Henry Clay as a political
leader; however we recognize that he has a national standing as a
constructive statesman, we must perceive, if we probe the matter deeply
enough, that his policy and his power grew out of the economic and
social conditions of the people whose needs he voiced--the people of the
Ohio Valley. It was the fact that in this period they had begun to
create an agricultural surplus, which made the necessity for this
legislation.

The nation has recently celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of
Fulton's invention of the steamboat, and the Hudson river has been
ablaze in his honor; but in truth it is on the Ohio and the Mississippi
that the fires of celebration should really burn in honor of Fulton, for
the historic significance to the United States of the invention of the
steamboat does not lie in its use on Eastern rivers; not even in its use
on the ocean; for our own internal commerce carried in our own ships has
had a vaster influence upon our national life than has our foreign
commerce. And this internal commerce was at first, and for many years,
the commerce of the Ohio Valley carried by way of the Mississippi. When
Fulton's steamboat was applied in 1811 to the Western Waters, it became
possible to develop agriculture and to get the Western crops rapidly and
cheaply to a market. The result was a tremendous growth in the entire
Ohio Valley, but this invention did not solve the problem of cheap
supplies of Eastern manufactures, nor satisfy the desire of the West to
build up its own factories in order to consume its own products. The
Ohio Valley had seen the advantage of home markets, as her towns grew
up with their commerce and manufacturers close to the rural regions.
Lands had increased in value in proportion to their nearness to these
cities, and crops were in higher demand near them. Thus Henry Clay found
a whole section standing behind him when he demanded a protective tariff
to create home markets on a national scale, and when he urged the
breaking of the Alleghany barrier by a national system of roads and
canals. If we analyse the congressional votes by which the tariff and
internal improvement acts were passed, we shall find that there was an
almost unbroken South against them, a Middle Region largely for them, a
New England divided, and the Ohio Valley almost a unit, holding the
balance of power and casting it in favor of the American system.

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