Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/407

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1820-5] North and South: manufactures and Protection. 375 deprived the Southern States of all the blessings attaching to a condition of society in which all men, from the richest to the poorest, are striving for the betterment of their conditions. The North, on the other hand, was the home of diversified in- dustries. Land was being taken up ; towns and villages were being founded, new cities built, old cities rebuilt; canals and turnpikes were in course of construction ; steamboats were multiplying in number ; the great coal-fields of Pennsylvania were developing ; water- works and gas- works were established in the chief cities ; manufactures were increasing at an astonishing rate ; and trade and commerce were once more flourish- ing. In New Hampshire there were 60 cotton-mills, 300 tanneries, 200 bark-factories, and half a score of paper-mills. Vermont sent down the Hudson and Champlain Canal and the Hudson river to New York copper, iron, and wool. In Massachusetts there were 260 mills and factories, giving employment to $30,000,000 of capital. In Rhode Island there were 150 mills, affording a livelihood to 30,000 people. The people of New York made salt, iron, leather, glass, paper, woollen and cotton cloth ; and those of New Jersey manufactured cotton cloth, iron, glass, porcelain, carpets, and linen. In Philadelphia there were 4000 weavers, and in one county some 157 mills and factories. Pittsburg was the manufacturing centre of the Mississippi Valley. In 1820 the capital invested in manufactures amounted to $75,000,000, and the number of hands employed to 200,000. In 1825 the capital had increased to $160,000,000, and the number of hands to 2,000,000. As new manufactures arose and old ones expanded, it was but natural that the demand for protection should be renewed, and that this demand should receive attention. But the struggle was a long one. A Bill introduced in 1820 passed the House, but was defeated in the Senate by the commercial and agricultural interests. The Bill of 1821 did not pass the House. In 1822 no Bill was considered. The Bill of 1823 perished in Committee of the whole House. In 1824 the House was flooded with petitions for and against a protective tariff. Anti-tariff men declared that Congress had no power to tax imports for any purpose except to raise revenue in order to pay the debts of the United States ; that the rapid decline in the price of agricultural products in the South had produced an appalling amount of suffering; that many of the articles which it was proposed to tax could not be dispensed with by the South, and would have to be purchased at high prices in the North; that imports would decrease, the revenue fall off, and internal taxation become necessary. The policy of protection was, it was said, of British origin, and would entail on America what it had brought on Great Britain pauperism, taxes, and debt. The protection of manufactures was unjust, unequal, and burdensome. The East and the North could manufacture, for those sections had capital, dense population, and free labour ; but the West and the South were not in a position to follow their example ; any