The expansion of the volume of the internal trade of the United States
during this epoch more than justified the expectations existing at
1830. The improvement of the facilities for communication and
transportation, permitted a continually increasing accentuation of a
territorial division of labor which fostered the growth of mutual
dependence between regions where geographic, social or other conditions
led naturally to the predominance of a special type of industry. The
manufacturing and commercial population of the Northeast was fed by the
farm products of the Central States and the inhabitants of the Central
States drew their imported supplies, their clothing, shoes and large
quantities of other manufactured goods and general merchandise from the
Eastern markets. The South relied upon the North for food, manufactures
and imports. The North in turn bought from the South raw materials for
its cotton and sugar industries, and the Northern shipping interests
carried to European markets the heavy exports of Southern cotton, the
proceeds from which paid the Southern debts in Northern States and
settled the large unfavorable balance of the Northern foreign trade.
The multiplication of factories in the North together with the spread
of cotton culture in the South and the opening of foreign markets to
American grain brought about the demand for cereal products, which the
agricultural interests had been so anxious to create. When the market
problem was solved, the tariff duties were reduced to a revenue basis.
In the solution of the transportation problem the people freely used
their political institutions. Nearly all the numerous canals built
after 1825 and several of the early railroads were public enterprises,
undertaken by state governments. However, the states proved unable to
cope with the problem of administering their railways and canals, and
surrendered the field of transportation to private corporations, which
were helped to carry out the work by generous and munificent gifts of
land and money from federal, state and local governments.
Unfortunately the federal government did not attempt to establish a
satisfactory currency system. In 1837 and again in 1857 the country was
visited by a financial panic due in a large measure to extravagant
speculation, much of which would have been impossible had the issue of
money been properly regulated.
On the whole the period from 1830 to 1860 was one of great prosperity
and contentment. The wealth of the nation grew enormously and for the
most part it was equally distributed, there being few paupers and still
fewer very rich individuals. The twenty years following 1840 have been
called the "golden age" of American history, and as far as concerns the
diffusion of material comforts they certainly deserve the name.
Notwithstanding the great material prosperity however, the flames of
sectionalism, which had blazed forth during the contest over the
adoption of the "American System" remained unquenched even after the
question of protection had ceased to be an important political issue.
Filled with animosity engendered by the thought that the economic
progress of the North had been effected at the expense of the South,
and fearful that the fulminations of the abolitionists and the
successful efforts of the Northern political leaders to restrict the
territorial expansion of slavery only foretold an ultimate intention of
destroying that institution altogether, the Southern partisans decided
to sever the political bonds between the two sections, the economic
institutions of which differed so widely, and to establish a separate
state whose political ideals would conform to its economic and social
predilections. This decision the Southerners stood ready to enforce by
an appeal to arms; the people of the North, preferring "to accept war
rather than let the nation perish," made ready to prevent the proposed
dissolution of the Union; and the era of general happiness and comfort
ended amid the preparations for the impending struggle.