to need much notice here. Its entire length is three hundred and sixty-three miles. It is forty feet wide at top, twenty-eight at bottom, and four feet deep. There are eighty-four locks on the main canal. The total rise and fall is six hundred and ninety-two feet. The cost was 9,500,000 dollars. Though this canal has been opened only since 1825, it is found already insufficient for the immense commerce carried on between the European world and the great West, through the eastern ports. There is a rail-road now running across the entire State, which is expected to exhibit much more traffic than the canal, without at all interfering with its business.

I traversed the valley of the Mohawk twice; the first time by the canal, the next by stage, which I much preferred, both on account of the views being better from the high-road, and from the discomfort of the canal-boats. I had also the opportunity of observing the courses of the canal and the new rail-road throughout.

I was amused, the first time, at hearing some gentlemen plan how the bed of the shoaly Mohawk might be deepened, so as to admit the passage of steam-boats. It would be nearly as easy to dig a river at once for the purpose, and pump it full; in other words, to make another canal, twice as wonderful as the present. The rail-road is a better scheme by far. In winter the traffic is continued by sleighs on the canal ice: and a pretty sight it must be.

The aspect of the valley was really beautiful last June. It must have made the Mohawk Indians heart-sore to part with it in its former quiet state; but now there is more beauty, as well as more life. There are farms, in every stage of advancement, with all the stir of life about them; and the still, green graveyard belonging to each, showing its white palings and tombstones on the hill-side, near at hand. Sometimes a small space in the orchard is railed in for this purpose. In a shallow reach of the river there was a line of cows wading through, to bury themselves in the luxuriant pasture of the islands in the midst of the Mohawk. In a deeper part, the chain ferry-boat slowly conveyed its passengers across. The soil of the valley is remarkably rich, and the trees and verdure unusually fine. The hanging oak-woods on the ridge were beautiful; and the knolls, tilled or untilled; and the little waterfalls trickling or leaping down, to join the rushing river. Little knots of houses were clustered about the locks and bridges of the canal; and here and there a village, with its white church conspicuous, spread away into the middle of the narrow valley. The green and white canal boats might be seen stealing along under the opposite ridge, or issuing from behind a clump of elms or birches, or gliding along a graceful aqueduct, with the diminished figures of the walking passengers seen moving along the bank. On the other hand, the rail-road skirted the base of the ridge, and the shanties of the Irish labourers, roofed with turf, and the smoke issuing from a barrel at one corner, were so grouped as to look picturesque, however little comfortable. In some of the narrowest passes of the valley, the high road, the rail-road, the canal, and the river, are all brought close together, and look as if they were trying which could escape first into a larger space. The scene at Little Falls is magnificent, viewed from the road, in the light of a summers' morning. The carrying the canal and rail-road through this pass was a grand idea; and the solidity and beauty of the works are worthy of it.

The canal was commenced in 1817; and the first boat from the inland lakes arrived at New York on the 4th of November 1825. The first year's revenue amounted to 566,221 dollars. In 1836, the tolls amounted to 1,294,649 dollars.

The incorporated rail-road companies in the State of New York in 1836 were fifty; their capitals varying from fifteen thousand to ten million dollars.

When I first crossed the Alleghanies, in November 1834, I caught a glimpse of the stupendous Portage rail-road, running between the two canals which reach the opposite bases of the mountains. The stage in which I travelled was on one side of a deep ravine, bristling with pines; while on the other side was the lofty embankment, such a wall as I had never imagined could be built, on the summit of which ran the rail-road, its line traceable for some miles, with frequent stations and trains of baggage-cars. One track of this road had not long been opened; and the work was a splendid novelty. I had afterwards the pleasure of travelling on it, from end to end.

This road is upwards of thirty-six miles in length, and at one point reaches an elevation of 2,491 feet above the sea. It consists of eleven levels, and ten inclined planes. About three hundred feet of the road, at the head and foot of each plane, is made exactly level. The embankments were made twenty-five feet wide at the top, and the bed of the road in excavations is twenty-five feet, with wide side ditches. Much care in drainage was necessary, as the road passes chiefly along the steep slopes of hills, of clayey soil, and over innumerable small streams. Sixty-eight culverts of masonry pass under the road, and eighty-five drains. There are four viaducts of hammer-dressed sandstone, to carry the line over streams. The most splendid of these is over the Conemaugh, eight miles from Johnstown. It has a semi-circular arch of eighty feet span; the top of whose masonry is seventy feet above the water. There is a tunnel through a spur of the Alleghany, nine hundred and one feet long, by twenty feet wide, and nineteen high. The foundations of this road are partly stone and partly wood. Each station has two steam-engines; one being used at a time, and the other provided to prevent delay, in case of accident. Four cars, each loaded with 7000 lbs. can be drawn up, and four such let down at a time; and from six to ten such trips can be accomplished in an hour. A safety-car is attached to the train, both in ascending and descending; and though not an absolute safeguard, it much increases the security. This little machine, when pressed upon from behind, grounds its point, and materially checks the velocity of the otherwise flying train. The iron rails, and some other of the metal portions of the work, were imported from Great Britain.

The cost of constructing this rail-road at the contract prices was 1,634,357 dollars; but this does not include office expenses, or engineering, or accidental extra allowances to contractors. During the first year of the two tracks being opened, fifty thousand tons of freight, and twenty thousand passengers, passed over the road.

Five years before, this line of passage was an untrodden wilderness. The act authorising the commencement of the work passed the Pennsylvania legislature on the 21st of March, 1831. On the 12th of the next month, the tents of the first working party were pitched at the head of the mountain-branch of the Conemaugh. The party consisted of two engineers, a surveyor, twelve assistants and axemen, and a cook. A track, one hundred and twenty feet wide, overgrown with heavy spruce and hemlock timber, had to be cleared, for a distance of thirty miles. The amount of labour was increased as the work proceeded; and, at one time, as many as two thousand men were employed upon the road. On the 26th of November, 1833, the first car traversed the whole length on the single track that was finished. The canals were then closed for the season; but, during the next March the road was opened for a public highway. In another year the enterprise was completed; and in May 1835, the State furnished the whole motive power. The stupendous work was then in full operation.

Our party (of four, one a child) traversed the entire State from Pittsburg to Philadelphia by canal and rail-road, in four days, at an expense of only forty-two dollars, not including provisions. There was then great competition between the lines of canal-boats. We went by the new line, whose boats were extraordinarily clean, and the table really luxurious. An omnibus, sent from the canal, conveyed us from our hotel at Pittsburg to the boat, at nine in the evening; and we immediately set off. Berths were put up for the ladies of the party in the ladies' dressing-room, and removed during the day. We were called early, and breakfast dispatched before the heat grew oppressive; but, though it was now the middle of July, I could not remain in the shade of the cabin: the scenery, during our whole course, was so beautiful. Umbrella and fan made the heat endurable on deck, except for the two hours nearest to noon. The only great inconvenience was the having to remember perpetually to avoid the low bridges, which we passed, on an average, every quarter of an hour. When we were all together, this was little of an annoyance; for one or another was sure to remember to give warning; but a solitary person, reading or in reverie, is really in danger. We heard of two cases of young ladies, reading, who had been crushed to death: and we prohibited books upon deck. Charley thought the commotion caused on our approach to a bridge the best part of our amusement; and he was heard to complain sometimes that it was very long since we had had any bridges, or when one chanced to be so lofty that we might pass under it without stooping. The best of all in his eyes were the horizontal ones, which compelled us to lie down flat.

The valley of the Kiskiminites is like one noble, fruitful park. Here and there were harvest fields of small grain, and of the tasselled Indian corn: and a few coal and salt works, some forsaken, some busy, showed themselves on reaches of the river; but we were usually enclosed by a circle of wooded hills, reposing in the brightest lights and shadows. The canal commonly ran along the base of one of these hills; but it often let us slip into the broad lucid stream of the river itself.

After having left the Kiskiminites behind us, we crossed the Conemaugh by a fine aqueduct, which continued its course through a long dark tunnel, piercing the heart of the mountain. The reflection of the blue light behind us on the straight line of water in this cavern made a beautiful picture. The paths which human hands have piled upon one another here form a singular combination: the river below, the aqueduct over it; and higher still, the mountain road, winding steeper and steeper to the summit. A settler lives on this mountain, the bottom of whose well was dug out in making the tunnel. In the evening there was every combination of rock, hill, wood, river, and luxuriant vegetation that could furnish forth a succession of noble pictures. Charley was as well amused as the rest of us. He understood the construction and management of the locks, and was never tired of our rising and falling in them; and they afforded, besides, an opportunity of stepping ashore with his father, to get us flowers, and run along the bank to the next lock. Of these locks there are a hundred and ninety-two between Pittsburg and Philadelphia, averaging eight feet in depth.

We were called up before four on the second morning, and had barely time to dress, step ashore, and take our places in the car, before the train set off. We understood that the utmost possible advantage is taken of the daylight, as the trains do not travel after dark; it being made a point of, that the ropes should be examined before each trip. After having breakfasted by the way, we reached the summit of the Portage rail-road between nine and ten. There were fine views all the way; the mountains opening and receding, and disclosing the distant clearings and nestling villages. All around us were plots of wild flowers, of many hues.

We were carried on chiefly by steam power, partly by horse, partly by descending weight, and, at the last, down a long reach, of the slightest possible inclination, by our own weight. The motion was then tremendously rapid, and it subsided only on our reaching the canal at the foot of the mountains.

There was again so much hurry—there being danger of either of two rival boats getting first possession of the next locks, that we of the last car had scarcely time to step on board before the team of three horses began cantering and raising a dust on the towing path, and tugging us through the water at such a rate as to make the waves lash the canal bank. Our boat won the race, and we bolted with a victorious force into the chamber of the first lock.

We had occasionally to cross broad rivers. To-day we crossed the Juniatta by a rope ferry, moved by water-power; and afterwards we crossed the Susquehanna (at the junction of two branches of the Juniatta, the Susquehanna, and two canals) by means of the towing-path being carried along the outside of the great covered bridge which spans the river at Duncan's Island.

The next morning we had to leave the broad, clear, but shallow Susquehanna,—the "river of rocks," as its name imports. I had before travelled almost its whole length along its banks; and, like every one who has done so, loved its tranquil beauty.

The last stage of this remarkable journey was from Columbia to Philadelphia, by rail-road, eighty-one miles, which we were seven hours in performing, as the stoppages were frequent and long. This work, which was opened in 1834, includes thirty-one viaducts, seventy-three stone culverts, five hundred stone drains, and eighteen bridges. Its cost was about 1,600,000 dollars.—The length of this passage from Philadelphia to Pittsburg is 394 miles.

Where, I again ask, would have been these great works, but for the immigration so seriously complained of by some?

The number of considerable canals, varying in length from fourteen to three hundred and sixty-three miles, was, in 1835, twenty-five. Of rail-roads, from fifteen to a hundred and thirty-two miles long, there were fourteen. The cost of these canals was 64,573,099 dollars. The cost of these rail-roads was nearly thirty millions of dollars.

The Dutch are the best people to apply to for capital when any canal work is projected. I heard it said that the word "canal" was enough for them.

The steam-boats of the United States are renowned, as they deserve to be. There is no occasion to describe their size and beauty here; but their number is astonishing. I understand that three hundred were navigating the great western rivers some time ago: and the number is probably much increased.

Among so many, and where the navigation is so dangerous as on the Mississippi, it is no wonder that the accidents are numerous. I was rather surprised at the cautions I received throughout the south about choosing wisely among the Mississippi steam-boats; and at the question gravely asked, as I was going on board, whether I had a life-preserver with me. I found that all my acquaintances on board had furnished themselves with life-preservers; and my surprise ceased when we passed boat after boat on the river, delayed or deserted on account of some accident. We were on board the "Henry Clay," a noble boat, of high reputation; the present being the ninety-seventh trip accomplished without accident. Our yawl was snagged one day; and we encountered a squall and hail storm, one night, which blew both the pilots away from the helm, and made them look "to see the hurricane deck blown clear off;" but no mischief ensued.

Notwithstanding the increase of steam-boats in the Mississippi, flat boats are still much in use. These are large boats, of rude construction, made just strong enough to hold together, and keep their cargo of flour, or other articles, dry, from some high point on the great rivers, to New Orleans. They are furnished with two enormous oars, fixed on what is, I suppose, called their deck; to be used where the current is sluggish, or when it is desirable to change the direction of the boat. The cumbrous machine is propelled by the stream; her proprietors only occasionally helping her progress, now by pulling at the branches of overhanging trees, now by turning her into the more rapid of two currents. She is seen sometimes floating down the very middle of the river; sometimes gliding under the banks. At noon, a bower of green leaves is waving on her deck, for shade to her masters; at night, a pine brand is waved, flaming, to give warning to the steam-boats not to run her down. The voyage from the upper parts of the Ohio to New Orleans, is thus performed in from three to five weeks. The cargo being disposed of at New Orleans, the boat is broken up, and the materials sold; and her masters work their way home again, as deck passengers on board a steam-boat, by bringing in wood at all the wooding places. The "Henry Clay" had a larger company of this kind of passengers than the captain liked. He declared that the deck was giving way under their number. It was a pretty sight to see them twice a day,—very early in the morning, and about sunset,—pour from the boat, when she drew under the shore, form two lines between the boat and the wood pile, and bring in their loads. Most of them were tall Kentuckians, who really do look unlike all other people. I felt a strong inclination for a flat-boat voyage down the vast and beautiful Mississippi; beautiful with islands and bluffs, and the eternal forest; but I have lost the opportunity. If I should ever visit that beloved country again, this picturesque kind of craft will have disappeared, as the yet more barbarous raft is now disappearing; and one more characteristic feature of western scenery will be effaced.

It seems probable that there will be a more rapid increase of ships and schooners than of steam-boats on the northern lakes. These lakes are so subject to gusts and storms that steam-boats cannot be considered safe, and ought to make no promises of punctuality. The captains declare their office to be too anxious a one. A squall comes from any quarter, without notice; and the boat no sooner seems to be proceeding prosperously on her way, than she has to run in somewhere for safety from a sudden storm.

Of all the water-craft I ever saw, I know none so graceful as the sloops on the Hudson; unless it be the New York pilot-boats. The North-River sloops are an altogether peculiar race of boats. They are low, and can carry a great press of sail, from the smoothness of the water on which they perform their voyages. A sloop of a hundred and fifty tons will carry a mast of ninety feet high. I could watch these boats on the Hudson, a whole summer through; moored beside a pebbly strand, in a recess of the shore; or lying dark in a trail of glittering sunshine; or turning the whitest of sails to the sun, startling the fish-hawk with the sudden gleam, so that he quits his prey, and makes for the hanging woods. I saw their graceful forms disclosed by lightning, while I was watching, from the piazza of the West Point Hotel, the progress of a tremendous storm. I saw them as suddenly disclosed at another time; and still more strikingly. From the terrace of Pine Orchard House, on the summit of the Catskill Mountain, I watched, one July morning, at four o'clock, the breaking of the dawn over the entire valley of the Hudson. The difference between mountain, forest, and meadow, first appeared. Then the grey river seemed to grow into sight, for the whole length of its windings. It was twelve miles off, and looked little more than a thread. The sun came up, like a golden star resting on the mountain-top; and, on the instant, the river was seen to be peopled with these sloops. Their white sails came in one instant into view, together with the churches in the hamlets, and the bright gables of the farm-houses in the meadows. The whole scene was made alive by one ray.

There will be no want of markets for produce of all kinds, in the United States, within any time that can be foreseen. If slavery were to be abolished to-morrow, and, in consequence, more corn grown and cattle reared in the slave States, the demand for both from the north-western States would still go on to increase; so vast and progressive would be the improvement in the south. The great cities are even yet ill supplied from the country. Provisions are very dear; and the butcher's meat throughout the country is far inferior to what it will be when an increased amount of labour, and means of transport, shall encourage improvement in the pasturage and care of stock. While, as we have seen, fowls, butter, and eggs, are still sent from Vermont into Boston, there is no such thing to be had there as a joint of tender meat. In one house at Boston, where a very numerous family lives in handsome style, and where I several times met large dinner parties, I never saw an ounce of meat, except ham. The table was covered with birds, in great variety, and well cooked; but all winged creatures. The only tender, juicy meat I saw in the country, was a sirloin of beef at Charleston, and the whole provision of a gentleman's table in Kentucky. At one country place, there was nothing but veal on the table for a month; in a town where I staid ten days, nothing was to be had but beef: and throughout the south the traveller meets little else than pork, under all manner of disguises, and fowls.

Much is said in England about the cheapness of living in the United States, without its being understood what need there is of equalising, (or what appears so to the inhabitants of an old country,) by means of markets. In places where beef and veal are twopence per pound, and venison a penny, (English,) tea may be twenty shillings per pound, and gloves seven shillings a pair. At Charlottesville University, fowls were provided to the professors' families at a dollar a dozen. In the towns of Kentucky, meat is fourpence per pound; in the rural parts of Pennsylvania a penny or twopence; and butter sixpence. At Ebensburg, on the top of the Alleghanies, we staid twenty-five hours. Two of us were well taken care of, had attendance, good beds, two dinners each, supper, breakfast, and a supply of buns to carry away with us; and all for one dollar; the dollar at that time being four shillings and twopence English. The next week, I paid six dollars for the making of a gown at Philadelphia; and all the ladies of a country town, not very far off, were wearing gloves too bad to be mended, or none at all, because none had come up by the canal for many weeks.

At Washington, I wanted some ribbon for my straw bonnet; and, in the whole place, in the season, I could find only six pieces of ribbon to choose from.

Throughout the entire country, (out of the cities,) I was struck with the discomfort of broken windows which appeared on every side. Large farm-houses, flourishing in every other respect, had dismal-looking windows. I was possessed with the idea that the business of a travelling glazier would be a highly profitable one. Persons who happen to live near a canal, or other quiet watery road, have baskets of glass of various sizes sent to them from the towns, and glaze their own windows. But there is no bringing glass over a corduroy, or mud, or rough limestone road; and those who have no other highways must "get along" with such windows as it may please the weather and the children to leave them.

The following laconic dialogue shows, not unfairly, even if it be a mere jest, how acceptable means of transport would be to western settlers.

"Whose land was this that you bought?"

"Mogg's."

"What's the soil?"

"Bogs."

"What's the climate?"

"Fogs."

"What do you get to eat?"

"Hogs."

"What did you build your house of?"

"Logs."

"Have you any neighbours?"

"Frogs."

There are only two methods (besides rare accidents) by which dwellers in such places can get their wants supplied. When a few other neighbours besides frogs, gather round the settler, some one opens a grocery store. I went shopping near the Falls of Niagara; about a quarter of a mile from which place, there is a store on the borders of the forest. I saw there glass and bacon; stay-laces, prints, drugs, rugs, and crockery; bombazeens and tin cans; books, boots, and moist sugar, &c. &c.

Pedlars are the other agents of supply. It has been mentioned how bibles and other books are sold by youths who adopt this method of speedily raising money. The Yankee pedlars, with their wooden clocks, are renowned. One of these gentry lately retired with a fortune of a hundred thousand dollars, made by the sale of wooden clocks alone. These men are great benefactors to society: for, be their clocks what they may, they make the country people as well off as the inhabitants of towns, in the matter of knowing the time; and what more would they have? One would think there was no sun in the United States, so very imaginative are most of the population in respect of the hour. Even in New York I found a wide difference between the upper and lower parts of the city: and between Canandaigua and Buffalo there was the slight variation of half an hour. In some parts of the south, we were at the mercy of whatever clock the last pedlar might have happened to bring, for the appearance of meals: but it appeared as if the clocks themselves had something of the Yankee spirit in them; for, while they were usually too fast, I rarely knew one too slow.

The perplexity about time took a curious form in one instance, in the south. The lady of the governor of the State had never had sufficient energy to learn the clock. With both clock and watch in the house, she was incessantly sending her slave Venus, (lazy, ignorant, awkward, and ugly,) into a neighbour's house to ask the hour. Three times in one morning did Venus loll against the drawing-room door, her chin in her hands, drawling,

"What's the time?"

"Nine, Venus."

Venus went home, and told her mistress it was one. Dinner was hastened; but it soon appearing from some symptom that it could not be so late, Venus appeared again, with her chin reposing as before.

"What's the time?"

"Between ten and eleven, Venus."

Venus carries word that it is eight. And so on.

The race of pedlars will decrease, year by year. There will be fewer carts, nicely packed with boxes and baskets. There will be fewer youths in homespun, with grave faces and somewhat prim deportment, in well-laden gigs. There will be fewer horsemen, with saddle-bags, and compact wooden cases. There will be fewer pedestrians, with pouches strung before and behind, an umbrella in one hand, and an open book in the other. The same men, or their sons, will gain in fortune, and lose perhaps somewhat in mind and manners, by being stationary, or the frequenters of some established market.

The conveying of vast quantities of cotton and other produce towards the southern ports is already a matter of pride to the residents, who boast that they employ the industry of persons a thousand miles off to provide food for themselves and their dependents. The bustle of the great northern markets is also very striking to the stranger who sees to what distance in the interior, the produce of Europe and Asia is to be conveyed. But, a few years hence, the spread of comfort and luxury will be as great as that of industry is now. By a vast augmentation of the means of transport, markets will be opened wherever the soil is peculiarly rich, the mines remarkably productive, or the locality especially inviting.

The object is an all-important one. As it is too late to restrict the territory on which the American people are dispersed, it is most serviceable that they should be brought together again, for purposes of intercourse, mutual education and discipline, and wise co-operation in the work of self-government, by such means as exist for practically annihilating time and space. The certain increase of wealth by these means is a good. The certain increase of people is an incalculably greater. The certain increase of knowledge and civilisation is the greatest of all.

SECTION I.
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.

One of the most important constitutional questions that has arisen in the United States is one, regarding Internal Improvements, which has grown out of a failure of foresight in the makers of the constitution. No set of men could be expected to foresee every great question which must arise during the advancement of a young country; and there is no evidence of its having occurred to any one, in the early days of the republic, to inquire whether the general government should have power to institute and carry on public works, all over the States; and under what limitations. Many inconsistent and contradictory proceedings have taken place in Congress, since the question was first raised; and it remains unsettled.

For some years after the Revolution, the treasury had enough to do to pay the debts of the war, and defray the expenses attendant upon the organisation of the new system. As soon as a surplus was found to be in hand, suggestions were heard about improving the country. In 1796, Mr. Madison proposed a resolution to cause a survey to be made for a road from north to south, through all the Atlantic States. No appropriation was made for the purpose: but no objection was offered on the ground of the general government not having power to make such appropriation. The difficulty of access to the great western wilderness was represented to Congress under Mr. Jefferson's administration, in 1802; and a law was passed, making appropriations for opening roads in the north-west territory. This was the first appropriation made by Congress for purposes of internal improvement. Many similar acts followed; and road-making and surveying the coast went on expeditiously, and to a great extent. In 1807, Mr. Gallatin prepared the celebrated Report to the Senate, which contains a systematic plan for the improvement of the whole country. In 1812, during Mr. Madison's administration, a survey was authorised of the main post road from Maine to Georgia. Improvement under the sanction of Congress went on with increased activity into the administration of Mr. Monroe, by whom the first check was given. Mr. Monroe vetoed the bill authorising the collection of tolls for the repair of the Cumberland road. The reason assigned for the veto was, that it was one thing to make appropriations for public works, and another thing to assume jurisdiction and sovereignty over the soil on which such works were erected; and President Monroe did not believe that Congress could assume power to levy toll.[2] By his adoption of a subsequent act, involving the same principles, however, it seemed that he had changed his opinion, or resolved to yield the question.

Mr. J. Q. Adams's advocacy of internal improvements removed some lingering difficulties; and, while he was President, the public works were carried on with great activity. The southern members of Congress, however, were generally opposed to the exercise of this power by the general government: and it has ever since been a strongly-debated question.

President Jackson's course on the subject has not been very consistent. Before his election, he always voted for internal improvements, going so far as to advocate subscriptions by government to the stock of private canal companies, and the formation of roads beginning and ending within the limits of particular States. In his message at the opening of the first Congress after his accession, he proposed the division of the surplus revenue among the States, as a substitute for the promotion of internal improvements by the general government. He attempted a limitation and distinction too difficult and important to be settled and acted upon on the judgment and knowledge of one man;—a distinction between general and local objects. It is manifestly impossible to draw the line with any precision. The whole Union is benefited by the Erie canal, though it lies wholly within the limits of the State of New York; and a thousand positions of circumstances may be imagined by which local advantages may become general, and general local, so as to confound the limitation altogether. At any rate, the judgment and knowledge of any individual, or any cabinet, are obviously unequal to the maintenance of such a distinction.

In 1829 and 1830, the President advocated such an amendment of the constitution as would authorise Congress to apply the surplus revenue to certain specified objects, involving the general good; and he strongly objected to the general government exercising a power, considered by him unconstitutional, merely because there was a quantity of money in the treasury which must be disposed of. He has since changed his opinion, and believes that less evil would be incurred by even suddenly reducing the revenue to the amount of the wants of the government, than by conferring on the general government immense means of patronage, and opportunity for corrupt and wasteful expenditure.

These changes of opinion in President Jackson prove nothing so clearly as the great difficulty of the subject. It is, however, so pressing and so important that, notwithstanding its difficulty, it must be settled before long.

The opposing arguments seem to me to be these.

The advocates of a concession to Congress of the power of conducting internal improvements plead, with regard to the constitutionality of the power, that it is conferred by the clauses which authorise Congress to make post-roads: to regulate commerce between the States: to make and carry on war; (and therefore to have roads by which to transport troops;) to lay taxes, to pay the debts, and provide for the general welfare of the United States: and to pass all laws necessary to carry into effect its constitutional powers.

The answer is, that to derive from these clauses any countenance of the practice of spending without limit the public funds, for objects which any present government may declare to be for the general welfare, is an obvious straining of the instrument: that, by such methods, the constitution may be made to authorise the spending of any amount whatever, for any purpose whatever: that it is the characteristic of the constitution to specify the powers given to Congress with a nicety which is wholly inconsistent with such a boundless conveyance of power as is here presumed: and that, accordingly, the permission to lay taxes, to pay the debts, and provide for the general welfare of the United States, is limited as to its objects by the preceding specifications: and that, finally, the powers allotted to the State governments exclude the supposition that Congress is authorised to assume such territorial jurisdiction as it has been allowed to practise within the limits of the several States.

This last set of opinions appears to disinterested observers so obviously reasonable, that the wonder is how so weak a stand on the provisions of the constitution can have been maintained for any length of time. The reason is, that the pleas of expediency are so strong as to counterbalance the weakness of the constitutional argument. But, this being the case, the truly honest and patriotic mode of proceeding would be to add to the constitution by the means therein provided; instead of straining the instrument to accomplish an object which was not present to the minds of its framers.

The pleas of the advocates of Internal Improvements are these: that very extensive public works, designed for the benefit of the whole Union, and carried through vast portions of its area, must be accomplished: that an object so essential ought not to be left at the mercy of such an accident as the cordial agreement of the requisite number of States, to carry such works forward to their completion; that the surplus funds accruing from the whole nation cannot be so well employed as in promoting works by which the whole nation will be benefited: and that, as the interests of the majority have hitherto upheld Congress in the use of this power, it may be assumed to be the will of the majority that Congress should continue to exercise it.

The answer is, that it is inexpedient to put a vast and increasing patronage into the hands of the general government: that only a very superficial knowledge can be looked for in members of Congress as to the necessity or value of works proposed to be instituted in any parts of the States but those in which they are respectively interested: that endless jealousies would arise between the various States,[3] from the impossibility or undesirableness of equalising the amount of appropriation made to each: that useless works would be proposed from the spirit of competition, or individual interest:[4] and that corruption, co-extensive with the increase of power, would deprave the functions of the general government.

There is much truth on both sides here. In the first set of pleas there is so much force that they have ceased to be, what they were once supposed, the distinctive doctrines of the federal party. Mr. Webster is still considered the head of the Internal Improvements party; and Mr. Calhoun was for some time the leader of its opponents. Jefferson's latest opinions were strong against the power claimed and exercised by Congress. Yet large numbers of the democratic party are as strenuous for internal improvements as Adams and Webster themselves; the interests of the majority being clearly on that side.

To an impartial observer it appears that Congress has no constitutional right to devote the public funds to internal improvements, at its own unrestricted will and pleasure: that the permitted usurpation of the power for so long a time indicates that some degree of such power in the hands of the general government is desirable and necessary: that such power should be granted through an amendment of the constitution, by the methods therein provided: that, in the mean time, it is perilous that the instrument should be strained for the support of any function, however desirable its exercise may be.

In case of the proposed addition being made to the constitution, arrangements will, of course, be entered into for determining the principles by which general are to be distinguished from local objects, or whether such distinction can, on any principle, be fixed; for testing the utility of proposed objects; for checking extravagant expenditure, jobbing, and corrupt patronage: in short, the powers of Congress will be specified, here, as in other matters, by express permission and prohibition. These details, difficult or unmanageable amidst the questionable exercise of a great power, will, doubtless, be arranged so as to work with precision, when the will of the majority is brought to bear directly upon them.

It is time that this great question should be settled. Congress goes on making appropriations for a road here, a canal there, a harbour or a light-house somewhere else. All these may or may not be necessary. Meantime, those who have law on their side, exclaim against extravagance, jobbing, and encroachment on popular rights. Those who have expediency on their side plead necessity, the popular will, and the increasing surplus revenue.

If the constitution provides means by which law, expediency, and the prevention of abuse, can be reconciled to the satisfaction of all, surely the sooner it is done the better. Thus the matter appears to a passing stranger.

CHAPTER III. MANUFACTURES.

"The crude treasures, perpetually exposed before our eyes, contain within them other and more valuable principles. All these, likewise, in their numberless combinations, which ages of labour and research can never exhaust, may be destined to furnish, in perpetual succession, new sources of our wealth and of our happiness."

Babbage.

The whole American people suffered, during the revolutionary war, from the want of the comforts and some of the necessaries of life, now so called. Their commerce with the world abroad being almost wholly intercepted, they had nothing wherewith to console themselves but the stocks which might be left in their warehouses, and the produce of their soil. It is amazing, at this day, to hear of the wants of the commonest articles of clothing and domestic use, undergone in those days by some of the first families in the republic.

The experience of these troubles suggested to many persons the expediency of establishing manufactures in the United States: but there was an almost universal prejudice against this mode of employment. It is amusing now to read Hamilton's celebrated Report on Manufactures, presented in 1790, and to see how elaborately the popular objections to manufactures are answered. The persuasion of the nation was that America was designed to be an agricultural country; that agriculture was wholly productive, and manufactures not productive at all; and that agriculture was the more honourable occupation. The two former prejudices have been put to flight by happy experience. The last still lingers. It is not five years since the President's message declared that "the wealth and strength of a country are its population; and the best part of that population are the cultivators of the soil."

Such prepossessions may be left to die out. They arise mainly from a very good notion, not very clearly defined;—that the more intercourse men have with Nature, the better for the men. This is true; but Nature is present in all places where the hands of men work, if the workmen can but see her. If Nature is supposed present only where there is a blue sky overhead, and grass and trees around, this shows only the narrowness of mind of him who thus supposes. Her forces are at work wherever there is mechanism; and man only directs them to his particular purpose. In America, it may be said that her beauty is present wherever her forces are at work; for men have there set up their mechanism in some of the choicest spots in the land. There is a good and an evil aspect belonging to all things. If tourists are exasperated at fine scenery being deformed by the erection of mills, (which in many instances are more of an ornament than a deformity,) let others be awake to the advantage that it is to the work-people to have their dwellings and their occupation fixed in spots where the hills are heaped together, and the waters leap and whirl among rocks, rather than in dull suburbs where they and their employments may not annoy the eye of the lover of the picturesque. It always gave me pleasure to see the artisans at work about such places as Glen's Falls, the Falls of the Genessee, and on the banks of some of the whirling streams in the New England valleys. I felt that they caught, or might catch, as beautiful glimpses of Nature's face as the western settler. If the internal circumstances were favourable, there was little in the outward to choose between. If they had the open mind's eye to see beauty, and the soul to feel wonder, it mattered little whether it was the forest or the waterfall (even though it were called the "water-privilege") that they had to look upon; whether it was by the agency of vegetation or of steam that they had to work. It is deplorable enough, in this view, to be a poor artisan in the heart of our English Manchester: but to be a thriving one in the most beautiful outskirts of Sheffield is, perhaps, as favourable a lot for the lover of nature as to be a labourer on any soil: and the privileges of the American artisans are like this.

As to the old objection to American manufactures, that America was designed to be an agricultural country,—it seems to me, as I said before, that America was meant to be everything. Her group of republics is merged in one, in the eyes of the world; and, for some purposes, in reality: but this involves no obligation to make them all alike in their produce and occupations; but rather the contrary. Here, as everywhere else, let the laws of nature be followed, and the procedure will be wise. Nature has nothing to do with artificial boundaries and arbitrary inclosures. There are many soils and many climates included within the boundary line of the United States; many countries; and one rule cannot be laid down for all. If there be any one or more of these where the requisites for manufactures are present, and those for agriculture deficient, there let manufactures arise. If there is poor land, and good mill-seats; abundant material, animal and mineral, on the spot, and vegetable easily to be procured; a sufficiency of hands, and talent for the construction and use of machinery, there should manufactures spring up. This is eminently the case with New England, and some other parts of the United States. It was perceived to be so, even in the days when the growth of cotton in the south was spoken of as a small experiment, not likely to produce great consequences.

New England formerly depended chiefly on the carrying trade. When that resource was diminished, after the war, it is difficult to see how her people were to be prevented setting up manufactures, or why they needed any particular exhortation or assistance to do it. They had the opportunity of obtaining foreign capital; their previous foreign intercourses having pointed out to them where it had accumulated, and might therefore be obtained with advantage. They had a vast material, left from their fisheries, of skins, oil, and the bones of marine animals; they had bark, hides, wood, flax, hemp, iron, and clay. They had also the requisite skill; as may be seen by the following list of domestic manufactures, carried on in private houses only, in 1790. "Great quantities of coarse cloths, coatings, serges and flannels, linsey-woolseys, hosiery of wool, cotton, and thread, coarse fustians, jeans, and muslins, coverlets and counterpanes, tow linens, coarse shirtings, sheetings, towellings, and table-linen, and various mixtures of wool and cotton, and of cotton and flax, are made in the household way; and, in many instances, to an extent not only sufficient for the supply of the family in which they are made, but for sale, and even in some cases for exportation. It is computed, in a number of districts, that two-thirds, three-fourths, and even four-fifths of all the clothing of the inhabitants, are made by themselves."[5] If all this was done without the advantage of division of labour, of masses of capital, or of other machinery than might be set up in a farm-house parlour, it is clear that this region was fully prepared, five-and-forty years ago, for the introduction of manufactures on a large scale; and there appears every reason to believe that they might have been left to their natural growth.

The same Report mentions seventeen classes of manufacture going on as distinct trades, at the same time, in the northern States.

The only plausible objection to the establishment of manufactures was the scarcity and dearness of labour, in comparison with that of the old countries of Europe. But, if the exportation of some articles actually took place, while the labour which produced them was scattered about in farm-houses, what might not be expected if the same labour could be called forth and concentrated, and aided by the introduction of machinery? A great immigration of artisans might also be looked for, when once any temptation was held out to the poor of Europe to come over to a young and thriving country. Moreover, improvements in machinery are the invariable consequence of a deficiency of manufacturing labour; for the obvious reason that men's wits are urged to supply the want under which their interests suffer. Again: manufactures can, to a considerable degree, be carried on by the labour of women; and there is a great number of unemployed women in New England, from the circumstance that the young men of that region wander away in search of a settlement on the land; and, after being settled, find wives in the south and west.

Thus much of the case might have been, and was by some, foreseen. What has been the event?

In 1825, the amount of manufactures exported from the United States, was 5,729,797 dollars. Of these about one-fourth were cotton-piece goods, in the sale of which the American merchants were now able to compete with the English, in some foreign markets. The manufacture of cottons in the United States afforded a market for one hundred and seventy-five thousand bales of cotton annually; and the printed cottons manufactured at home amounted annually to fourteen millions of yards. The importation of cotton goods into the country in 1825 was in value between twelve and thirteen millions of dollars; and in 1826, between nine and ten millions. The woollen manufacture has never flourished like the cotton; the bad effects of the tariff being more immediately visible in regard to articles of manufacture whose raw material must be chiefly derived from abroad.

In 1828, the legislature of Massachusetts passed resolutions deploring the increasing depression of the woollen manufacture, and praying for increased protection from Congress. The exportation of cotton goods that year amounted to upwards of a million of dollars; and the next year to nearly a million and a half. The importation of cotton goods was all but prohibited by the tariff of 1824: and the consequence was an immense investment of capital in the cotton manufacture, almost on the instant; and some perilous fluctuations since, too nearly resembling the agitations of older countries, where the pernicious policy of ages has accumulated difficulties on the present generation.

At Lowell, in Massachusetts, there was in 1818, a small satinet mill, employing about twenty hands; the place itself containing two hundred inhabitants. In 1825, the Merrimack Manufacturing Company was formed; it was joined by others; and in 1832, the capital invested was above six millions of dollars. The whole number of operatives employed was five thousand; of whom three thousand eight hundred were women and girls. The quantity of raw cotton used was upwards of twenty thousand bales. The quantity of pure cotton goods manufactured was twenty-five millions of yards. The woollen fabric manufactured in these establishments was, at the same time, one hundred and fifty thousand yards. Sixty-eight carpet-looms were at work also. The workmen employed in all these operations received for wages about 1,200,000 dollars per annum. About two hundred mechanics, of a high order of ability, are constantly employed. The fuel consumed in a year is five thousand tons of anthracite coal, besides charcoal and wood.

The same protective system which caused the sudden growth of such an establishment as this, tempted numerous capitalists to seek their share of the supposed benefits of the tariff. The manufacturing interest was well nigh ruined by the protection it had asked for. The competition and consequent over-manufacture were tremendous. Failure after failure took place, till forty-five thousand spindles were standing idle, and thousands of operatives were thrown into a state of poverty unnatural enough in such a country as theirs. A cry was raised by many for a repeal of the tariff: this created a panic among those who, on the strength of the tariff, had withdrawn their capital from commerce, and invested it in manufactures. The stock of all the manufacturing companies was offered in vain, at prices ruinously low. Thus stood matters in 1829.

The history of the quarrel between the north and south about the tariff, and the nature of the Compromise Bill, is already known. The mischief done will be repaired, as far as reparation is possible, by the reduction of the import duties, year by year, till 1842. If the demands of the country and of foreign customers should not rise to the limit of the over-manufacture which has taken place, time is thus allowed for the gradual withdrawing of the capital and industry which have been seduced into this method of employment. Meantime, the manufactures of the northern States are permanently established, though not in the wisest way. If they had been left to themselves, they would have been an unmixed good to the community. As it is, society has suffered the inevitable consequences of an irrational policy,—a policy indefensible in a republic. It is well that the experiment wrought out its consequences so speedily and so plainly that any repetition is unlikely,—little as the natural laws which regulate commerce are yet understood.

In 1831, the total number of looms employed in the cotton manufacture of the United States was 33,433. Of these, 21,336 were in New England; 3,653 in New York State; 6,301 in Pennsylvania; and the rest in Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and Virginia.

Next to the cotton and woollen manufactures, the most valuable are manufactures from flax and hemp; from tobacco and grain; sugar, soap, and candles, gunpowder, gold and silver coin, iron, copper and brass, hats, medicinal drugs, and shoes.

The shoe manufacture is one of the most remarkable in the States, from the suddenness and extent of its spread. It has been mentioned that the shoe trade of New York State is more valuable than the total commerce of Georgia. The extent to which the manufacture is carried on in one village in Massachusetts, with which I am acquainted, shows the prosperity of the business.

In order to shoemaking, there must be tanning. There are many and large tanneries in Danvers and the outskirts of Salem, for the supply of the Lynn shoe-manufacture. The largest tannery in the United States is at Salem. The hides are partly imported. The bark is brought from Maine. These tanneries were in a state of temporary adversity when I saw them. Some kinds of skins are two or three years in tanning; and capital is thus locked up in such amounts as render fluctuation dangerous. It had lately been discovered that oak bark could be had cheaper, and tanning consequently carried on to a greater advantage up the Hudson than on the Massachusetts coast: so that the tanners and curriers of Salem and Danvers were descending somewhat from their high prosperity. But nothing could exceed the nourishing aspect of Lynn, the sanctum of St. Crispin.

In 1831, the value of boots and shoes, (very few boots, and chiefly ladies' shoes,) made at Lynn was nearly a million of dollars a year. The total number made was above a million and a half pairs: the number of people employed, three thousand five hundred; being about seven-eighths of the population of the place, partially employed; and some hundreds from other places, wholly employed. Last year, the place was much on the increase. A green, with a piece of water in the middle, and trees, was being laid out in the centre of the town. New houses were rising in all directions, and fresh hands were welcomed from any quarter; for the orders sent could not be executed. Besides the domestic supply, two million pairs of ladies' shoes a-year were sent off to the remotest corners of the States; and, as they have once penetrated there, it seems difficult to imagine where the demand will stop; for those remote corners are all being more thickly peopled every day. Their united demand will be enough to make the fortune of a whole State.

It seems probable that a few more manufactures may be added to those which are sure to flourish in the United States: as silk and wine. If the government firmly refuses to interfere again in the way of protection, it will be easily and safely discoverable what resources the country really possesses; and what direction her improving industry may naturally and profitably take.

SECTION I.
THE TARIFF.

If I were to go into anything like a detailed account of what I heard about the tariff, during my travels, no room would be left for more interesting affairs. The recrimination on the subject is endless. With all this we have nothing to do, now that it is over. The philosophy and fact of the transaction, and not the changes of opinion and inconsistency of conduct of public men, are now of importance. It would be well now to leave the persons, and look at the thing.

Almost the only fact in relation to the tariff that I never heard disputed is that it was, under one aspect, a measure of retaliation. Rendering evil for evil answers no better in economical than in moral affairs; even if it take the name of self-defence. Because the British are foolish and wrong in refusing to admit American corn, the Americans excluded British cottons and woollens. More was said, and I believe sincerely, about self-defence than about retaliation: but it is very remarkable that men so clear-headed, inquiring, and sagacious as the authors of the American system, should not have seen further into the condition of their own country, and learned more from the unhappy experience of Europe, than to imagine that they could neutralise the effects of the bad policy of England by adopting the same bad policy themselves. It is strange that they did not see that if British cottons and woollens found easy entrance into their country, it must have been in exchange for something, though that something was not corn. It was strange that they did not see that if the apparent facilities for manufactures in the northern States were really great enough to justify manufactures, individual enterprise would be sure to find it out; and all the more readily for the deficiency in the resources of New England, which is assigned as the reason for offering her legislative protection. There was not even the excuse for interference which exists in old countries; that by intricate complexities of mismanagement, economical affairs have been perverted from their natural course. Here, in America, a new branch of industry was to be instituted. The skill was ready; the material was ready; the capital was procurable, if the object was good; and ought not to be, if the object was unsound. The interests of the people might have been trusted in their own hands. They would of themselves have taken less of British cotton goods, and more of something else which they could not get at home, if cotton goods could be made better and cheaper at home than in England; which it is proved that, for the most part, they can be. It is anticipated that when the Compromise method expires, the home manufacture of some kinds of fine cotton goods will diminish; but that the bulk of the manufacture is beyond the reach of accident. The effect of the tariff has been to over-stimulate a natural process, and thus to cause over-manufacture, panic, and ruin to many. It is said, and with truth, that America can afford to try experiments; that America is the very country that should learn by experience; and so forth. But it should be remembered that those who suffer are not always those who should be the learners. In New England, there is a large class of very poor women,—ladies; some working; some unable to work. I knew many of these; and was struck with the great number of them who assigned as the cause of their poverty the depreciation of factory stock, or the failure in other ways of factory schemes, in which their parents or other friends had, beguiled by the promises of the tariff, invested what should have been their maintenance.

No more need be said on the policy of the tariff. The truth is now very extensively acknowledged; and though some of those who are answerable for the American system continue to assume that manufactures could not have been instituted without its assistance, I believe it is pretty generally understood that no more infant manufactures will be burdened with this cruel kind of protection.

A far more important question than that of the policy is that of the principle of a protective system in the United States.

It is known that the strongest resistance was made to the American system on the ground of its being unconstitutional. Its advocates relied, for the necessary sanction, on the clauses which provide that "Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, and duties, imposts, and excises;"——and "to regulate commerce with foreign nations." With regard to the first of these clauses, both parties seem, more or less, in the right. By the tariff, Congress proposed "to lay and collect duties and imposts," as the constitution gives it express leave to do. Yet it is clear to those who view the constitution in the light of the sun of the revolution, that, such permission was given solely with a view to the collection of the revenue. No one of the framers of the constitution could have foreseen that any proposal would be made to lay duties for the protection of the productive interests of a section of the Union. Such a use of the clause is forbidden in spirit, though not in the letter, by the clause which ordains, "but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States." This clause is, in its spirit, wholly condemnatory of partial legislation by Congress.

Remarks somewhat analogous may be made respecting the other clause, which empowers Congress "to regulate commerce with foreign nations." By the letter of this clause, Congress may appear to a superficial observer authorised so to regulate its commerce with Great Britain as to cause an arbitrary distribution of property and industry within her own boundaries; but such a double action could never have been in contemplation of the framers of the instrument. What they had in view was obviously the guardianship of the national commercial rights, and the promotion of the national commercial, not sectional manufacturing, interests.

Where the letter and the spirit of the constitution are made, by lapse of time and change of circumstance, to bear out opposite modes of conduct, there is an appeal which every man must make, for his individual satisfaction and conviction. He must appeal to the fundamental republican principles, out of which grew both the spirit and the letter of the constitution.

By these the tariff is hopelessly condemned. It is contrary to all sound republican principle that the general government of a nation, widely spread over regions, and separated into sections diversified in their productions, occupations, and interests, should use its power of legislating for the whole to provide for the particular interests of a part. The principle of perfect political and social equality is violated when the general government takes cognisance of local objects so far as to do a deed which must materially affect the distribution of private property; so far as to lay a tax on the whole of the nation for the avowed object of benefiting a part. The government of a republic has no business with distinctions among its subjects. It is to have no respect of classes, more than of individuals. Its functions are to be discharged for the common interest; and it is to entertain no fancies as to what new institutions or arrangements will be beneficial or the contrary to the nation.

All such institutions and arrangements must be made within the several States, or by an agreement of States; subject, of course, to the permissions and prohibitions of the constitution. If one State, or several States, should be pleased to decree bounties on their own manufactures, let them do so. Whether the measure were wise or unwise, no one out of the limits of such State or States would have a right to complain. This could not be said under the tariff. It was a just complaint which was urged by many States, that the federal representation was made useless to the minority, from the moment that the federal government applied itself to favour local and particular interests. The case is not altered by the possible result being highly beneficial to the whole country; which is the plea industriously advanced by the advocates of the tariff. Whatever direction and application of industry and capital may be ultimately most beneficial, Congress has, on principle, no more business with it than with the support of what may prove in the end to be the purest religious doctrine.

If America had been as free, from the beginning, in all respects, as a young country ought to be,—free to run her natural course of prosperity, subject only to the faithful laws which regulate the economy of society as beneficially as another set of laws regulates the seasons, we might never have heard of the American system. The poisonous anomaly which has caused almost all the diseases that have afflicted the republic, appears to be the original infection here also. If labour in the southern States had been free long ago, the deterioration of southern property would not have caused the southern planters to clamour for legislative protection. The arbitrary tenure of labour made them desire an arbitrary distribution of capital. They desired it for the north, as eagerly as for themselves, expecting the result to be that the cotton-growers would be protected by heavy import duties on cotton; and that the prosperity of the north, depending, as they supposed, wholly on its commerce, would be crippled by the same means; and thus, something like an equality between north and south be restored. The effect was different from what had been anticipated. The deterioration of the south went on; and manufactures first replaced, and then renovated, the commerce of the north. The next consequence was natural enough. The south became infuriated against the tariff, not only on the reasonable ground of its badness of principle, but on the allegation that it was the cause of all the woes of the south,[6] and all the prosperity, diversified with woes, of the north. It has always been the method of slaveholders to lay the blame of their sufferings upon everything but the real cause. Any one who reads the history of slavery in the book of events, will find slave-holders of every country complaining bitterly and incessantly of the want of legislative protection to themselves, or of its being granted to others. In the present instance, it was a device of the slave-holders, to renovate their falling fortunes, turned against themselves.

The true dignity of America would have been, had circumstances allowed of it, to have followed out her own republican principles, instead of adopting the false principles and injurious policy of older and less favoured nations. If she had left labour and commerce, and capital free; disdaining interference at home and retaliation abroad; showing her faith in the natural laws of social economy by calmly committing to them the external interests of her people, she would by this time have been the pattern and instructress of the civilised world, in the philosophy of production and commerce. But she had not the knowledge nor the requisite faith; nor was it to be reasonably expected that she should. Her doctrine was, and I fear still is, that she need not study political economy while she is so prosperous as at present: that political economy is for those who are under adversity. If in other cases she allows that prevention is better than cure, avoidance than reparation, why not in this? It may not yet be too late for her to be in the van of all the world in economical as in political philosophy. The old world will still be long in getting above its bad institutions. If America would free her servile class by the time the provisions of the Compromise Bill expire, and start afresh in pure economical freedom, she might yet be the first to show, by her transcendent peace and prosperity, that democratic principles are the true foundation of economical, as well as political, welfare.

SECTION II.
MANUFACTURING LABOUR.

So much is said in Europe of the scarcity of agricultural labour in the United States, that it is a matter of surprise that manufactures should have succeeded as they have done. It is even supposed by some that the tariff was rendered necessary by a deficiency of labour: that by offering a premium on manufacturing industry, the requisite amount was sought to be drawn away from other employments, and concentrated upon this. This is a mistake. There is every reason to suppose that the requisite amount of labour would have been forthcoming, if affairs had been left to take their natural course.

It has been shown that domestic manufactures were carried on to a great extent, so far back as 1790. From that time to this, they have never altogether ceased in the farm-houses, as the homespun, still so frequently to be seen all over the country, and the agricultural meetings of New England, (where there is usually a display of domestic manufactures,) will testify. The hands by which these products are wrought come to the factories, when the demand for labour renders it worth while; and drop back into the farm-houses when the demand slackens.

It is not the custom in America for women (except slaves) to work out of doors. It has been mentioned that the young men of New England migrate in large numbers to the west, leaving an over-proportion of female population, the amount of which I could never learn. Statements were made to me; but so incredible that I withhold them. Suffice it that there are many more women than men in from six to nine States of the Union. There is reason to believe that there was much silent suffering from poverty before the institution of factories; that they afford a most welcome resource to some thousands of young women, unwilling to give themselves to domestic service, and precluded, by the customs of the country, from rural labour. We have seen how large a proportion of the labour in the Lowell factories is supplied by women.

Much of the rest is furnished by immigrants. I saw English, Irish, and Scotch operatives. I heard but a poor character of the English operatives; and the Scotch were pronounced "ten times better." The English are jealous of their 'bargain,' and on the watch lest they should be asked to do more than they stipulated for: their habits are not so sober as those of the Scotch, and they are incapable of going beyond the single operation they profess. Such is the testimony of their employers.

The demand for labour is, however, sufficiently imperious in all the mechanical departments to make it surprising that prison labour is regarded with such jealousy as I have witnessed. When it is considered how small a class the convicts of the United States are, and are likely to remain, how essential labour is to their reformation, how few are the kinds of manufacture which they can practise, and that it is of some importance that prison establishments should maintain themselves, it seems wholly unworthy of the intelligent mechanics of America that they should be so afraid of convict labour as actually to obtain pledges from some candidates for office, to propose the abolition of prison manufactures. I believe that the Sing-Sing and Auburn prisons, in the State of New York, turn out a greater variety and amount of products than any others; and they have yet done very little more than maintain themselves. The Sing-Sing convicts quarry and dress granite: the Auburn prisoners make clocks, combs, shoes, carpets, and machinery. They are cabinet and chair-makers, weavers, and tailors. There were 650 prisoners when I was there; and of these many were inexperienced workmen; and all were not employed in manufactures. Jealousy of such a set of craftsmen is absurd, in the present state of the American labour-market.

I saw specimens of each of these kinds of labour. A few days after I entered the country, I was taken to an agricultural meeting, held annually at Pittsfield, Massachusetts. We were too late to see the best part of it,—the dispensing of prizes for the best agricultural skill, and for the choicest domestic manufactures. But there were specimens left which surprised me by the excellence of their quality;—table and bed-linen, diapers, blankets, and knitted wares. There was an ingenious model of a bed for invalids, combining many sorts of facilities for change of posture. There were nearly as many women as men at this meeting; all were well dressed, and going to and fro in the household vehicle, the country-wagon, with the invariable bear-skin covering the seat, and peeping out on all sides. A comfortable display, from the remains of the dinner, was set out for us by smart mulatto girls, with snow-berries in their hair. The mechanics' houses in this beautiful village would be enough, if they could be exhibited in England, to tempt over half her operatives to the new world.

The first cotton-mill that I saw was at Paterson, New Jersey. It was set up at first with nine hundred spindles, which were afterwards increased to fifteen hundred; then to six thousand. Building was still going on when I was there. The girls were all well-dressed. Their hair was arranged according to the latest fashions which had arrived, viâ New York, and they wore calashes in going to and fro between their dwellings and the mill. I saw some of the children barefooted, but carrying umbrellas, under a slight sprinkling of rain. I asked whether those who could afford umbrellas went barefoot for coolness, or other convenience. The proprietor told me that there had probably been an economical calculation in the case. Stockings and shoes would defend only the feet; while the umbrella would preserve the gloss of the whole of the rest of the costume. There seems, however, to be a strong predilection for umbrellas in the United States. A convict, in solitary confinement in the Philadelphia prison, gave me the history of all his burglaries. The proximate cause of his capture after the last was an umbrella. He had broken into a good-looking house, and traversed it in vain in search of something worth the risk of carrying away. On leaving the house, he found it rained. He went back, and took a new cotton umbrella. It dawned as he entered the city, and he was afraid of being seen with the umbrella; but thought suspicion would be excited if he "heaved it away." He met an acquaintance who was further from home than himself, and insisted on his accepting the loan of the umbrella. The acquaintance, of course, was caught, and told from whom he had had the umbrella; and the burglar was, in consequence, lodged in jail. What English burglar would have thought of minding rain? If, however, there ever was a case of amateur burglary, this was one.

I visited the corporate factory-establishment at Waltham, within a few miles of Boston. The Waltham Mills were at work before those of Lowell were set up. The establishment is for the spinning and weaving of cotton alone, and the construction of the requisite machinery. Five hundred persons were employed at the time of my visit. The girls earn two, and some three, dollars a-week, besides their board. The little children earn one dollar a-week. Most of the girls live in the houses provided by the corporation, which accommodate from six to eight each. When sisters come to the mill, it is a common practice for them to bring their mother to keep house for them and some of their companions, in a dwelling built by their own earnings. In this case, they save enough out of their board to clothe themselves, and have their two or three dollars a-week to spare. Some have thus cleared off mortgages from their fathers' farms; others have educated the hope of the family at college; and many are rapidly accumulating an independence. I saw a whole street of houses built with the earnings of the girls; some with piazzas, and green venetian blinds and all neat and sufficiently spacious.

The factory people built the church, which stands conspicuous on the green in the midst of the place. The minister's salary (eight hundred dollars last year) is raised by a tax on the pews. The corporation gave them a building for a lyceum, which they have furnished with a good library, and where they have lectures every winter,—the best that money can procure. The girls have, in many instances, private libraries of some merit and value.

The managers of the various factory establishments keep the wages as nearly equal as possible, and then let the girls freely shift about from one to another. When a girl comes to the overseer to inform him of her intention of working at the mill, he welcomes her, and asks how long she means to stay. It may be six months, or a year, or five years, or for life. She declares what she considers herself fit for, and sets to work accordingly. If she finds that she cannot work so as to keep up with the companion appointed to her, or to please her employer or herself, she comes to the overseer, and volunteers to pick cotton, or sweep the rooms, or undertake some other service that she can perform.

The people work about seventy hours per week, on the average. The time of work varies with the length of the days, the wages continuing the same. All look like well-dressed young ladies. The health is good; or rather, (as this is too much to be said about health any where in the United States,) it is no worse than it is elsewhere.

These facts speak for themselves. There is no need to enlarge on the pleasure of an acquaintance with the operative classes of the United States.

The shoe-making at Lynn is carried on almost entirely in private dwellings, from the circumstance that the people who do it are almost all farmers or fishermen likewise. A stranger who has not been enlightened upon the ways of the place would be astonished at the number of small square erections, like miniature school-houses, standing each as an appendage to a dwelling-house. These are the "shoe shops," where the father of the family and his boys work, while the women within are employed in binding and trimming. Thirty or more of these shoe-shops may be counted in a walk of half-a-mile. When a Lynn shoe manufacturer receives an order, he issues the tidings. The leather is cut out by men on his premises; and then the work is given to those who apply for it; if possible, in small quantities, for the sake of dispatch. The shoes are brought home on Friday night, packed off on Saturday, and in a fortnight or three weeks are on the feet of dwellers in all parts of the Union. The whole family works upon shoes during the winter; and in the summer, the father and sons turn out into the fields, or go fishing. I knew of an instance where a little boy and girl maintained the whole family, while the earnings of the rest went to build a house. I saw very few shabby houses. Quakers are numerous in Lynn. The place is unboundedly prosperous, through the temperance and industry of the people. The deposits in the Lynn Savings' Bank in 1834, were about 34,000 dollars, the population of the town being then 4,000. Since that time, both the population and the prosperity have much increased. It must be remembered, too, that the mechanics of America have more uses for their money than are open to the operatives of England. They build houses, buy land, and educate their sons and daughters.[7]

It is probably true that the pleasures and pains of life are pretty equally distributed among its various vocations and positions: but it is difficult to keep clear of the impression which outward circumstances occasion, that some are eminently desirable. The mechanics of these northern States appear to me the most favoured class I have ever known. In England, I believe the highest order of mechanics to be, as a class, the wisest and best men of the community. They have the fewest base and narrow interests: they are brought into sufficient contact with the realities of existence, without being hardened by excess of toil and care; and the knowledge they have the opportunity of gaining is of the best kind for the health of the mind. To them, if to any, we may look for public and private virtue. The mechanics of America have nearly all the same advantages, and some others. They have better means of living: their labours are perhaps more honoured; and they are republicans, enjoying the powers and prospects of perfectly equal citizenship. The only respect in which their condition falls below that of English artisans of the highest order is that the knowledge which they have commonly the means of obtaining is not of equal value. The facilities are great: schools, lyceums, libraries, are open to them: but the instruction imparted there is not so good as they deserve. Whenever they have this, it will be difficult to imagine a mode of life more favourable to virtue and happiness than theirs.

There seems to be no doubt among those who know both England and America, that the mechanics of the New World work harder than those of the Old. They have much to do besides their daily handicraft business. They are up and at work early about this; and when it is done, they read till late, or attend lectures; or perhaps have their houses to build or repair, or other care to take of their property. They live in a state and period of society where every man is answerable for his own fortunes; and where there is therefore stimulus to the exercise of every power.

What a state of society it is when a dozen artisans of one town,—Salem,—are seen rearing each a comfortable one-story (or, as the Americans would say, two-story) house, in the place with which they have grown up! when a man who began with laying bricks criticises, and sometimes corrects, his lawyer's composition; when a poor errand-boy becomes the proprietor of a flourishing store, before he is thirty; pays off the capital advanced by his friends at the rate of 2,000 dollars per month; and bids fair to be one of the most substantial citizens of the place!

Such are the outward fortunes of the mechanics of America. Of their welfare in more important respects, to which these are but a part of the means, I shall have to speak in another connexion.

There are troubles between employers and their workmen in the United States, as elsewhere: but the case of the men is so much more in their own hands there than where labour superabounds, that strikes are of a very short duration. The only remedy the employers have, the only safeguard against encroachments from their men, is their power of obtaining the services of foreigners, for a short time. The difficulty of stopping business there is very great; the injury of delay very heavy: but the wages of labour are so good that there is less cause for discontent on the part of the workmen than elsewhere. All the strikes I heard of were on the question of hours, not of wages.

The employers are, of course, casting about to see how they can help themselves; and, as all are not wise and experienced, it is natural that some should talk of laws to prohibit Trades Unions. There is no harm in their talking of such; for the matter will never get beyond talk;—unless, indeed, the combinations of operatives should assume any forms, or comprehend any principles inconsistent with the republican spirit. The majority will not vote for any law which shall restrain any number of artisans from agreeing for what price they will sell their labour; though I heard several learned gentlemen agreeing, at dinner one day, that there ought to be such laws. On my objecting that the interest of the parties concerned would, especially in a free and rising country, settle all questions between labour and capital with more precision, fairness, and peace, than any law, it was pleaded that intimidation and outrage were practised by those who combined against those who would not join them. I found, on inquiry, that there is an ample provision of laws against intimidation and outrage; but that it is difficult to get them executed. If so, it would be also difficult to execute laws against combinations of workmen, supposing them obtained: and the grievance does not lie in the combination complained of, but somewhere else. The remedy is, (if there be indeed intimidation and outrage,) not in passing more laws, to be in like manner defied, while sufficient already exist; but in enlightening the parties on the subjects of law and social obligation.

One day, in going down Broadway, New York, the carriage in which I was, stopped for some time, in consequence of an immense procession on the side-walk having attracted the attention of all the drivers within sight. The marching gentlemen proceeded on their way, with an easy air of gentility. Banners were interposed at intervals; and, on examining these, I could scarcely believe my eyes. They told me that this was a procession of the journeymen mechanics of New York. Surely never were such dandy mechanics seen; with sleek coats, glossy hats, gay watch-guards, and doe-skin gloves!

I rejoice to have seen this sight. I had other opportunities of witnessing the prosperity of their employers; so that I could be fairly pleased at theirs. There need be no fear for the interests of either, while the natural laws of demand and supply must protect each from any serious encroachment by the other. If they will only respect the law, their temporary disagreement, and apparent opposition of interests will end in being mere readjustments of the terms on which they are to pursue their common welfare.

CHAPTER IV. COMMERCE.

"He hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another to the Indies: I understand moreover upon the Rialto, he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for England: and other ventures he hath."

Merchant of Venice.

There is no need to say much about the extent of the Commerce of the United States, since it is already the admiration of Europe, and its history is before every one in the shape of figures. The returns of exports and imports annually published are sufficiently eloquent.

It will be seen, from these returns, how great a reduction in the commerce of the United States was occasioned by the tariff, which attracted a large amount of capital from commerce, to be invested in manufactures. The balance has been nearly restored by the prospect of the expiration of the protective system; and both commerce and manufactures are again rapidly on the increase. The foreign tonnage of Massachusetts has increased fifty-three per cent. within the last five years, though, owing to a new mode of ship-construction, twice the quantity is stowed in the same nominal tonnage.

The commerce of the south-west was in high prosperity when I was there. When I was at Mobile, in April 1835, I was informed that 183,000 bales of cotton had been brought down into Mobile since the beginning of the year.[8] A friend of mine, engaged in commerce there, told me of the enormous interest on money then obtainable. Eight per cent. is the legal interest; but double is easily to be had. Another, a wealthy gentleman of New Orleans, speculates largely every season, for the sake of something to do, and makes a fortune each time, by lending out at high interest. He declares that he never loses, and never fails to gain largely; the commerce is so flourishing, and the demand for capital so intense. This is the region in which to witness the full absurdity of usury laws. They are evaded, as often as convenient, and serve no other purpose than to annex a kind of disgrace to a deed which must of necessity be done,—loaning out money at higher than the legal interest. The same evasion takes place in Massachusetts, where the legal interest is six per cent. The interest there, as elsewhere, rises just as high as the demand for money must naturally bring it.

I was acquainted with a gentleman who had lost seventy-five thousand dollars in an unfortunate speculation, and who expected to retrieve the whole the next season. The price of everything was rising. For my own share, I had to pay twelve dollars for my passage from Mobile to New Orleans: and twenty-five per cent. higher for my voyage up the Mississippi than if I had gone the preceding year. The fare I paid was fifty dollars. These two fares were the only exceptions to the remarkable cheapness of travelling in the United States and these would not be considered high anywhere else.

The Cumberland river, on which stands Nashville, the capital of Tennessee, and which empties itself into the Ohio, has scarcely been heard of in England; yet, of all the tobacco consumed in the world, one-seventh goes down this river. I ascended it in a very small steam-boat, one of twelve, six large and six small, then perpetually navigating it, and carrying cotton, tobacco, and passengers. Of these boats, one had carried, the preceding year, three hundred and sixty bales of cotton, of the value of three hundred and sixty thousand dollars.

When we look at the northern ports, and observe the variety, as well as the extent of their commerce, there seems good ground for the expectation expressed to me by many American merchants, that the English language will finally become familiar, not only over all the east, but over all the globe.

Salem, Massachusetts, is a remarkable place. This "city of peace" will be better known hereafter for its commerce than for its witch-tragedy. It has a population of 14,000; and more wealth in proportion to its population than perhaps any town in the world. Its commerce is speculative, but vast and successful. It is a frequent circumstance that a ship goes out without a cargo, for a voyage round the world. In such a case, the captain puts his elder children to school, takes his wife and younger children, and starts for some semi-barbarous place, where he procures some odd kind of cargo, which he exchanges with advantage for another, somewhere else; and so goes trafficking round the world, bringing home a freight of the highest value.

The enterprising merchants of Salem are hoping to appropriate a large share of the whale fishery; and their ships are penetrating the northern ice. They are favourite customers in the Russian ports, and are familiar with the Swedish and Norwegian coasts. They have nearly as much commerce with Bremen as with Liverpool. They speak of Fayal and the other Azores as if they were close at hand. The fruits of the Mediterranean countries are on every table. They have a large acquaintance at Cairo. They know Napoleon's grave at St. Helena, and have wild tales to tell of Mosambique and Madagasca, and store of ivory to show from thence. They speak of the power of the king of Muscat, and are sensible of the riches of the south-east coast of Arabia. It entered some wise person's head, a few seasons ago, to export ice to India. The loss, by melting, of the first cargo, was one fourth. The rest was sold at six cents per lb. When the value of this new import became known, it was in great request; and the latter sales have been almost instantaneous, at ten cents per pound: so that it is now a good speculation to send ice 12,000 miles to supersede salt-petre in cooling sherbet. The young ladies of America have rare shells from Ceylon in their cabinets; and their drawing-rooms are decked with Chinese copies of English prints. I was amused with two: the scene of Hero swooning in the church, from 'Much Ado about Nothing;' and Shakspeare between Tragedy and Comedy. The faces of Comedy and of Beatrice from the hands of Chinese! I should not have found out the place of their second birth but for a piece of unfortunate foreshortening in each. I observed to a friend, one day, upon the beauty of all the new cordage that met my eye, silky and bright. He told me that it was made of Manilla hemp, of the value of which the British seem to be unaware; though it has been introduced into England. He mentioned that he had been the first importer of it. Eight years before, 600 bales per annum were imported: now, 20,000. The merchants doubt whether Australia will be able to surmount the disadvantage of a deficiency of navigable rivers. They have hopes of Van Diemen's Land, think well of Singapore, and acknowledge great expectations from New Zealand. Any body will give you anecdotes from Canton, and descriptions of the Society and Sandwich Islands. They often slip up the western coasts of their two continents; bring furs from the back regions of their own wide land; glance up at the Andes on their return; double Cape Horn; touch at the ports of Brazil and Guiana; look about them in the West Indies, feeling there almost at home; and land, some fair morning, at Salem, and walk home as if they had done nothing very remarkable.

Such is the commerce of Salem, in its most meagre outline. Some illustration of it may be seen in the famous Salem Museum. In regard to this institution, a very harmless kind of monopoly exists. No one is admitted of the museum proprietary body who has not doubled the Capes Horn and Good Hope. Everybody is freely admitted to visit the institution; and any one may contribute, either curiosities or the means of procuring them; but the doubling of the Capes is an unalterable condition of the honour of being a member. This has the effect of preserving a salutary interest among the members of the society, and respect among those who cannot be admitted. The society have laid by 20,000 dollars, after having built a handsome hall for the reception of their curiosities; but a far more important benefit is that it has now become discreditable to return from a long voyage without some novel contribution to the Museum. This sets people inquiring what is already there, and ensures a perpetual and valuable accretion. I am glad to have seen there some Oriental curiosities, which might never otherwise have blessed my sight: especially some wonderful figures, made of an unknown mixed metal, dug up in Java, being caricatures of the old Dutch soldiers sent to guard the first colonies. A reasonably grave person might stand laughing before these for half a day. I had no idea there had been so much humour in the Java people.

The stability of the commercial interest in the United States was put to the test by the great fire at New York. All the circumstances regarding this fire were remarkable; no one more so than that not a single failure took place in consequence.

For many days preceding this fire, the weather had been intensely cold, the thermometer standing at Boston 17 degrees below zero. On the Sunday before, (13th of December 1835,) I went to hear the Seamen's friend, Father Taylor, as he is called, preach at the Sailors' Chapel, in Boston. His eloquence is of a peculiar kind, especially in his prayers, which are absolutely importunate with regard to even external objects of desire. Part of his prayer this day was, "Give us water, water! The brooks refuse to murmur, and the streams are dead. Break up the fountains: open the secret springs that thy hand knoweth, and give us water, water! Let us not perish by a famine of water, or a deluge of conflagration; for we dread the careless wandering spark." I was never before aware of the fear of fire entertained during these intense frosts. It is a reasonable fear. A gentleman, bent upon daily bathing, was seen one morning disconsolately returning from the river side; he had employed three men to break the ice, and they could not get at a drop of water. What hope was there in case of fire?

The New York fire broke out at eight in the evening of Wednesday, the 16th of December. Every one knows the leading facts, that 52 or 54 acres were laid waste; many public buildings destroyed, and property to the amount of 18,000,000 of dollars.

Several particulars were given to me on the spot, three months afterwards, by some observers and some sufferers. At a boarding-house in Broadway, where some friends of mine were residing, there were several merchants, some with their wives, who dined that day in good spirits, and, as they afterwards believed, perfectly content with their worldly condition and prospects. At eight o'clock there was an alarm of fire. It was thought nothing of; alarms of fire being as frequent as day and night in New York. After a while, a merchant of the company was sent for, and some little anxiety was expressed. Two or three persons looked out of the upper windows, but it was a night of such still, deep frost, that the reflection in the atmosphere was much less glaring than might have been expected. Another and then another gentleman was sent for. News came of the absolute lack of water, and that there was no gunpowder in the city—none nearer than Brooklyn. The gentlemen all rushed out; the anxious ladies went from the windows to the fire-side; from the fire-side to the windows. One gentleman and lady in the house, a young German couple, just arrived, and knowing scarcely a word of English, were unaware of all this. None of their chattels, not even the lady's clothes, had been removed from their store in Pearl Street, where lay her books, music, wardrobe, and property of every sort. Pretty early in the morning the poor gentleman was roused from his slumbers, could not comprehend the cause, went down to Pearl Street, and, amidst the amazement and desolation, just contrived to save his account-books, and nothing else. In the morning, the lady was destitute of even a change of raiment, in a foreign country, of whose language she could not speak one word. There were kind hearts all around her, however, and she was quite cheerful when I saw her, a few weeks afterwards.

The lady of the house was so worn, weary, and cold, by three in the morning, that she retired to her room; desiring her domestics to call her if the fire should catch Broad Street; in which case, it would be time to be packing up plate, and moving furniture. In a little while, there was a tap at her door. Broad Street was not on fire, however; but some of the gentlemen had come home, smoked and frost-bitten, and eager for help and warm water. One gentleman, who had nothing more at stake than three chests of Scotch linen, (valuable because home-woven,) of which he saved one, losing a superb Spanish cloak in the process, was desirous that his wife should see the spectacle of the conflagration. She walked down to the scene of the fire with him, after midnight. They took their stand in a square, in the centre of which an immense quantity of costly goods was heaped up. It was strange and vexatious to see the havoc that was made among beautiful things;—cachemere shawls strewing the ground; horses' feet swathed in lace veils; French silks getting entangled and torn in the wheels of the carts. The lady picked up shawls and veils; and when her husband asked her where she proposed to put them, could only throw them down again. After she had left the place, the houses caught fire, all round the square, fell in, and burned the costly goods in one grand bonfire.

There had been occasional quarrels between the merchants and the carmen. The carmen conceived themselves injured by certain merchants. Whether they had reason for this belief or not, I cannot pretend to say. They thought this a time for revenge. Some crossed their arms, as they leaned against their carts, and refused to stir a step, unless twenty dollars a load were paid them on the spot. Some few refused to help at all. This must have been a far more deadly sorrow to the sufferers than the ruin the fire was working. One carman was very provoking when a French gentleman had not a moment to lose in saving his stock. The gentleman said coolly at last, taking out his money, "For what sum will you sell your horse and cart?" The temptation was irresistible to the carman. He named 500 dollars for his sorry hack and small vehicle, and was paid on the instant. The French gentleman saved goods to the amount of 100,000 dollars. It was a good bargain for both.

At six in the morning, when the necessary explosions had checked the fire, the gentlemen of the household I have mentioned, being completely ruined, for anything they knew to the contrary, came home; and the ladies went to bed. Some of the least interested consulted what should be done at dinner-time; whether the company in general could bear the subject; whether it was best to talk or be silent. It was a languid, sorrowful meal: the gentlemen looking haggard; their ladies anxious. The next day, they were able to talk,—to describe, to relate anecdotes, and speculate on consequences. The third day, all were nearly as cheerful as if nothing had happened: though some had lost all, and others, they knew not how much.

The report of the fire spread as news through the upper part of the city, the next morning. Some friends of mine had walked home from a visit, upwards of a mile, at eleven o'clock, and neither heard nor seen anything of the fire.

The larger proportion of the New York merchants were thus deprived at a stroke of their buildings, stocks, in many cases of all books and papers, and, lastly, of the benefit of insurance. The insurance companies were plunged in almost a general insolvency. The only relief proposed, or that could be offered, was an extension of time, without interest, to the debtors of the government for payment of bonds given to secure the duties upon goods recently imported: and this small relief could not be obtained till too late to be of much use.

Happily, the fire occurred at one of the least busy seasons of the year. The merchants could concert together for the saving of their credit: and they did it to some purpose. Their credit sustained the shock of all this confusion, uncertainty, and dismay. The conduct of the merchants who had not directly suffered, and of the banks, was admirable. They threw aside all their usual caution, and dispensed help and accommodation with the last degree of liberality. The consequence was, that not one house failed. It seems now as if the commercial credit of New York could stand any shock short of an earthquake, like that of Lisbon.

Some merchants had the unexpected pleasure of finding themselves richer than they were before. One was travelling in Europe with his lady, when the news overtook him that the hundred and fifty stores in which he had property were all burned down. He wrote that he and his lady were hastening to Havre, on their way home, where they must live in the most economical and laborious manner, to repair their fortunes. With such intentions they crossed the Atlantic; and on landing were met by the intelligence that they had become very wealthy, from their ground lots having sold for more than ground, stores, and stock, were worth before.

I saw the fifty-two acres of ruins in the following April. We traversed what had been streets, and climbed the ruins of the Exchange. The pedestal of Hamilton's statue was standing, strewed round with fragments of burnt calicoes, which people were disinterring. There was a litter of stone pannels, broken columns, and cornices. Bushels of coffee paved our way. A boy presented me with a half-fused watch-key from the cellar of what had been a jeweller's store. The blackened ruins of a church frowned over all. The most singular spectacle was a store, standing alone and unharmed, amidst the desolation. It belonged to a Jew, was fire-proof, and contained hay, not a blade of which was singed. This square-fronted, elongated, ugly building, standing obliquely, and as clean as if smoke had never touched it, had a most saucy appearance: and so it might, so many erections, equally called fire-proof, having disappeared, while it alone remained.

By the next July, the entire area was covered with new erections; and long before this, doubtless, all is to the outward eye, as if no fire had happened.

But for the testimony afforded by this event, of the substantial credit in New York, the enormous prices given for land,—the above-mentioned ground lots, for instance,—might cause a suspicion that there was much wild speculation. I trust it is not so. The eagerness for land is, however, extraordinary. A lady sold an estate in the neighbourhood of New York, for what she and her friends considered a large sum; and a few weeks after she had concluded the bargain, and soon after the destruction of eighteen millions of the wealth of the city, she found she might have obtained three times the amount for which she had sold her estate. The whole south end of the city is being rapidly turned into stores; and it is obvious that the mercantile princes of this emporium have no idea of their conquests being bounded by any circumstance short of the limits of the globe.

Is there anything to be learned here, as well as to admire? any inference to be drawn for the benefit of other nations?

An English member of parliament wrote to a friend residing in one of the American ports, inquiring whether this friend could suggest any course of parliamentary action by which the commerce of England, or of both countries, could be benefited. The American replied by urging his friend to work incessantly at a repeal of the corn laws, and in any way which may keep the United States continually before the eyes of the commercial rulers of Great Britain. "You talk," said he, "of your commercial arrangements with Portugal. Well and good! but what is Portugal? She has two millions of priests and beggars; and at the end of the century she will have two millions of priests and beggars still. What will the wealth and productions of the United States be then?" If the United States have now 18,000,000 of people, and their population is increasing at an unexampled rate,—a free and an opulent population,—the interest of Great Britain is plain;—to have a primary regard to the United States in the arrangement of her commercial policy.

SECTION I.
THE CURRENCY.

The fundamental difficulty of this great question, now one of the most prominent in the United States, is indicated by the fact that, while the practice of banking is essential to a manufacturing and commercial nation, a perfect system of banking remains to be discovered.

When it is remembered that the question of the Currency has never yet been practically mastered in the countries of the Old World; that in America it has fallen into the hands of a young and inexperienced people; that it is implicated with constitutional questions, and has to be reconciled with democratic principles, it will not be expected that a passing stranger will be able to present a very clear view of its present aspect, or any decided opinion upon difficulties which perplex the wisest heads in the country. The mere history of banking in the United States would fill more than a volume: and the speculations which arise out of it, a library.

It is well known that there was an early split into parties on the subject of the constitutionality of a national bank. Washington requested the opinions of his cabinet upon it in writing; and Hamilton gave his in favour of the constitutionality of a national bank: Edmund Randolph and Jefferson against it. The question has been stirred from time to time since; while Hamilton's opinions have been acted upon.

The ground of objection is a very strong one. It lies in the provision that "all powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people." No power to establish corporations is, in any case, delegated by the constitution to the United States; nor does it appear to be countenanced by any fair construction of the permissions under which its transaction of the general business is carried on.

The answer to this is, that the supreme law of the country may give a legal or artificial capacity, (distinct from the natural,) to one or more persons, in relation to the objects committed to the management of the government: in other words, that the government has sovereign power with regard to the objects confided to it; all the limitations of the constitution having relation to the number of those objects. This was Hamilton's ground; and this is, I believe, the ground which has been taken since by those who shared his opinions on the main question. To me it appears as unsatisfactory as any other mode of begging the question. If the power of making corporations is to be assumed by the general government, on the ground of its being implied, the whole country might be covered with corporations, to which should be entrusted the discharge of any function exercised by the general government.

In countries differently governed from the United States, it appears as if it would be most reasonable either to have the currency made a national affair, transacted wholly by the government, on determined principles, or to leave banking entirely free. In neither case, probably, would the evils be so great as those which have happened under the mixture of the two systems. But in the United States, the committing the management of the currency to the general government is now wholly out of the question. Free banking will be the method, some time or other; but not yet. There is not yet knowledge enough; nor freedom enough of production and commerce to render such a policy safe. Meantime, various doctrines are afloat. Some persons are for no banking whatsoever: but mere money-lending by individuals. Some are for the abolition of paper-money, and the establishment of one public bank of deposit and transfer in each State. Some are for private banking only, with or without paper money. Some are for State incorporations, with no central bank. Others are for restoring the United States Bank.

No objections against banking and paper-money altogether will avail anything, while commerce is conducted on its present principles. It answers no practical purpose to object to any useful thing on the ground of its abuse: and while the commerce of the United States is daily on the increase, and the only check on its prosperity is the want of capital, there is no possibility of a return to the use of private money-lending and rouleaus.

The use of small notes may well and easily be discontinued. The experiment has been tried with success in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. The prohibition might, perhaps, be carried as high as to notes of twenty dollars. There seems no adequate reason for the public being, further than this, deprived of the convenience of a representative of cash; a convenience so great that there is much more probability that the ingenious Americans will devise some method of practically insuring its convertibility, than that they will surrender its use. It has often occurred to me that out of the currency troubles of the United States, might arise such a discovery of the true principle (which yet lies hidden) of insuring the convertibility, or other limitation, of a paper currency, as may be a blessing to the whole commercial world. This is an enterprise worthy of their ingenuity; and one which seems of probable achievement, when we remember how the American merchants are pressed for capital, and how all-important to them is the soundness of their credit. The principle lies somewhere, if it could but be found: and none are more likely to discover it than they.

Private banking is, in the present state of affairs, necessary and inevitable; so that there is little use in arguments for or against it. Capital is grievously wanted, in all the commercial cities. There must be some place of resort for small amounts, and for foreign capital, whence money may issue to supply the need of commercial men. There must, in other words, be money stores; and, in the absence of others, private banks must serve the purpose. The amount of good or harm which, in the present state of things, they are able to do, depends mainly on the discretion or indiscretion of their customers; who, in common prudence, must look well whom they trust.

As for State incorporations, it cannot be said that they are absolutely necessary; though the arguments in favour of their expediency are very strong. More and more money is perpetually required for the transaction of commercial business; and in a different ratio from that required by the affairs of farmers and planters; since the latter receive their returns quickly; while the merchants of the sea-board have theirs delayed for long periods, and consequently require a much larger amount of capital. These larger amounts must come mainly from abroad, whence money can be had at four and five per cent. interest; while at home, from six to twelve per cent. is paid, even while foreign capital is flowing in. It is obvious that this foreign capital will enter much more abundantly through the credit of a State bank than through private banks. Small amounts of capital, dispersed and comparatively unproductive, will also be more readily brought together, to be applied where most needed, in a State bank, than among many small firms. The States of New York and Pennsylvania have carried on their improvements, their canals and rail-roads, as well as much of their commerce, by means of foreign capital; and the surpassing prosperity of those States may be considered owing, in a great degree, to this practice. The incorporation of a bank is not always to be considered in the light of a monopoly; it may be the reverse. It may enable a number of individuals, by no means the most wealthy in the community, to compete, by an union of forces, with the most wealthy. Corporations may be multiplied, as occasion arises, and, by competition, give the public the benefit of the greatest possible amount of service done at the least cost.

Such are the leading arguments in favour of State Banks. The objections to them are in part applicable to faulty methods of incorporation, and not to the principle itself. The special exemption from liabilities to which individuals are subject; the imposing of such inhibitions elsewhere as render the affair a monopoly; the making responsibility a mere abstraction, are great, but perhaps avoidable evils. So are the methods by which charters have been obtained and renewed; the method of "log-rolling" bills through the legislature; and other such corruption.[9]

An objection less easily disposed of is, that by the creation of any great moneyed power, means are afforded of controlling the fortunes of individuals, and of influencing the press and the political constituency. If these objections cannot be obviated, they are fatal to banking corporations. If, however, any means can be devised, either by causing a sufficient publicity of proceedings, or by granting charters for a short term, renewable on strict conditions, or by any other plan for establishing a true responsibility, of uniting the benefits of incorporated banks with republican principles, it seems as if it would be a great benefit to all parties in the community.

The difference of opinion which has made the most noise in the world, is about a National Bank.

It appears to have been contemplated, in the first instance, to place the currency of the United States under the control of the general government; according to the spirit of the provisions of the constitution, that Congress should have power "to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin:" but without affording to Congress any power to control the fortunes of individuals, as may be done by certain banking operations. The state of the colonial currency had been deplorable.[10] The object now was to substitute a uniform and substantial currency, instead of the false representatives which had been in use: and to put it out of the power of the States to alter the terms of contracts by taking advantage of the faults of the currency. Nobody would take the continental bills; and gold and silver were deficient. A national bank was the resource; and the old United States Bank was chartered in 1791; it being ascertained that its issues were based on real capital, and a strict watch being kept over its operations.

This bank was believed to be wanted for another purpose;—to watch over and control the State Banks. It was not the first institution of the kind in the United States. The Bank of North America had been chartered in 1781, under the authority of the Continental Congress: but by soon accepting a charter from the Legislature of Pennsylvania, it ceased to be a national, and afforded the precedent of a State Bank. New York and Massachusetts had soon State Banks also. They were prudently conducted; and their notes presently banished the coin. The power of Congress over the currency was gone. All that could be done now was for the National Bank to control the State Banks, and keep their issues within bounds, as well as it could.

Occasional disorders happened from the misconduct of country banks, prior to 1811. The renewal of the charter of the United States Bank was then refused. The government was pressed by the evils of war; and the check of the superintendence of the Bank being withdrawn, the local banks, out of New England, came to the agreement, (too senseless to be ever repeated,) to suspend specie payments. All issued what kind and quantity of paper pleased themselves, till above twice the amount of money needed was abroad; and the notes were in some States five, in others ten, in others twenty, below par. The New England people, meantime, used convertible paper only; and under the law which provides that all duties, imposts, and excises should be uniform throughout the States, were thus compelled to pay one tenth more to the revenue officers than the people of New York, who used the depreciated currency: and one-fifth more than the Baltimore merchants.

This state of things could not last. A national bank was again established, in 1816, for the purpose of controlling the local banks. Its charter was for twenty years, with a capital of 35,000,000 dollars, to which the federal government subscribed one fifth. Its notes were made receivable for any debt due to the United States.

Its purpose was presently answered. The local banks had, in three years, resumed cash payments. The management of the United States Bank, during the rest of its term, has been, upon the whole, prudent and moderate. That a power has not been abused is not, however, a reason for its continued exercise, if it be really unconstitutional. President Jackson thinks, and the majority thinks with him, that it is contrary to the spirit of the constitution, (as it is certainly unauthorised by its letter,) that any institution should have the power, unchecked for a long term of years, of affecting the affairs of individuals, from the further corners of Maine or Missouri, down to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico; of influencing elections; of biassing the press; and of acting strongly either with or against the administration. The majority considers, that if the United States Bank has great power for good, it has also great power for harm; and that the general government cannot be secure of working naturally in its limited functions, while this great power subsists, to be either its enemy or its ally.

This seems to be proved by the charges brought against the late Bank by President Jackson. Whether they are true or false, (and the gravest of them do not appear to have been substantiated,) they indicate that power is in the hands of a central institution, which no federal establishment ought to have, otherwise than by the express permission of the constitution.

As for President Jackson's mode of proceeding against the Bank,—it is an affair of merely temporary interest, unless he should be found to have exceeded the authority conferred on him by his office. He does seem to have done so, in one particular, at least. His first declaration against the renewal of the charter, was honest and manly. His re-election, after having made this avowal, was a sufficient evidence of the desire of the majority to extinguish the Bank. It was, no doubt, in reliance on the will of the majority, thus indicated, that the President removed the deposits in a peculiarly high-handed manner; and also exercised the veto, when the two Houses had passed a bill to renew the charter of the United States Bank.

With the last of these measures, no one has any right to quarrel. He exercised a constitutional power, according to his long-declared convictions. His sudden removal of the deposits is not to be so easily justified.

The President has the power of removing his Secretaries from office, and of appointing others, whose appointment must be sanctioned by the Senate. The Secretaries of State are enjoined by law to execute such orders as shall be imposed on them by the President of the United States:—all the Secretaries but the Secretary of the Treasury. In his case, no such specification is made; obviously because it would not be wise to put the whole power of the Treasury into the hands of the President. President Jackson, however, contrived to obtain this power by using with adroitness his other power of removal from office. Mr. Duane was appointed Secretary of the Treasury on the 29th of May, 1833; his predecessor having been offered a higher office. It is known that the predecessor had given his opinion in the cabinet against removing the Treasury deposits from the Bank; and that Mr. Duane was an acknowledged enemy of the Bank. On the 3rd of June, the President opened to the new Secretary his scheme of removing the deposits. Mr. Duane was opposed to the act, as being a violation of the government contract with the Bank. He refused to sign the necessary order. While he was still in office, on the 20th of September, the intended removal of the deposits was announced in the government newspaper. On the 23rd, Mr. Duane was dismissed from office; and Mr. Taney, who had previously promised to sign the order, was installed in the office. On the 26th, the official order for the removal of the deposits was given. No plea of impending danger to the national funds, if such could have been substantiated, could justify so high-handed a deed as this. No such plea has been substantiated; and the act remains open to strong censure.

Just before the expiration of its charter, the United States Bank accepted a charter from the Legislature of Pennsylvania. It remains to be seen what effects will arise from the operation of the most powerful State Bank which has yet existed.

The problem now is to keep a sound currency, in the absence of an institution, believed to be unconstitutional, but hitherto found the only means of establishing order and safety in this most important branch of economy. Here is a deficiency, which cannot but be the cause of much evil and perplexity. It must be supplied, either by increased knowledge and improved philosophy and practice among the people, or by an amendment of the Constitution. Meanwhile, it is only time and energy lost to insist upon the return to a mere metallic currency. Society cannot be set back to a condition which could dispense with so great an improvement as paper-money, with all its abuses, undoubtedly is.

The singular order which last year emanated from the Treasury, compelling the payments for the public lands to be made in specie, will not have the effect of making the people in love with a metallic currency. If this measure is intended to be an obstacle to the purchase of large quantities of land, or virtually to raise the price,—these are affairs with which the Treasury has nothing to do. If it is intended merely to compel cash payments, as far as the administration has power to do so, it seems a pity that those who undertake to meddle with the currency should not know better what they are about. The scarcity of money in the eastern States has been well nigh ruinous, while large amounts of specie have been accumulated in the west, where they are not wanted.

The mischief thus caused has been much increased by the injudicious method in which the deposits have been distributed among the States, according to the Deposit Bill of the session of 1836. The details of the extraordinary state of the money-market in America, last year, are too well known on both sides of the water, to need to be repeated here.

One principle stands out conspicuously from the history of the last few years: that no President or Secretary should be allowed the opportunity of "taking the responsibility" of meddling with the currency of the country: in other words, the taxation should be reduced, as soon as in equity and convenience it can be done, so as to bring down the revenue to a proportion with the wants of the government. If the general government is to have anything to do with the currency at all, it should be by such business being made a separate constitutional function. To let the Treasury overflow,—and leave its overflowings to be managed at the discretion of one public servant, removable by one other, is a policy as absurd as dangerous. The most obvious security lies, not in multiplying checks upon the officers, but in reducing the overflowings of the Treasury to the smallest possible amount. This is President Jackson's last recorded opinion on the subject. It appears worthy to be kept on record.

SECTION II.
REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE.

There is less to be said on this head than would be possible in any other country. When it is known that the United States are troubled with the large surplus revenue accruing from the sale of the public lands, the whole story is told. The stranger will hear much lamentation in the Senate about the increase of the public expenses, and will see Hon. Members looking as solemn as if the nation were sinking into a gulf of debt: but the fear and complaint are, not of the expenditure of money, but of the increase of executive patronage.

The Customs are the chief source of the revenue of the general government. They are in course of reduction, year by year. The next great resource is the sale of the public lands. This may be called inexhaustible; so large is the area yet unoccupied, and so increasing the influx of settlers.

This happy country is free from the infliction of an excise system; an exemption which goes far towards making it the most desirable of all places of residence for manufacturers who value practical freedom in the management of their private concerns, and honesty among their work-people. The brewer and glass-manufacturer see the tax-gatherer's face no oftener than other men. The Post-Office establishment in America is for the advantage of the people, and not for purposes of taxation; and every one is satisfied if it pays its own expenses. A small sum is yielded by patent fees; and also by the mint. Lighthouse-tolls constitute another item. But all these united are trifling in comparison with the revenue yielded from the two great sources, the Customs and the Public Lands.[11]

The expenditures of the general government are for salaries, pensions, (three or four hundred pounds,) territorial governments, the mint, surveys, and improvements, the census and other public documents, and the military and naval establishments.

The largest item in the civil list is the payment to Members of Congress, who receive eight dollars per day, for the session, and their travelling expenses. The President's salary is 25,000 dollars. The Vice-president's 5,000. Each of the Secretaries of State, and the Postmaster-general's, 6,000. The Attorney-general's, 4,000.

The seven Judges of the Supreme Court are salaried with the same moderation as other members of the federal government. The Chief Justice has 5,000 dollars; the six Associate Judges 4,500 each.

The Commissioned Officers of the United States army were, in 1835, 674. Non-commissioned Officers and Privates, 7,547. Total of the United States army, 8,221.

In the navy, there were, in 1835, 37 Captains, and 40 Masters-commandant. The navy consisted of 12 ships of the line; 14 first-class frigates; 3 second-class; 15 sloops of war; 8 schooners and other small vessels of war.

The revenue and expenditure of most of the States are so small as to make the annual financial statement resemble the account-books of a private family. The land tax, the proportion of which varies in every State, is the chief source of revenue. Licenses, fines, and tolls, yield other sums. In South Carolina, there is a tax on free people of colour!

The highest salary that I find paid to the government of a State is 4,000 dollars, (New York and Pennsylvania;) the lowest, 400 dollars, (Rhode Island.) The other expenses, besides those of government, are for the defence of the State, (in Pennsylvania, about forty pounds!) for education, (two thousand pounds, in Pennsylvania, the same year,) prisons, pensions, and state improvements.[12]

Such is the financial condition of a people of whom few are individually very wealthy or very poor; who all work; and who govern themselves, appointing one another to manage their common affairs. They have had every advantage that nature and circumstances could give them; and nothing to combat but their own necessary inexperience. As long as the State expenditure for defence bears the proportion to education of 40l. to 2,000l., and on to 80,000l., (the amount of the school-tax, now, in Massachusetts,) all is safe and promising. There is great virtue in figures, dull as they are to all but the few who love statistics for the sake of what they indicate. Those which are cited above disclose a condition and a prospect in the presence of which all fears for the peace and virtue of the States are shamed. Men who govern themselves and each other with such moderate means, and for such unimpeachable objects, are no more likely to lapse into disorder than to submit to despotism.