Into the labor papers and platforms there sometimes crept a note of hostility to the masters of industry, a sign of bitterness that excited little alarm while cheap land in the West was open to the discontented. The Philadelphia workmen, in issuing a call for a local convention, invited "all those of our fellow citizens who live by their own labor and none other." In Newcastle county, Delaware, the association of working people complained in 1830: "The poor have no laws; the laws are made by the rich and of course for the rich." Here and there an extremist went to the length of advocating an equal division of wealth among all the people—the crudest kind of communism.
Agitation of this character produced in labor circles profound distrust of both Whigs and Democrats who talked principally about tariffs and banks; it resulted in attempts to found independent labor parties. In Philadelphia, Albany, New York City, and New England, labor candidates were put up for elections in the early thirties and in a few cases were victorious at the polls. "The balance of power has at length got into the hands of the working people, where it properly belongs," triumphantly exclaimed the Mechanics' Free Press of Philadelphia in 1829. But the triumph was illusory. Dissensions appeared in the labor ranks. The old party leaders, particularly of Tammany Hall, the Democratic party organization in New York City, offered concessions to labor in return for votes. Newspapers unsparingly denounced "trade union politicians" as "demagogues," "levellers," and "rag, tag, and bobtail"; and some of them, deeming labor unrest the sour fruit of manhood suffrage, suggested disfranchisement as a remedy. Under the influence of concessions and attacks the political fever quickly died away, and the end of the decade left no remnant of the labor political parties. Labor leaders turned to a task which seemed more substantial and practical, that of organizing workingmen into craft unions for the definite purpose of raising wages and reducing hours.
The Industrial Revolution and National Politics
Southern Plans for Union with the West.—It was long the design of Southern statesmen like Calhoun to hold the West and the South together in one political party. The theory on which they based their hope was simple. Both sections were agricultural—the producers of raw materials and the buyers of manufactured goods. The planters were heavy purchasers of Western bacon, pork, mules, and grain. The Mississippi River and its tributaries formed the natural channel for the transportation of heavy produce southward to the plantations and outward to Europe. Therefore, ran their political reasoning, the interests of the two sections were one. By standing together in favor of low tariffs, they could buy their manufactures cheaply in Europe and pay for them in cotton, tobacco, and grain. The union of the two sections under Jackson's management seemed perfect.
The East Forms Ties with the West.—Eastern leaders were not blind to the ambitions of Southern statesmen. On the contrary, they also recognized the importance of forming strong ties with the agrarian West and drawing the produce of the Ohio Valley to Philadelphia and New York. The canals and railways were the physical signs of this economic union, and the results, commercial and political, were soon evident. By the middle of the century, Southern economists noted the change, one of them, De Bow, lamenting that "the great cities of the North have severally penetrated the interior with artificial lines until they have taken from the open and untaxed current of the Mississippi the commerce produced on its borders." To this writer it was an astounding thing to behold "the number of steamers that now descend the upper Mississippi River, loaded to the guards with produce, as far as the mouth of the Illinois River and then turn up that stream with their cargoes to be shipped to New York via Chicago. The Illinois canal has not only swept the whole produce along the line of the Illinois River to the East, but it is drawing the products of the upper Mississippi through the same channel; thus depriving New Orleans and St. Louis of a rich portion of their former trade."
If to any shippers the broad current of the great river sweeping down to New Orleans offered easier means of physical communication to the sea than the canals and railways, the difference could be overcome by the credit which Eastern bankers were able to extend to the grain and produce buyers, in the first instance, and through them to the farmers on the soil. The acute Southern observer just quoted, De Bow, admitted with evident regret, in 1852, that "last autumn, the rich regions of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were flooded with the local bank notes of the Eastern States, advanced by the New York houses on produce to be shipped by way of the canals in the spring.... These moneyed facilities enable the packer, miller, and speculator to hold on to their produce until the opening of navigation in the spring and they are no longer obliged, as formerly, to hurry off their shipments during the winter by the way of New Orleans in order to realize funds by drafts on their shipments. The banking facilities at the East are doing as much to draw trade from us as the canals and railways which Eastern capital is constructing." Thus canals, railways, and financial credit were swiftly forging bonds of union between the old home of Jacksonian Democracy in the West and the older home of Federalism in the East. The nationalism to which Webster paid eloquent tribute became more and more real with the passing of time. The self-sufficiency of the pioneer was broken down as he began to watch the produce markets of New York and Philadelphia where the prices of corn and hogs fixed his earnings for the year.
The West and Manufactures.—In addition to the commercial bonds between the East and the West there was growing up a common interest in manufactures. As skilled white labor increased in the Ohio Valley, the industries springing up in the new cities made Western life more like that of the industrial East than like that of the planting South. Moreover, the Western states produced some important raw materials for American factories, which called for protection against foreign competition, notably, wool, hemp, and flax. As the South had little or no foreign competition in cotton and tobacco, the East could not offer protection for her raw materials in exchange for protection for industries. With the West, however, it became possible to establish reciprocity in tariffs; that is, for example, to trade a high rate on wool for a high rate on textiles or iron.
The South Dependent on the North.—While East and West were drawing together, the distinctions between North and South were becoming more marked; the latter, having few industries and producing little save raw materials, was being forced into the position of a dependent section. As a result of the protective tariff, Southern planters were compelled to turn more and more to Northern mills for their cloth, shoes, hats, hoes, plows, and machinery. Nearly all the goods which they bought in Europe in exchange for their produce came overseas to Northern ports, whence transshipments were made by rail and water to Southern points of distribution. Their rice, cotton, and tobacco, in as far as they were not carried to Europe in British bottoms, were transported by Northern masters. In these ways, a large part of the financial operations connected with the sale of Southern produce and the purchase of goods in exchange passed into the hands of Northern merchants and bankers who, naturally, made profits from their transactions. Finally, Southern planters who wanted to buy more land and more slaves on credit borrowed heavily in the North where huge accumulations made the rates of interest lower than the smaller banks of the South could afford.
The South Reckons the Cost of Economic Dependence.—As Southern dependence upon Northern capital became more and more marked, Southern leaders began to chafe at what they regarded as restraints laid upon their enterprise. In a word, they came to look upon the planter as a tribute-bearer to the manufacturer and financier. "The South," expostulated De Bow, "stands in the attitude of feeding ... a vast population of [Northern] merchants, shipowners, capitalists, and others who, without claims on her progeny, drink up the life blood of her trade.... Where goes the value of our labor but to those who, taking advantage of our folly, ship for us, buy for us, sell to us, and, after turning our own capital to their profitable account, return laden with our money to enjoy their easily earned opulence at home."
Southern statisticians, not satisfied with generalities, attempted to figure out how great was this tribute in dollars and cents. They estimated that the planters annually lent to Northern merchants the full value of their exports, a hundred millions or more, "to be used in the manipulation of foreign imports." They calculated that no less than forty millions all told had been paid to shipowners in profits. They reckoned that, if the South were to work up her own cotton, she would realize from seventy to one hundred millions a year that otherwise went North. Finally, to cap the climax, they regretted that planters spent some fifteen millions a year pleasure-seeking in the alluring cities and summer resorts of the North.