inia, it is true, had capital far in excess of the banks of the
Northwest; but still they were relatively small compared with the
financial institutions of the East.

=The Growth of the Industrial Population.=--A revolution of such
magnitude in industry, transport, and finance, overturning as it did the
agrarian civilization of the old Northwest and reaching out to the very
borders of the country, could not fail to bring in its train
consequences of a striking character. Some were immediate and obvious.
Others require a fullness of time not yet reached to reveal their
complete significance. Outstanding among them was the growth of an
industrial population, detached from the land, concentrated in cities,
and, to use Jefferson's phrase, dependent upon "the caprices and
casualties of trade" for a livelihood. This was a result, as the great
Virginian had foreseen, which flowed inevitably from public and private
efforts to stimulate industry as against agriculture.

[Illustration: LOWELL, MASSACHUSETTS, IN 1838, AN EARLY INDUSTRIAL
TOWN]

It was estimated in 1860, on the basis of the census figures, that
mechanical production gave employment to 1,100,000 men and 285,000
women, making, if the average number of dependents upon them be
reckoned, nearly six million people or about one-sixth of the population
of the country sustained from manufactures. "This," runs the official
record, "was exclusive of the number engaged in the production of many
of the raw materials and of the food for manufacturers; in the
distribution of their products, such as merchants, clerks, draymen,
mariners, the employees of railroads, expresses, and steamboats; of
capitalists, various artistic and professional classes, as well as
carpenters, bricklayers, painters, and the members of other mechanical
trades not classed as manufactures. It is safe to assume, then, that
one-third of the whole population is supported, directly, or indirectly,
by manufacturing industry." Taking, however, the number of persons
directly supported by manufactures, namely about six millions, reveals
the astounding fact that the white laboring population, divorced from
the soil, already exceeded the number of slaves on Southern farms and
plantations.

_Immigration._--The more carefully the rapid growth of the industrial
population is examined, the more surprising is the fact that such an
immense body of free laborers could be found, particularly when it is
recalled to what