mports
of the United States had exhibited but little increase. "The nation was
building an empire of its own with sections which took the place of
kingdoms."[3] New England, New York and Pennsylvania were manufacturing
the clothing and iron utensils for the West and South. The people of
the South were absorbed in cotton raising. They relied upon the West
for much of their food and live stock; they bought their clothing and
machinery from the North Atlantic States; and their exports brought in
the specie which facilitated the commerce of all sections. The West was
becoming a vast granary. Its new factories were drawing artisans from
the East and taking laborers from the country to swell the demand for
flour and grain that had recently been seeking in vain for a market.
The volume of shipments of food and merchandise down the Mississippi
was larger than ever and the manufacturing population of the East,
already too large to be fed by the agricultural produce of New England,
New York and Pennsylvania, was beginning to draw subsistence from the
western farms.

[3] F. J. Turner, _Rise of the New West_, p. 297.

Means of cheap transportation, the lack of which had been so great an
obstacle to internal development, had been or were being supplied to
meet the requirements of the new conditions. The steamboat arrivals at
New Orleans numbered a thousand each year. Water communication between
the Atlantic Ocean and the very center of the United States was
established when the Erie Canal connected the Hudson River to the
waterway afforded by the series of great inland seas. There were 1,343
miles of canals in operation in all the United States, and 1,828 miles
more were in the process of construction. Louisville was rejoicing in
the completion of a canal around the falls of the Ohio; Ohio and
Indiana were rapidly pushing the work on the canals that were to tap
the regions hitherto tributary only to the Mississippi; the
construction of the Pennsylvania Canal was being hurried forward to
enable Philadelphia to recover the trade lost to the Erie; Maryland and
Virginia were persistently going on with the building of the waterway
westward from Chesapeake Bay. And meanwhile 44 miles of railway had
been completed and were in operation, and to show that confidence in
the new device was not lacking, 422 miles were in the process of
construction and 697 miles more were already projected.

II

1830-1860

The years between