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In spite of the efforts of President Jackson and of the purposes of the sub-treasury system, the concentration of capital in the Eastern towns and cities continued. Only New York, instead of Philadelphia, was the new center. The merchants of that city imported three fourths of the European goods consumed in the country, and they in turn exported nearly all of the great crops with which the balance of trade was maintained. New York was also a distributing center for the manufactures of the East which were sent to the South, the West, or the outside world. Thus the exchanges of all the sections were made there, and before 1860 its banks, with a capital of $130,000,000 and specie reserves of only $20,000,000, did a business of $7,000,000,000 a year. And while New York became the American London, the whole of the East was likewise securing the lion's share of the banking profits of the country. Although the assessed wealth of the section counted only one fourth of the total $16,000,000,000 for the country in 1860, the East had nearly two thirds of the banking capital; and the money in circulation there was $16.5 per capita as against $6.6 for the country as a whole.[8] Industry, commerce, shipping, and banking concentrated in the narrow area of less than 200,000 square miles, earned yearly returns equal as a rule to the total of the capital invested. Money changed hands rapidly, credits did the work of capital, and the rapid growth of population added large unearned increments to the fortunes of those who owned land or had established themselves in trade.
