By this greatly extended intercourse with other nations the Americans not only augmented their material wealth, but became acquainted with the habits, manners, science, arts, resources, wealth, and power of those countries with which they carried on a profitable trade. They were thus enabled to avail themselves of all the stock of accumulated experience and wisdom which the elder nations of Europe had slowly, and, at the cost of so much labour, bloodshed, and incessant struggles, secured. With some modification of the English constitution, the Americans, having as yet no ancient aristocracy, chose an elective republican form of government; but the well-framed body of English laws formed the basis on which the whole framework of society rested. In almost everything relating to the conduct of commercial and maritime affairs the English code was adopted, and became transplanted and firmly rooted in the hearts of the American people. In a natural desire to appear free and original, they affected some changes, but these were merely partial; and, both in theory and practice, English laws relating to shipping, with such prudent modifications as the change of position and circumstances required, were adopted, and formed the model of American practice and legislation.
Advances of maritime enterprise.
With these incalculable advantages, a rich soil, an enterprising and free people, a country indented with harbours and bathed by magnificent navigable rivers, it is scarcely a matter for wonder that their maritime enterprise made rapid advances. The capital of the shipowners being thus suddenly augmented, they were enabled to explore new sources of wealth. The entire globe was circumnavigated with a view to open new markets. Merchants who had been long engaged in trade were confounded by the changes so rapidly effected. The less experienced considered the newly acquired advantages as matters of right which would remain to them. They did not contemplate a period of general peace, when each nation would carry its own productions in its own vessels; when the jealousy of rivals would suggest the imposition of differential or practically prohibitive duties; when foreign commerce would be again fettered and limited by “enumerated articles,” and when, with reduced profits on shipping transactions, a much greater amount of circumspection would be necessary.
Views of American statesmen.
It was in the midst of this career of prosperity in the United States that many far-seeing American statesmen urged on the then reluctant attention of those of their countrymen who dwelt along the sea-board the paramount necessity of dedicating their surplus capital to the extension of agricultural industry. These men urged that the food heretofore exported by America to foreign countries might not be required for European consumption, and that many of the hands then engaged in active hostilities, either for defence or conquest, would be required for agriculture. Instead of there being always a deficiency of food in Europe, it was quite possible that there might be a surplus of provisions, the many thousands in their armies and fleets being added to the productive classes, and thus diminishing the chief branch of freight enjoyed by the United States shipping.
The experience of the interval from 1783 to 1791, when American trade was so much depressed, had not been lost upon keen and calm observers, and many able American writers incessantly pointed to the vast, rich, fertile uncultivated lands in the south and west of the Union, as the inexhaustible mine of wealth from which the future greatness and power of the States must be derived, and urged their countrymen to encourage and direct their efforts to that branch of domestic industry. This salutary advice was not altogether lost at that time upon the Americans; but it has since been ardently pursued, with what success the exports of the articles of corn and cotton alone will fully establish.
The shipwrights of Baltimore seek protection.
Nevertheless, the shipowners of the United States were at the earliest period of their existence as a nation infected with the principles of self-protection on which the English Navigation Act had been founded; for in the very first session of Congress, 1789, the shipwrights of Baltimore and South Carolina, in rehearsing their grievances to the House of Representatives, copied identically the numerous complaints urged on this side the water. They pointed out the diminished state of ship-building in America, and the ruinous restrictions to which their vessels were subject in foreign ports; and, among the advantages looked for from the national government, was the increase of the shipping and maritime strength of the United States of America by laws similar in their nature and operation to that Act. Whichever way they looked, they perceived that the United States ought soon to become as powerful in shipping as any nation in the world. They insisted that, upon the closest examination of the subject, they were better prepared for a Navigation Act than England had been when the British Navigation Act was passed in 1660. They argued that though the registered tonnage of that kingdom did not then exceed ninety-six thousand tons, it had reached close upon eight hundred thousand tons in 1774, an increase, in little more than a century, of about seven hundred and four thousand tons. Why, therefore, exclaimed the Baltimore shipwrights, why should not we adopt a similar wise policy?
Arguments such as these, reiterated over and over during a course of years, produced in time their effect upon Congress, many of whose members had been strongly opposed to the treaty with England. French influence was also brought to bear in every conceivable way against it, and at last the protectionists of the United States were enabled to carry a measure through the Legislature sanctioning certain differential duties in favour of their own vessels as against those of England trading with their ports. From this time commenced that war of retaliation which, in one shape or other, continued between the two nations for nearly half a century.
Great Britain imposes countervailing duties.