hus brought the isolated farmers
of the Western interior into close contact with the markets of the
world, and the Northwest was fast becoming the food-producing region of
the country and at the same time exporting grain worth at least
$50,000,000 a year. In New York, Pennsylvania, and other Eastern States
the corn and wheat output steadily declined between 1850 and 1860, while
the up-country of the South failed to produce the foodstuffs needed by
the planters. Thus the manufacturing and the older staple-producing
States came to rely on the Northwest for a large part of their
provisions.

Western farmers were now well-to-do. They deserted their log cabins and
built frame houses; they bought large quantities of the finer goods of
the East. Pianos made in Germany and silks from France found their way
to Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa. Villages became towns and towns grew
rapidly into cities. Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Chicago
imitated the ways and manners of Boston and New York. It was a busy,
ambitious life that animated the West and produced industrial leaders
like Cyrus McCormick, William B. Ogden, and John Y. Scammon, and
politicians like Stephen A. Douglas, Salmon P. Chase, and the Dodges of
Iowa and Wisconsin.

But in this busy region with its self-sufficing agriculture, the actual
surplus capital, as in the South, found its way to Eastern cities. With
a population of nearly 8,000,000 and foreign exports of more than
$50,000,000, the Northwest still had only $10,425,000 on deposit in her
banks and $27,000,000 invested in banking enterprises. Her _per capita_
circulation was only $4. Here as in the South the amount of specie in
the banks was twice as great in proportion to population and the volume
of business transacted as in the East. The debts of the Northwest to the
East and to Europe cannot well be estimated, but they were enormous.
States, counties, and corporations owed hundreds of millions, and when
the interest on these obligations was paid at the end of each year, the
remaining net increase was small indeed. The West had been badly in debt
during the Jackson period; it was still in debt.

While the growing Northwest owed more to the rest of the world than it
was likely to pay in half a century, its leaders saw that it must
continue to expand its area and improve its economic life. Undoubtedly
the one leader who best understood the needs of his region was Stephen
A. Douglas, Senator from Illinois