loration.=--J.G. Neihardt, _The Splendid
Wayfaring_. J.G. Neihardt, _The Song of Hugh Glass_.

PART V. SECTIONAL CONFLICT AND RECONSTRUCTION

CHAPTER XIII

THE RISE OF THE INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM

If Jefferson could have lived to see the Stars and Stripes planted on
the Pacific Coast, the broad empire of Texas added to the planting
states, and the valley of the Willamette waving with wheat sown by
farmers from New England, he would have been more than fortified in his
faith that the future of America lay in agriculture. Even a stanch old
Federalist like Gouverneur Morris or Josiah Quincy would have mournfully
conceded both the prophecy and the claim. Manifest destiny never seemed
more clearly written in the stars.

As the farmers from the Northwest and planters from the Southwest poured
in upon the floor of Congress, the party of Jefferson, christened anew
by Jackson, grew stronger year by year. Opponents there were, no doubt,
disgruntled critics and Whigs by conviction; but in 1852 Franklin
Pierce, the Democratic candidate for President, carried every state in
the union except Massachusetts, Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee. This
victory, a triumph under ordinary circumstances, was all the more
significant in that Pierce was pitted against a hero of the Mexican War,
General Scott, whom the Whigs, hoping to win by rousing the martial
ardor of the voters, had nominated. On looking at the election returns,
the new President calmly assured the planters that "the general
principle of reduction of duties with a view to revenue may now be
regarded as the settled policy of the country." With equal confidence,
he waved aside those agitators who devoted themselves "to the supposed
interests of the relatively few Africans in the United States." Like a
watchman in the night he called to the country: "All's well."

The party of Hamilton and Clay lay in the dust.

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

As pride often goeth before a fall, so sanguine expectation is sometimes
the symbol of defeat. Jackson destroyed the bank. Polk signed the tariff
bill of 1846 striking an effective blow at the principle of protection
for manufactures. Pierce promised to silence the abolitionists. His
successor was to approve a drastic step in the direction of free trade.
Nevertheless all these things left untouched the springs of power that
were in due time to make America the greatest industrial nation on the
earth; namely, vast national resou