This encouraging view of our condition is fully sustained by official statements, which show that the industrial products of the country increase in a greater ratio than the population. In 1850 the aggregate value of the products of agriculture, mining, manufactures, and the mechanic arts, in the United States, was $2,345,000.000. In 1860 the aggregate was $3,756,000,000. This is an increase in ten years of sixty per cent, whereas the increase of population during that decade was only thirty-five and a half per cent. Thus we see that during the ten years ending with 1860—the date of the last census—the products of the industry of the country increased almost twice as fast as the population increased. If to this we add the remarkable fact that the value of taxable property increased during the same period a hundred and twenty-six per cent, we have striking proof of the existence of a vast and rapidly increasing productive power,—a power largely due to the influence of those improvements which have been alluded to.
One obvious effect of war is to transfer a portion of labor from the sphere of effective production to that of extraordinary consumption. To what extent the relations of production and consumption among us have been changed during the present contest it is impossible to state. That consumption has been largely increased by our military operations is apparent to all. It is equally apparent that production also has been augmented, though not, perhaps, to the same extent. The extraordinary demand for various commodities for war purposes has brought all the producing agencies of the country into a high state of activity and efficiency, giving to the loyal States a larger aggregate production than they had before the war. Of mining and manufactures this is unquestionably true. As regards the products of the soil, the Commissioner of Agriculture, in his Report for 1863, says,—"Although the year just closed has been a year of war on the part of the Republic, over a wider field and on a grander scale than any recorded in history, yet, strange as it may appear, the great interests of agriculture have not materially suffered in the loyal States.... Notwithstanding there have been over a million of men employed in the army and navy, withdrawn chiefly from the producing classes, and liberally fed, clothed, and paid by the Government, yet the yield of most of the great staples of agriculture for 1863 exceeds that of 1862.... This wonderful fact of history—a young republic carrying on a gigantic war on its own territory and coasts, and at the same time not only feeding itself and foreign nations, but furnishing vast quantities of raw materials for commerce and manufactures—proves that we are essentially an agricultural people; that three years of war have not as yet seriously disturbed, but rather increased, industrial pursuits; and that the withdrawal of agricultural labor, and the loss of life by disease and battle, have been more than compensated by machinery and maturing growth at home, and by the increased influx of immigration from abroad."
In illustration of the character of those agencies to which we owe the remarkable and gratifying results thus portrayed by the Commissioner, I give the following official statement in regard to two of the more prominent modern implements of agriculture. Mr. Kennedy, in his Census Report for 1860, informs us "that a threshing-machine in Ohio, worked by three men, with some assistance from the farm hands, did the work of seventy flails, and that thirty steam-threshers only were required to prepare for market the wheat crop of two counties in Ohio, which would have required the labor of forty thousand men." As it took probably less than two hundred men to work the machines, the immense saving in human labor becomes instantly apparent.
Again, in his last Patent-Office Report, Mr. Holloway states "that from reliable returns in his possession it is shown that forty thousand reapers were manufactured and sold in 1863, and that it is estimated by the manufacturers that over ninety thousand will be required to meet the demand for 1864"; and these machines, he says, will save the labor of four hundred and fifty thousand men.
If the aggregate produce of the loyal States, notwithstanding the large amount of labor that has been withdrawn from production by the demands of the war, is actually greater than ever before, and if, as we have already shown, the sum of that produce is three times as great as the people of those States, using proper economy, would necessarily consume, surely no one should feel any anxiety in regard to the ability of the United States to meet all their pecuniary obligations.
I have already said that England, in her war with Napoleon, furnishes the best criterion in history for judging of our own financial situation; and though the two cases are far from running parallel to each other, it may be interesting to compare them in some of their aspects.
At the restoration of peace in 1815, the national debt of England amounted in Federal currency to $4,305,000,000. It is impossible as yet to say what will be the ultimate amount of our national debt. It amounts now to rather more than one half of the debt of Great Britain, and, at its present ratio of increase, it will take nearly four years more to make our debt equal to hers.
Now, for the purposes of this statement, let us assume that it will take four years more to finish the war and to adjust and settle all its contingent claims, and that at the close of that period, say in 1869, we shall be at peace, with a restored Union, and with a national debt as large as that of England when peace returned to her in 1815,—how will the ability of this country to sustain and pay its debt compare with the ability of England to do the same at the time above referred to?
The simple fact that England was able to assume so vast a debt, and to sustain the burden through half a century, during which her prosperity has scarcely known abatement, and her wealth has been constantly and largely increasing, ought to satisfy every American citizen that his own country can at least do as well. But we can do more and better; for a comparison of the two countries in the matter of ability shows that the preponderance is greatly in our favor.
At the respective periods of comparison just named, to wit, 1815 and 1869, the population of the United Kingdom of Great Britain was less than one half of what the population of the United States will be, and its amount of foreign trade was less than one third. In 1815 the "factory system" was in its infancy and imperfectly organized, the steam-engine was unperfected and in comparatively limited use. The railway, the steamboat, the telegraph, the reaper, the thresher, and many other important improvements and discoveries which tend to augment the productive power of nations, have all come since that day. So far as relates to the question of ability to sustain heavy financial burdens, England, in 1815, can hardly be compared for a moment with a country like our own, possessing as it does, in abundance and perfection, the potent agencies of productive and distributing power just referred to.