The First Quarter of the Century: South and North

Agriculture, on the contrary, received a powerful impetus, and its products greatly increased in value. Cotton, which had been sold with difficulty at ten cents per pound, now had a ready sale at more than double that price. Tobacco rose from two or three to fifteen, twenty, and even twenty-five dollars the hundred-weight. The value of land and labor rose in proportion, producers and merchants became enriched by the rapid rise in prices, and the shipping interests of the country grew more prosperous than ever before. The currency, which during the war had become a depreciated paper money, continued disordered, but this had no specially disturbing influence on the agricultural and commercial prosperity of the country, and every interest except that of manufacture was remarkably benefited. With this sudden change from poverty and privation to affluence and luxury the expenditure of the people greatly increased. Gold watches replaced those of silver, silk goods took the place of cotton, costly wines succeeded whiskey and other common beverages, furniture became transformed, and in every way the enhanced wealth of the people made itself apparent. Yet during this period the only money in use south of New England was the irredeemable paper of the banks, or in some cases the currency issues of irresponsible individuals.

An effort was made to overcome the latter difficulty by the establishment of a national bank. The charter of the former institution of this character had expired in 1811. After considerable debate, Congress passed, during the session of 1816, an act founding a national bank. This institution, which was given a twenty years' charter, was incorporated with a capital of thirty-five millions of dollars, its debts being limited to fifty millions, exclusive of deposits. Measures were taken at the same time to enforce a resumption of specie payments by the State banks. In the succeeding year (1817) a bill was passed for the total repeal of the internal taxes, and the financial conditions of the war finally disappeared In 1816 the funded debt of the Union was estimated at one hundred and ten millions of dollars.

During the period now under consideration certain important variations had taken place in the industrial relations of the people. There was a growing tendency to the division of the country into two marked sections,-one the home of free labor and of advancing commercial and manufacturing interests, the other the seat of slave labor and of developing agricultural conditions. Up to 1790 this separation of interests was not clearly evident. The vigorous measures of England had prevented any thriving development of manufactures, while outside the tobacco of Virginia the country produced no agricultural staple of sectional importance. The difficulties attending the preparation of cotton for the market as yet checked the development of that industry. But with the invention of the cotton-gin by Whitney, in 1791, cotton quickly rose to a prominent position among American industries. By the aid of this instrument three hundred and fifty pounds of cotton could be cleaned in a day, as compared with one pound by hand-labor. As a result, the cotton-product augmented with the utmost rapidity. In 1800 the export had reached the seemingly high figure of 19,000,000 pounds. In 1824 it reached 142,000,000 pounds.

Slave labor, which had been growing an undesirable form of industry, now became of high value, and the slaves of the country increased from 657,047 in 1790 to 1,524,580 in 1820. During the same period the total population increased from 3,929,782 to 9,654,596 persons. But, while slavery was thus developing in the South, it was vanishing from the North, and the industrial interests of the country were becoming strikingly differentiated, the character of the inhabitants of the two sections similarly deviating.

The industrial development of the slave States soon fell behind that of the North. The character of Northern agricultural labor required the division of the land into small farms, which had to be kept up to a high level of productiveness. The system of agricultural labor in the South tended towards increase in size of plantations, in which the soil was systematically exhausted, with no attempt to reproduce its fertility. In the North industry was the business of all, emulation was excited, and the worker was looked upon as the peer of any in the land. In the South labor was despised, the planter gave himself up to social enjoyment, and left the care of his interests to the overseer. The price of land in the South steadily fell behind that of the North.