policy was {37} essential to our welfare and peace, for the country was
more dangerously divided in 1793 than in 1916.

How intimately our peace has depended upon our economic development is
revealed by the early failure of this policy of disentanglement. Prior
to 1812 our immediate economic interests overhung our territory and
transcended our sovereignty. All Europe being at war, we were the
neutral carriers of the world. Our ships brought merchandise to France
from her colonies and allies, and goods from the West Indies and South
America to all parts of Europe. In the decade ending 1801 our foreign
trade, which was dependent upon the indulgence of Europe, more than
quadrupled. The profits on our carrying trade were immense. Our
shipbuilding industry increased, and not only were orders filled for
our own foreign trade but many ships were manufactured for export. The
prices of agricultural products almost doubled and our meat, flour,
cotton and wool found a ready market in Europe. Our prosperity
depended upon this newly created foreign trade. Sail-makers,
ship-builders, draymen, farmers, merchants were dependent upon a trade
which menaced the commercial supremacy of Great Britain and upon which
even France looked with jealous apprehension.

It was this conflict of our interests with those of a stronger nation
that brought on the bitter controversies with Great Britain, and
resulted in the tedious war of 1812. We were more dependent upon
Europe than Europe upon us, as was shown by the fiasco of our Embargo
policy. England, determined to kill our commerce, would have fought
many years to accomplish this purpose. But it did not prove necessary.
Our commercial progress, that had been merely an incident in a European
war, lessened after the peace. For us this was fortunate. Our future
lay in our own continent, and not on the high sea where as {38} a
relatively weak nation, we should have been forced to compete with the
world and war continually with England.

To-day, one hundred years later we are still pacific, because of the
direction taken by our economic development since 1815. While we
developed agriculture, constructed turnpikes, canals and railroads,
manufactured for the home market, and filled up the country from the
Appalachians to the Pacific, our American-borne commerce and our
shipbuilding declined; by 1846, our American tonnage in foreign trade
was less than in 1810. But the profits of this car