T HIE
. /I  
WESTERN STATES:
THEIR PURSUITS AND POLICY.
BY
Dr. WILLIAM
PHILADELPHIA:
RINGWALT & BROWN, STEAM-POWER PRINTERS,
Nos. 111 and 113 South Fourth Street.
June, 1865.
10
EILDER.
I._   
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TilE WESTERN STATES:
THEIR PURSUITS AND POLICY.
Products and Pursuits.
That portion of the Mississippi valley which is drained by the
Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri rivers, and embraced in the
States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Kansas, and the territory of
Nebraska, lies all above the 36th degree of north latitude, and is
well distinguished by its characteristics and capabilities from
the States, East, South and West of it. These States take the
rank of agricultural, as distinguished from the planting, goldbearing, and mixed industrial regions which surround them.
They are almost the youngest of the sisterhood, and being eminently fitted for farming industry, the cultivation of the soil
was necessarily the earliest stage of their industrial history.
Hitherto their growth has been in this direction to such extent
and with such success, that they are regarded and distinguished
as agricultural states. By this loose general classification,
however, we must not assume to settle their policy, determine
their enterprise, or foreclose their prospects. If the designation
were used only to describe the earliest phase of their productions and pursuits, it would be correct enough; to indicate their
rank among the other States, it is proper enough; used inclusively, it is accurate enough; but used exclusively, it is manifestly and greatly erroneous. They have some manufacturing
(3)
at
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.*.
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industry, and they have some commercial relations with the rest
of the Union and with foreign nations, and they are capable of
great enlargement in both respects.
It is our purpose to examine their condition and prospects in
all these aspects. Our data are derived from the agricultural
volume of the Census Report of 1860; the preliminary Census
Report for the same year on their manufactures; the Reports of
the Agricultural Department at Washington, the Treasury Reports upon commerce and navigation, and for a special purpose,
the Report of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue for the
year 1864.*
Population and Property-Amount and Proportion.
The aggregate population of these eleven valley States in
1860, was 10,445,580-331 per cent of the total population of
the Union. Their real and personal property was valued at
$4,519,263,737,-31.87 per cent of the total wealth of the
nation, slaves excluded. The cash value of their farms was
$2,462,350,921,-37.05 per cent of the total.  In farming
implements and machinery they had $80,275,535,-32  per
cent., and of live stock $382,405,994,-35.1 per cent of the
whole.
Thus in population, and in property connected with husbandry, they stood within a trifle, over or under, of one-third of the
Union in each item.
*The fiscal year ending June 30, 1860, is chosen as better and fairer for the
purposes of this inquiry than any other, or any average of years, for several
reasons: It is the year immediately preceding the rebellion, and fully closed
before our domestic business or foreign trade was in any wise affected by that
event. It was a year of fair prices. Our exports and imports were larger
than in any that preceded it. Previous to the year 1854 our domestic exports,
exclusive of specie, had never reached the value of two hundred millions of
dollars. Their average value during the six years immediately preceding 1860
was 247 millions; in 1860 they mounted to 316 millions, being 38 millions
higher than the highest ever before attained. It is the year to which the
Eighth Census closely applies in the matter of domestic productions; moreover
the business of that year, both productive and commercial, may be taken to
have fully recovered from the disturbance of 1857, and had not reached the
stage of inflation. All the conditions were as nearly normalr and as even an
index of our capacities as any in our business history.
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Agricutural Products, value and proportion in 1859.
Proportion to product of the nation.
59.1 per cent.
56.0  "
24.4  "
39.1  "
40.0  "
41.8  "
34.8  "
37.8  "
35.8  "
33.2  "
59.0  "
90.7  "
Quantity.
102,398,994 bushels,
470,190,097      "
5,160,418      "
67,567,707      "
173,758,747 pounds,
25,231,830    "
$81,800,333
7,219,957 tons,
164,785,997 lbs.,
36,759,801 bushels,
955,717 gallons,
67,555 tons,
Of the total value of all the agricultural products of the year,
including twenty-five other items of less importance than those
enumerated here, these States produced $1,159,605,660, which
was equal to 39.7 per cent of the total of the Union, exclusive
of cotton, rice, cane sugar and molasses. Thus it appears that
with a capital of real and personal property something less than
thirty-two per cent, they reached forty per cent of the farming
products proper of the Union in the year 1859.
Products for Market and Home Consumption.
We strike from the aggregate the estimated value of the farming implements, horses, mules, working oxen, milch cows, held
for use, $259,605,660, which leaves 900 millions worth, for
immediate consumption by the producing States, and for market
in the other States and in foreign countries.
Foreign Market for the Year's Crop.
The United States exported in the year ending June 30, 1860,
to all foreign countries, of the articles enumerated and embraced
in the preceding statements, the value of $61,891,042. It is
impossible to trace these exports to the several States in which
they were produced, blended as they are at the ports of shipment, but as they are all articles in domestic use, and in nearly
equal proportions to population in all the States, we may safely
assume for the Western States a proportion of the exports
Kind.
Wheat,
Indian Corn,
Rye,
Oats,
Tobacco,
Wool,
Slaughtered Animals
Hay,
Butter,
Irish Potatoes,
Wine,
Hemp, 
6
equal to their share in the production. This, as before stated,
is 39.7 per cent. We will, for convenience, take it at 40, which
would give a foreign market for $24,800,000 of the value of all
agricultural articles.  Subtract this from the sum of the disposable crop of the year, and we have for the consumption of the
producing States, and the market of the other States. the value
of $875,200,000.
A foreign market for 2- per cent. and a reserve of 971 of the
crop, or as $1 is to $35.36 worth.
Mfarket for the Produce of the Western States il the other
States.
By the following process we endeavor to obtain an estimate of
the market which the eleven Western States had in the other
States of the Union for these products of the year 1859.
The value of all these articles produced, in all the States,
was $2,918,617,192; reduced by an equal proportion for farm ing utensils and live stock not on sale, or retained for use as
agents in further production, as allowed for in the Western
States, leaves a total of disposable value of $2,169,431,833.
The total exports to foreign countries of these commodities
was 62 millions. The balance left for domestic consumption
would be $2,107,431,833. The consumers for these, were a
national population of 31 millions, of which the Western States
had 331 per cent. Their proportion of the total home consumption would be $684,915,345, leaving them a surplus demanding
a market in the other States amounting to $190,284,655. A
market in the other States for more than seven and a half times
the value of the exports to all foreign countries; or, 20,702,467
inhabitants of the other States of the Union afford them a market
average per capita of $9.19, while about seventy-two millions of
European customers in manufacturing countries, took an average
of 17~ cents worth per capita, or $12,400,000 in all, the other
$12,400,000 going to countries in Asia, Africa and America,
which supply us with unmanufactured articles.
Distriution among the other States Explained.
The 10 Southern Slave States, (Texas not included,) which
needed these supplies, had a total population of 8,499,118, of 
7
whom 3,338,544 were slaves, who may be taken to consume
much less than the average quantity of western produce assigned
to them, but a glance at the agricultural productions of the New
England States will show that to make up their ratio of consumption they would require as much more than they produce
as would cover the deficit of the Slave States; we may, therefore,
take the average demand for supplies from the Western States
to be a safe approximation to the actual total which we obtain
by the process here adopted. The United States consume very
exactly five bushels of wheat, or one barrel of flour, per head
per annum. New York and New England in 1860, together
required twenty-six millions of bushels in addition to their own
production to make up their consumption. Here then there is
a market for eleven millions of bushels more than the average
adopted assigns to the share of the slaves, if they consumed not
a grain of the breadstuffs. Thus we measure the total market
in the other states safely enough without distributing it with
particular accuracy.
A Home Consumption provided for the total Exports to
3fanufacturing Coutntries.
The countries in Europe from which we import manufactured
goods, took of the produce of the Western States in 1860 to
the value of $12,400,000.  How many immigrants from those
countries, if located in these states, would have consumed this
amount? At $65.66-1 per capita, it would have required only
188,837 persons; certainly not more than the number of immigrants which these states usually receive in the course of a year.
What number of immigrants from the manufacturing countries
with which we trade would consume 12T4 millions worth of
western produce, if located in any of the other states? At
$9.19 a head it would take 1,349,292. But if only 150,000
immigrants a year should enter the mining regions west of
these states, they would take at least 71 of the 12Tr m'illions
worth for which their countrymen at home are customers;
50,000 locating in these states would take 31 millions worth,
and 180,000 in the Old States would make a market for the
balance. Is this too much to expect or to count upon with
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8
confidence? Is it not much below the probabilities of a well
adapted policy?
The relative value of a home to a foreign market is obvious;
and as a question of commerce merely, may be instantly decided upon the facts. We are now led a step farther for the fuller
consideration of the subject thus opened.
The Foremn Market for United States Produce.
This branch of the inquiry is not a mere process of ciphering
in pursuit of that absurd thing called "the balance of trade,"
a fancied gain or loss ascertained by custom-house valuations,
and expressed in arithmetical figures. The official reports of the
commerce of Great Britain for the eleven years next preceding
1864, show a total of imports amounting to 2,061 millions of
pounds sterling, and a total of exports of only 1,308 millions of
pounds. Did she lose 753 millions of pounds by the business?
Did she lose 3621 per cent on her ventures, or did she make a
clean profit of 5721 per cent by them?
On the other hand, the exports of the United States in the
11 years next preceding 1864, exceeded the imports by 8021 mil lions.  Did we lose or gain these 801 millions?  Does England
grow rich upon the excess of her imports and we upon the excess
of our exports? These figures mean nothing. The balance of
trade is not in the official values exchanged, because the real
values are always even when the merchants' accounts are settled.
It is in the kind and course of foreign commerce that the
results tell. This, therefore, is the object of our present inquiry.
In the following tabular statement the countries which supply
us with manufactured articles are distinguished from "all other
countries," with the intention of distinguishing the kinds of
trade we have with them respectively.   By "manufacturing
countries" we mean the British and French dominions in Europe,
Hamburg, Bremen and all German countries, and Holland and
Belgium, which send us all the manufactures worth considering
for the purpose in hand. "All other countries," embrace all
others in the Eastern hemisphere and in America, which supply
us with tropical, or semi-tropical and other raw products;-the
products of the former countries competing with our own manufacturing industry, those of the latter ministering to it, or
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affording us commodities which our own climate and soil do not
produce, and which are not manufactured further than preservation and transportation require.
Domestic Exports of the United States in the year 1859-60.
To all Countries.    To Mfanufacturing Countries.      To "all other Countries."
BREADSTUFFS AND PROVISIONS, (STRICTLY.)
$38,858,086           $13,952,988=-36 p.C.            $24,905,098=64 p. c.
OTHER AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS,-(14 CLASSES.)
5,279,586=62.3 p. c.
$$19,232,574=40.6 p. c.
LEAF TOBACCO.
12,238,791=77 p. a.
$31,471,365=49.8 p. c.
MANUFACTURED ARTICLE
$7,871,970=19.75 p. c.
SPECIE.-FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC.
$59,276,340=89 p. a.      $7,269,899=11 p. C.
Raw cotton to the value of $190,000,000 went to the countries which we designate "manufacturing," and $1,000,000
worth went to Mexico. The export of rice, was six-tenths to
South America and the West Indies, and four-tenths to manufacturing Europe. The tobacco, of which the total export is
here given, was produced, 40 per cent in the Western States,
41 per cent in the New England, Middle and Pacific States,
and 553 per cent in the rebel States.
This classification of the kinds of our domestic exports and
of the foreign customers will best teach its lessons after looking at the kinds of imports we receive in exchange from each
class of these customers.
FOREIGN IMPORTS OF THaE FISCAL YEAR 1859-60.
Total.         From manufacturing countries.
$362,166,254    $208,707,314= —57.6 per cent.
*This total is $1,346,914 greater than the previously stated total value o
our agricultural products, which may be accounted for by a corresponding
difference between the export prices and census valuations.
8,471,323
$47,329,409
3,191,737=37.7 p. c.
$28,096,835=-59.4 p. o.
3,667,756==23 p. c.
$31,764,591=50.2 p. c.
15,906,547
$63,235,956*
$39,803,080
$ 31,9 3 1, I. 1 0=80.2 5 p. c.
$66,546,239
From all other countries.
$153,468,940=42.4 per cent.
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Chatractr  of the Foxea   Imports from  VNott-atufacturing
Countries.
The imports from countries other than those which send us
manufactures, it is seen, amounted to 42.4 per cent, or nearly
j, of the total.   They consisted of such articles as sugar,
molasses, spices, saltpetre, india-rubber, indigo and other dyestuffs, fruits, wool under 20 cts. a pound, and coarser than our
climate produces, cocoa, tea, coffee, mahogany and other tropical woods, gums, medicines, guano, hides, grasses, tobacco and
cigars of tropical or semi-tropical origin, and $8,402,948 of
specie, leaving a balance of foreign specie imported from all
manufacturing countries of $147,187 only.
Character of Imports fromn Manufactitring Countries.
The kinds or classes of these imports, exceeding a quarter of
a million dollars in value, were, generally stated, acids, bleaching powders, clocks and watches, clothing, coal, cotton manufactures, dolls and toys, dressed furs, hats and bonnets, iron,
steel, laces and embroideries, lead, gloves, tanned and dressed
skins, sole and upper leather, linseed, hempseed and essential
oils, paints, paper, printed books, salt, silk piece goods and
hosiery, soda, brandy, spirits, wines, chinaware, and manufactures of cotton, wool and worsted, flax, glass, gold and silver,
hemp, iron and steel, lead, leather, paper, wood and zinc.
Of these manufactures, with others of less value, but belonging to the same class of goods, amounting in the aggregate value
to 2021 millions, we had from Great Britain, 13521 millions;
from France, 4121 millions, from Germany and Belgium, 23
millions, and from Spain, 21 millions. The woolen, cotton,
hemp, iron and steel, silk and flax manufactures, imported that
year and retained for consumption, amounted to 1241 millions;
the ready-made clothing to 2 millions; salt and coal, 2 millions;
total of these articles 128 millions, from countries which took
in the same year of our agricultural and manufactured products, other than raw cotton, 391 millions, and of our specie
591 millions.
Resume' of kind and course of ou' Fooreigt Trade.
The manufacturing countries of Europe sent us 203 millions
-worth of such goods as competed with our own industries, and 
11
took in exchange of our agricultural products, manufactures
and Northern tobacco, 32 millions; raw cotton, 190 millions;
Southern leaf tobacco, 71 millions, and 591 millions of our
specie. Total in these items, 289 millions-excess of our exports to, over imports from them, 86 millions.
The non-manufacturing countries took of our agricultural
exports, 28 millions; of our leaf tobacco, 3* millions; of our
manufactures, 32 millions, and of our specie 71 millions; a
total of 71 millions. Our total imports from them for the
year amounted to 156~1 millions, an excess of 851 millions, for
which they drew upon us in favor of the manufacturing countries.
To them, in general statement, we sent 64 per cent of our
breadstuffs and provisions; 59.4 per cent of our total agricultural products, exclusive of tobacco; 50.3 per cent of our
total, including tobacco, or half our raw products, and of our
manufactures four-fifths, while they took one million less of
specie than they sent us. Of the total imports of the year,
they sent us 42.4 per cent, or jf directly, with many millions
more indirectly, through the hands of British, French and
other European merchants.
Thus stands our trade with all non-manufacturing countries.
We add a brief general view of our trade in the same year with
the Continent of America, and the adjacent islands of the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Our imports of the productions of the climates North and
South of us in the Western hemisphere, amounted to $111,555,562, of which $37,570,645 was in sugar and raw hides,
which, so far from competing with our own articles of the same
kind, only supplied our deficient product.; $4,862,690 worth of
the leaf and manufactured tobacco of the West Indies and
South America supplied a different kind or quality, displacing
our own only as silks displace calicoes. All the other imports
except those admitted under the Reciprocity Treaty with the
British North American possessions, were simply supplementary to our own commodities, or were material for our manufactures. Our total exports to these American countries amounted
to $70,687,781, leaving us 41 millions to pay through our
European mercantile factors.
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Manufactures in the Western States.
The third volume of the Census of 1860 is not yet published,
and we have not at command such fulness and completeness of
details in the branch of manufactures as we could wish, but in
the Preliminary Report, published in 1862, a digest of all the
data is given, which sufficiently serves our purpose. Of the
twenty-eight classes of manufactures, mining and mechanic
products given in the "Preliminary Report," we take twenty four for presentment here, rejecting only anthracite coal, of
which the Western States have none, illuminating gas, which
has no reference to commerce, and salt and fish, in which
none of the conditions of fair comparison of manufacturing enterprise can be found; but the manufacture of musical
instruments, india rubber goods, jewelry and silver-ware are
admitted, because these are possible in the Western States,
though as yet wholly produced in the Eastern. The twenty-four classes selected are, agricultural implements, pig iron,
bar and other rolled iron, steam engines and machinery,
iron founding, bituminous coal, lead, copper, printed books,
jobs and newspapers, sewing machines, clothing, sawed and
planed lumber, flour and meal, spirituous liquors, malt liquors,
cotton, woolen and mixed, leather, boots and shoes, india rubber
goods, furniture, musical instruments, jewelry and silver-ware,
and soap and candles.
In all these kinds of manufacturing and producing industry,
other than those belonging to the rivers and oceans, the forests,
and the four classes above excepted, the condition and progress
of the Western States is measured by those of the Eastern and
Middle States, by which general designation is meant the six New
England States, and the States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and the District of Columbia.
Yalue of the Products of  Twenty-four classes of Mining,
Manufacturing and Mechanic Arts, as given in the Pre   liminary Cnsus of 1860, and the Compendium of 1850.
Year 1860, 11 Western States,   -             -      $217,476,446
" 1850,"   "       ".      -           -          105,461,612
Increase in 10 years, (106.2 p. c.)   -       -      $112,014,834
Year 1860, 12 New England and Middle States,  -      $703,255,086
,, 1850,   " "                        -     -      432,044,209
Increase in 10 years, (62.7 p. c.)    - $271,210,877
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In addition to the detailed statements from which these deductions are made, the Superintendent of the Census gives, for
the purpose of embracing other manufactures not stated in
detail, "Approximate Statistics of the Products of Industry
for the year ending June 1, 1860." In the Compendium of
1850 we have the corresponding totals. They stand in the two
groups of states here compared, thus:
Approximate Value of all Products of Mining, Mechanics
and Manufactures.
Year 1860.  Eleven Western States,.
" 1850.    "        "       ".1
Increase in ten years (128.2 per cent.),
Year 1860.  Twelve New England and Middle States,.
" 1850.,  ".
Increase in ten years (73.8 per cent.),.
Depending upon the probable accuracy of the Superintendent's "Approximate Statement," we take it as the juster
exhibition for the purpose of comparison, because the minor or
less considerable forms of manufactures are those in which the
younger States exceed the same kinds in the older States, and
should be included.
These industrial products of the eleven Western States in
1850 bore the proportion of 22.9 per cent to those of the
twelve Eastern and Middle; in 1860 they had risen to 30 per
cent upon them. They had increased upon the Eastern and
Middle $93,121,526 in relative value, or 31.3 per cent upon
their ratio in 1850.
The force and fairness of the following comparison will be
felt by those who know the respective conditions and capabilities of the States concerned. In 1850 the aggregate population of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, was 2,820,215,-their aggregate wealth in real and personal property, $862,641,390,their manufactures in the year, $98,805,983. In 1860, their
products were valued at 225 millions,-increase 127.5 per cent.
In 1850 the population of Maryland, Virginia, and Georgia,
was 2,910,880,-their aggregate wealth $985,344,160, or, reduced by the value of their 944,578 slaves, it was $701,970,760,
$390,411,942
171,022,976
$219,388,966
.   $1,298,207,058
746,715,814
$551,491,244
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their manufactures of that year were valued at $69,269,614.
In 1860 these products had risen to $107,776,000,-increase
55.5 per cent.
One other method of illustrating the progress of the Western
States in manufacturing enterprise offers itself:   The population of the twelve New England and Middle States
in 1860, was 11,468,513; of the Western, 10,445.580. The
aggregate capital wealth of the New England and Middle States
was 6,29821 millions of dollars,-their manufactures of the year
1,298 millions,-equal to 20.6 per cent of their capital wealth.
They had increased their capital wealth 86.6 per cent in the
decade.  The eleven Western States increased their capital
wealth in the same time from 1,35021 to 4,519 millions, or 234.6
per cent. Much of this wealth, however, lay in valuation,
latent, and incapable of employment in manufacturing production of any kind. Much of it was in the spontaneous enhancement of the value of lands yielding nothing,-capital in posse,
not in egse. The New England and Middle States also had a
considerable portion of such capital in expectancy and inconvertible for present uses. Assuming that the wealth available
in enterprises of converting industry, should be taken to have
advanced in equal ratio, the capital of the Western States,
enhanced by an accretion upon the valuation of 1850 of 86.6
per cent, would give the true comparative amount for 1860.
It would be 2,51921 millions, on which capital sum their products
of that year would have been equal to 15.47 per cent. This
estimate throws out of the comparison the market price of the
uncultivated lands of Michigan, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska,
Missouri, and Kentucky especially, and of the other five States
generally, but still leaves enough of such unproductive values
in the estimate to balance those of the New England and
Middle States. It excludes only that portion of the spontaneous enhancement of values included in the census appraisement, which exceeds the ratio of the older States, and has the
effect of putting 2,000 of the 4,519 millions to the account of
increase not produced by the direct application of capital and
industry.
We have reached the surprising conclusion that the manufactures of the Western States are in value to their capital effec
S% 
15
tive for such use as 15.47 is to 20.6 in the great manufacturing
region of the Union, or very exactly three-fourths of the proportion of product to total wealth in those States of the Atlantic
slope, so much older, wealthier, denser in population, and inherently less capable of that agricultural prosperity which might
well be thought likely to win away the people of the Western
States from this field of competition.
To meet prevalent opinions as to the facts, and accepted
theories as to what the facts ishould be, we offer the corroboration found in the amounts of Internal Revenue collected from
these'two classes of States in the fiscal year ending June 30th,
1864.
Intertnal Beve'iute fioi i Manlufactures and Productions.
The eleven Western States
twelve New England and Middle
Our estimate puts the manufactures of the Western States
at exactly three-fourths of those of the New England and
Middle in proportion to capital. The taxes paid by these
States in 1864 reduces the proportion to considerably over
three-fifths, but it must be observed that the values of the articles taxed are not given. Where the duties are ad valorems in
the Commissioner's Report, the values may be calculated, but
they are in so large proportion specific that this resource fails
us. Moreover, the specific duties are higher on the special
manufactures of the East than of the West. The products of
the West are to a large extent taxed in the East, as in the'case
of slaughtered animals, and among other things $1,884,590 of
this difference is made up by the tax on petroleum, a substance
which was not in the market as a manufacture in 1860.
Beside all this, the productions of manufactures of smaller
value and more widely scattered escape the assessor to a greater
extent, than where they are longer established and on a larger
scale.
We therefore take this very fair approximation of the internal revenue receipts to the figures reached by the process here
adopted, as strongly corroborative of the results before attained. 
The lower result is, however, quite sufficient for our purpose,
and, after cautioning the reader to take these calculations for
1%
paid $27,660,397=-38.2 per cent.
"    44,589,687=61.7    "
-4 
16
the comparative, but not the total, value of the manufactures of
the two groups of States, exhibited here only for the purpose of
measuring the enterprise of the Western States by the scale of
the Eastern, we proceed to draw the practical conclusions to
which our inquiry points.
International Trade.
We have seen that our non-manufacturing customers took in
1860, by direct exchange, six-tenths of our purely agricultural
exports, how much more by the indirect route of our European
mediums of commerce we have not attempted to ascertain, but
the addition would be large if it were thoroughly traced. These
customers are chiefly the people of the American continent and
adjacent islands in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and they are
all inhabitants of climates north or south of us, naturally inca pable of such commodities as we send them. It is also to be
remarked that of less than forty millions of manufactures ex ported, they gave us a market for nearly thirty-two millions, or
quite eight-tenths of the whole. The imports from them
amounted to 15321 millions, and the half of this value under the
tariff of 1857 paid duties in our ports. Their sugar, coarse
wool, and tobacco paying 24 per cent; rates as high as those
upon the iron, cotton and woolen manufactures of Europe.
Scarcely any of their staples, except coffee, tea, and dye stuffs,
were admitted free of duty. Nothing in legislation favored
this trade, yet they sent us seven-sixteenths of all our imports
that year. This trade exists by virtue of the'natural law which
rules the commerce of diverse climates and capabilities,-the
law which commands exchanges for the mutual supply of those
commodities in which the parties are respectively deficient. It
is legitimate, because it is necessary, and depends upon no conditions for reciprocity of benefits.  Mr. Mill in his " Commerce
Defended," says, "The commerce of one country with another
is, in fact, merely an extension of that division of labor by
which so many benefits are conferred upon the human race. In
the world at large one province is favorable to the production
of one species of accommodation, and another to another: by
their mutual intercourse they are enabled to sort and distribute
It 
17
their labor as most peculiarly suits the genius of each particular
spot."
The conditions of trade required by the natural law, thus so
well stated, apply in all circumstances to the commerce in com modities of which the respective parties have the natural mono poly,-but it is not by any means true or absolute as between
nations of similar climates, capabilities, and genius for industrial
enterprise. It is unquestionable that a nation of even the
highest prospective capabilities, while yet in its infancy, thinly
peopled, and with little material and mental capital, is greatly
benefited, while such limitation of ability lasts, and in the
degree in which it exists, by exchanging its coarser, cheaper, and
less remunerative products with more advanced communities, for
such as they will in time be able to produce for themselves;
the condition of inferiority in the meanwhile imposing upon
them all its attendant burdens; among which are, the vast cost
of transportation, the profits of intermediates, fluctuations in
demand, and the necessity of yielding to the superior the power
to fix the price of both their own raw products and that of the
manufactures received in exchange, with all the difference that
there is between the rewards of skilled and unskilled labor
against them, besides. A people capable of, and advancing
toward, the highest rank, must take care that their trade shall be
only supplementary, and graded truly to their several stages of
advancement toward industrial independence. If they would be
self-respecting and self-preserving, they must understand that
true economy is not a matter of prices or nominal values; not a
huckstering policy of buying and selling, but a science of productive power.
The Western States, whose condition and progress we have
endeavored to display, must, sooner or later, and the sooner the
better, take care to diversify their industries and provide a homemarket for their abounding agriculture, or they will expose
themselves to those fluctuations of prices and of demand, which
have more than once driven them to burning their corn for fuel
for want of a better paying market.
The European market for their surplus breadstuffs and provisions, as we have seen, is simply contemptible at best, and at
all times uncertain, depending as it does for any accidental
-4 
18
relief it may afford, upon the contingencies of foreign wars of great
magnitude and long continuance, upon the occurrence of famines
or general failures of crops throughout Europe, and upon the
still less certain and constant ability of the masses of their people to purchase; while, on the other hand, the natural market
of the American continent and the tropical regions generally, is
ours by the fixed laws of climate and production, and the
resulting security of exchanges; this class of our customers,
always needing our products, and always able to send in
exchange many millions in value more than as yet we export
to them.
Etesion of tbe Monroe Doctrine to the Commerce of the
Continent.
The time has come, the necessity is upon us, our security and
prosperity demand the extension of the Monroe doctrine to the
commerce of the continent. England is ready to give up empire
in government for dominion in the trade of America. The
only supremacy she cares for now is that of her labor.   Her
only fleets and forces for invasion and conquest are her mercantile vessels and her manufactures, and our defences are not
in our monitors and forts, but in our Custom-houses.  Political
liberty and independence are not the only care of government;
industrial freedom and independence are the best security for
these, and all that is most worthy of living for in this-world
besides. It is the prime duty of every community to provide,
and defend for its members all the conditions of individual prosperity which a sound policy can command.
Theories manufactured by the master commercial nations,
and-designed to hold their old time colonies in industrial vassalage, must not be allowed to override universal experience.
Universal, we say, for it is proved in the history of the past,
that no nation has risen to the rank of a first-rate power in
politics or war, in commerce or wealth, that has not studiously
and persistently diversified its industries to its utmost capacity.
England herself is one of the best among the examples. France
and Germany are relatively as prominent; and Portugal and
Turkey prove it as well by the exhaustion they have suffered
from abandoning the policy of self-protection, or self-defence,
Is 
19
against foreign invasion of their labor markets at home. As
to the much vaunted Anglo-French treaty of commerce, made
in 1860, which free-traders are accustomed to claim as a partial
advance of their doctrine, it is demonstrable that it is quite as
protective of the home industry of France, and more effectively
framed for that purpose, than the Morrill Tariff, of March, 1861,
was for the United States. The authorities abroad have not given
up the struggle, but they have abandoned the hope of extending
their doctrine of free-trade among the nations.  The "London
Economist" of 17th of December, 1864, concedes that its
"creed is not only stationary, but retrograding," adding that,
"in America, (meaning the United States,) the Canadas, Australia, and the Anglo-Saxon colonies generally, the belief in
protection seems to have acquired a new vitality. The Northern
Americans have raised their tariff to figures, which but for the
vast war expenditure, would almost extinguish trade; the
Canadians try to meet every fresh expense by raising some duty
on an import, and a parliament has just been elected in Victoria
pledged to introduce a system of general protection for colonial
industry. Nothing is to be imported which can possibly be
made, and manufacturers are to be encouraged to make, by the
imposition of excessive duties upon all European goods which
compete, or may compete, with local productions."
The author, after a very candid though incomplete statement of the argument on which the Australian colonists rest
the policy which they have adopted, concludes, "we confess we
cannot quite see the immediate remedy for this state of affairs,
and are inclined to believe that patience is the only remedy."
No doctrine or dogma exposed to the test of experience,
needs patience more than the one self-styled free-trade, because
it starts upon the false pretence of a misnomer, and never dares
venture far enough from its base of supplies to win a victory in
the field of trial and hold it. Its mission of universal philanthropy would be better described as a system of free foreign
trade, with industry at home in hand-cuffs. It means-open
the ports of the world and the markets which they guard,
to the exclusive traffic of the strongest, at the expense of
destroying all the rival labor of the purchasing nation, and
starving the workmen of the producing nation.
_e
e 
20
In the natural order of things, the free-traders will have to
wait, as the world waited upon England, until protection had
served its purpose, and would have been an absurdity and a
nullity, if longer continued. Their tariff duties were in effect
repealed by their supremacy in commerce, long before it was done
by act of Parliament, and they must wait upon the Australian,
Canadian, and other Anglo-Saxon colonists, who are still at the
mercy of England's larger and cheaper capital, better organized
machinery and cheaper wages, until these struggling people have
got on even ground, and are ready for a free fight for their lives.
Setting aside theories of commerce which neither require
nor tolerate any reference to history or facts, it may be asked
why England, Wales, and the lowlands of Scotland, with a less
area than Pennsylvania and West Virginia in the east, or Missouri alone in the West, and having neither more nor better
iron and coal than either of them, and with vastly inferior foodproducing power, and equally inferior command of all the supporting resources of the highest forms of industry, should
nevertheless hold the commerce of the United States in their
hands, make our clothing, machinery, agricultural implements,
and our railroads, leaving us for our own share of mechanic
labor, little besides house building other than iron structures,
horse-shoeing, the printing of local items, and grave digging,
which of necessity must be done on the spot?
The one sole reason why England obtained the mastery of
the ocean, and command of the world's business is, that she
exported no raw material; and the reason why the Southern
States went into ruin by the route of rebellion is, because they
exported nothing else. The trade of Germany at the beginning of the century was hides, tallow, flax, and wool exported,
for cloth and cutlery in return, and Bonaparte could make
their territory his fighting ground. Since the battle of Waterloo, they have been making their own clothes and cutlery, and
his nephew, with more resources and stronger alliances, was
obliged to keep within the line of war with Austria, which the
rest of Germany prescribed.
The Western States,
as we have seen, showed a surprising advance in manufac
IN 
21
turing and mechanic industry before the rebellion, and have
doubtless greatly added to it durinatlx Bar, Ea,4.
rectly but directly it has become an mo-    n           f_:
own, and the opening of the wilderness beyond them will soon
make them Eastern States both in position and policy. Ohio,
+   o- es    theftm, ha  alTeay ha. some  admonitory experience. Her rate of increase in population in the decade,
1850-60, was but 18.14 per cent, while Pennsylvania made
an increase of 25.71, New  York  25.29, and  New  Jersey
37.27 per cent. She has been losing relative weight in Congress and in the Electoral College, as against Pennsylvania,
and now that peace is restored, and an ebb-tide of emigration
from the older to the newer States west of the Mississippi has
set in with unprecedented volume and force, she immediately,
with Indiana and Illinois, ere long, and all the others in their
turn, will have to look to the policy which secures the growth
of communities by securing the greatest variety and the largest
profits of industry.
More than once in our past history, an overwhelming flood
of foreign manufactures has driven the capital and labor of the
East into competition with the chief industry of the West, and
its products have forthwith fallen to half their ordinary value,
and afterwards declined to nothing. If experience can teach
anything it proves that it is better to have ten millions of
eastern purchasers consuming a hundred millions of their products, than half as many rivals thrown into their own field of
production.
But the mischief of a system destructive of home manufactures, is not by any means confined to the food-growing
interest of the West. Among the many things for which the
trans-oceanic world can give them no market-such as lumber,
cattle provender of all kinds, live stock, all sorts of green
crops, mutton, poultry, and the other immense values that will
not bear distant transportation, there is an interest of practically unlimited value deserving special attention:
Wool.
If the manufacturing nations can give us a market for this
product, will any one undertake to show why, for a dozen years
A 
22
together, they never took above twenty thousand dollars worth
in any one year, nor so much as this in the average of those
years? Our European market for this article, deserves no more
respectful statement than that it does not pay for the playing
cards imported from them. The very tabular statements of
the Treasury Department grin contempt upon this "export"
of ours, just as the history of its fortunes at home glares at the
policy which has hitherto ruled it.
The increase of the live stock of the Western States in the
last census decade, including sheep, was 1432 per cent.  The
increase of the sheep themselves was just 2,r per cent!  But
their quality muist have improved a little, and the very best of
them have somehow escaped the butcher-shop, for the clip of
1860 exceeded in weight that of 1850 seventeen per cent, in
the face of an average increase of every other agricultural product in those States of 1257A per cent.  Under the policy of
that period, the cloth manufacturers were crushed out of existence, and the farmer found no sufficient market for his wool,
either at home or abroad. He was just then, as he thought,
"buying his cloth cheap," but he was not "selling his wool
dear;" on the contrary he was sending his sheep to the shambles.
Somebody in the direction of affairs when this wretched
policy was adopted, must have blundered; somebody may have
been telling the constituency that the protection of home manufactures, and of the resulting home market for the hundredfold forms of farm produce which can never go abroad, was
" class legislation," and that it made imported iron, cloth and
cutlery dear; forgetting, or not knowing, that the provider of
food and raw materials, is as much a manufacturer himself, as
the weaver, the puddler, or the smith who gives the last turn in
the process of converting them into commodities for use, and is
as much a partner in the business and its profits. Forgetting,
also, that even if the foreigner will or can give the farmer a
market, he would be all the better for having two, and one of
them at home and at hand.
The war and its incidents shed a flood of light upon the
effect of a well secured home consumption for agricultural products of every kind, of which the wool-growing interest is an
a, 
23
example. In the ten years before the rebellion, the sheep of
Pennsylvania had decreased 12 per cent in number. In May,
1864, the Agricultural Bureau reports an increase of 76 per
cent in four years. In Illinois they had fallen off in the last
census decade 14 per cent. In the first two years of the war,
according to the report of the county assessors, they had increased from 769,135 to 1,206,695, and the editor of the Chicago
Tribune, estimates the number at 3,000,000 at the close of the
year 1864-an increase of 290 per cent in four years. This
immense advance is owing simply to a protective tariff, aided
by the high rate of foreign exchange and absolute possession
of the home market.
Conclusions.
The Western States are already the heart of the nation.
They keep the gate of the future. They are much more than
a balance of power now. The Empire of the Union is possible
to them. But they must take care of themselves. They must
meet their responsibilities to the nation. They must take
themselves out of the category of "Our Anglo-Saxon colonies."
They must find a shorter route from the mouth of the Mississippi to South America, than by way of Liverpool; and, they
may, also, as well understand that they are nearer than New
York is to the Rocky Mountains. They must shape their
policy toward industrial independence. They must secure to
themselves every form of labor which their infinite variety of
capability demands; or, they will hang their peace of mind and
pecuniary prospects upon the Atlantic telegraph that threatens
to put Liverpool, Halifax and Chicago, into a commercial
circuit with its preposterous centre and governing battery at
the eastern end.
r,
lb