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commerce of the United States, by T.W. van Mettre

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Title: Outline of the development of the internal commerce of the United States
1789-1900

Author: T.W. van Mettre

Release Date: May 24, 2008 [EBook #25588]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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An Outline of the Development

OF THE

Internal Commerce of the United States

1789-1900

By T. W. VAN METRE

Thesis presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School
of the University of Pennsylvania in partial
fulfilment of the requirements for
the degree of Ph.D.

BALTIMORE
WILLIAMS & WILKINS CO.
1913

AN OUTLINE OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE
INTERNAL COMMERCE OF THE
UNITED STATES, 1789-1900[1]

[1] In this paper, which is a brief abstract of a work to be
published later, an attempt is made to outline the history of the
development of the internal commerce of the United States after
the formation of the Union in 1789. The term "internal commerce,"
though in its fullest signification embracing every purchase,
sale, and exchange of commodities between the individuals of a
country together with the business of transmitting intelligence
and of transporting persons and things from place to place, is
here used primarily as applying to the interchanges of
commodities among the various sections of the United States
carried on over interior lines of transportation--the rivers,
highways, canals, lakes and railroads.

I

1789-1830

At the beginning of the national era the internal commerce of the
United States gave small promise of the tremendous development it was
to undergo during the ensuing century. There was as yet too little
differentiation of occupation to give rise to a large interstate trade
in native products, and the proximi