The general character of the internal commerce between the North and
South, between 1830 and 1860, differed but little from what it had been
before the former year. There were no through rail connections between
the two sections until near the close of the period, and consequently
almost the entire commerce, aside from that in slaves and live stock,
consisted of the trade on the waters of the Mississippi River system.
This was the golden age of the river trade. Each year it grew steadily
in volume, reaching a point of prosperity in 1860 never equalled before
or since. Until the railroads began to divert the traffic in flour and
provisions after 1850, the cities on the Ohio River sent most of the
produce collected at their markets to New Orleans to be shipped to
Europe and the Eastern States or to be sold to the planters of the
cotton belt. After 1850, as the surplus agricultural produce of the
Ohio Valley was diverted from the river, its place was taken by that
coming from the fertile region around St. Louis, where thousands of
immigrants were settling in new homes. Moreover, the loss of traffic in
agricultural produce from Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky was
compensated for by the increasing volume of manufactured goods and coal
coming down from Cincinnati, Louisville and Pittsburgh. Thus the
downstream traffic from the Northern States, though suffering a heavy
relative loss, made an absolute gain, and with the enormous amounts of
cotton shipped down the river added to this traffic, the Mississippi
carried considerably more produce to the sea than either the Hudson
River or the eastern roads. As before 1830, the trade up the river
failed to keep pace with the movement downstream. Of the shipments
upstream, 75 per cent consisted of articles previously sent down and
resold to planters of Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas. The district
north of these states bought some sugar and coffee of New Orleans, but
drew practically all its manufactures and other imported goods from the
East.
The value of the receipts of produce at New Orleans advanced from
$22,000,000 in 1830 to $185,000,000 in 1860. The largest part of the
increase resulted from the growth of the cotton trade. The receipts of
"Western produce," which in 1820 formed 58 per cent of the commodities
entering New Orleans, constituted only 23 per cent of the total
receipts in 1860. But though showing a relative decline, the receipts
of foodstuffs and merchandise had a steady aggregate increase. As a
cotton market, New Orleans had no close rival. Its receipts of this
great staple in 1860 amounted to $109,000,000.
St. Louis was the city of next importance on the Mississippi. Until
after 1855, St. Louis remained strictly a river city, almost entirely
dependent upon the Mississippi and its tributaries for both the
importation and exportation of the flour, grain, meat, tobacco, lead
and other goods that entered and left its busy markets. After the city
secured railway connection with the East in 1855 a large part of the
traffic entering from that direction was transferred to the railroads,
and some of the traffic leaving the city was diverted from the southern
river route to the eastern railway route. However, the volume of trade
taken from the Mississippi was not large at first and the movement of
commodities southward showed no marked decline until the outbreak of
the Civil War.
Next to the river trade, the trade in live stock and slaves was the
most important element in the internal commerce between the North and
the South. Each year large droves of horses, mules, cattle and hogs
were driven into the South from the Northern and "border" states, the
farmers all over the corn-raising section finding an unfailing source
of gain in the demand for live stock in the southern cotton fields. The
domestic slave trade commenced to be of importance after 1820, when
cotton culture spread among the Gulf States. Slaves were bought in
South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and
Texas, and exported from Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Kentucky,
Tennessee, Missouri and Delaware. Though no statistics of the volume of
the internal slave trade exist, evidence from contemporary accounts
indicates that it was unquestionably extensive, probably reaching a
value of $30,000,000 a year in the late fifties.