rk of
railway communications throughout the State had come into fairly complete
operation, the value of imports was $144,454,616.

Under the influence of railroad and canal Chicago also made swift and
wonderful progress. In May, 1848, a canal one hundred miles in length was
opened to connect Lake Michigan with the Illinois River, and the first
section of a railway from Chicago to the westward was opened in March,
1849. Previously to these works being brought into operation it appears
from the city census of 1847 that the population was 16,859; in 1850, it
had sprung to 29,963, and in August, 1852 it was estimated at nearly, if
not quite, 40,000, having thus considerably more than doubled itself in
five years.

The efforts of the Southern States to attract toward their ports the
produce of the West, by way of the magnificent rivers which empty
themselves into the Gulf of Mexico, rivalled those made by the North. The
prosperity of these States was greatly promoted by the growing demand for
cotton in America and Europe. In the thirty-one years from 1821 to 1852,
there had been an increase of 3,000,000 bales in the growth, which
multiplied itself during that period seven-fold! The importance of this
crop as an element of wealth may be estimated from the fact that the
census value of it in 1849-50 was $112,000,000; that its cultivation and
preparation for market employed upward of 800,000 agricultural laborers,
85 per cent of whom were slaves and the residue (120,000) white citizens;
that upward of 120,000 tons of steam shipping, and at least 7000 persons
were engaged in its transportation from the interior to the southern
ports, and that after remunerating merchants, factors, underwriters and a
host of other persons it furnished profitable freight for 1,100,000 tons
of American shipping, and 55,000 seamen in the Gulf and Atlantic coasting
trade, and for 800,000 tons and 40,000 seamen for its transport to Europe
and elsewhere. As the Southern people generally believed that cotton
could not be cultivated without the labor of slaves it is easy to
understand why they were sensitive to every agitation, however slight,
that seemed to threaten that source of wealth, and how their
sensitiveness grew as cotton's empire extended.

Manufactures were also in a flourishing condition, and it was estimated
in 1852, that the capital embarked in the cotton manufactories of the
United States was at least $80,000,000; that the value of the