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sive theory of state rights. The political struggle which was the outcome of this alignment gave each section for the time a high degree of solidarity. Thus were the states of the North and those of the South gradually fused into two great opposing masses, and the Union became a house divided against itself.1

The main factor in the economic divergence of the sections was slavery. The effect of this institution in developing a local interest began to appear with the first efforts of the states to form a union. It caused the adoption of that peculiar basis of representation known as the " federal ratio," which became in the course of time a fruitful source of ill feeling between the North and South, but which for the moment seemed the easiest and best means of dealing with a troublesome question. There can be little doubt that the standard histories of the United States have overemphasized the importance of the differences concerning slavery previous to Jackson's administration, for these differences had not then become prominent and strenuous as in later days. Even

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1 Upon this vexed question, cf. Van Tyne, Am. Revolution, chap. xi.; McLaughlin, Confederation and Constitution, chap. xiv.; MacDonald, Jacksonian Democracy, chap. v. (Am. Nation, IX., X., XV.); cf., also, Lodge, Daniel Webster, 186 et seq.; Wilson, Division and Reunion, 47.

2

Cong. Globe, 28 Cong., 2 Sess., App., 213, 343

'Cf. Farrand, "Compromises of the Constitution" (Am. Hist. Review, IX., 479-489); Turner, New West (Am. Nation, XIV.), chap. x.

the sharp struggle which preceded the Missouri Compromise revealed tendencies towards a breach between the slave-holding and non-slave-holding states rather than any intense sectional hostility. But the final conflict between the sections had already been forecast by the invention of the cottongin. This gave the last great impulse to the tendency that was shaping the southern industrial system within narrow grooves. Thenceforth agriculture was the dominant occupation in the South, cotton far overshadowed all other products in importance, and slavery became securely intrenched where cotton-growing was profitable. As North and South diverged, the industrial conflict which accompanied the process of territorial expansion became steadily more "irrepressible"; nor was it unnatural that this conflict should react in such a way as to strengthen and intensify the sectional antagonism out of which it sprang.1

But the forces which were working for sectionalization become clearly evident only after a study of the rapid and thorough-going changes in the industrial system of the North. The abolition of slavery in the northern states is hardly to be regarded as a decided change; else it might have proved far more difficult to bring it about by legislative process. Slave labor could be made generally available and profitable only where its organization was rendered possible by the conditions 1Cf. Hart, Slavery and Abolition (Am. Nation, XVI.), chap. xxi.

under which the plantation flourished. Since it could not be used to advantage in the more varied industries of the North,' slavery had no depth of root in that section, and its disappearance marked no economic revolution. The real change was from the agricultural to the manufacturing and commercial system which marked the period subsequent to the War of 1812, and which was confined almost entirely to the North. The industrial differentiation between North and South, of which an incident was the movement against slavery north of Mason and Dixon's line, was now emphasized in a reverse way by the sectional development of manufacturing; the production of cotton goods refused to take root where cotton was grown, and where, as subsequent experience has shown, it has a natural place. In 1810 the total value of manufactured products for the slave-holding states was, in round numbers, $49,000,000, and for the states without slavery, $96,000,000; the corresponding figures for 1840 are respectively $108,000,000 and $375,000,000; while for 1850 they are $168,000,000 and $845,000,000. These figures, taken in conjunction with the concentration of slavery in the South, are sufficient to show how rapidly the conditions were producing industrial sectionalization."

2

1 Cf. Hammond, Cotton Industry, 43–47.

'Compiled from figures in U. S. Twelfth Census (1900), VII., li., lii., foot-note.

U. S. Seventh Census (1850), Compendium, 179.

The sectional antagonism which was the natural outgrowth of the different geographical distribution of two industrial systems contrasted in kind and inharmonious in interest, was soon stimulated by the adoption of the protective policy. Whatever reasons might be urged in support of protection to domestic manufactures, one aspect of it overshadowed, from the southern point of view, all others; and that was that the benefits were absorbed by the North, while the burden fell most heavily on the South. The first serious clash over the policy was that which led South Carolina to assert the right of nullification.' It was adjusted by a compromise, and the degree of protection which prevailed from that time to the eve of the Civil War was very moderate. This did not mean, however, that the economic differentiation of North and South had been checked; on the contrary, it continued with growing acceleration, as is shown by the figures stated above, indicating how much more rapidly manufactures developed in the North. In the making of textiles, from the outset, production by machinery displaced that by hand;' and during the decade 1840-1850 the same change took place to a large extent throughout the whole range of manufacturing; and, as it progressed, so much the more rapidly did the manufacturing industries drift

1 Cf. MacDonald, Jacksonian Democracy (Am. Nation, XV.), chap. ix. * Taussig, Tariff Hist., 22.

U. S. Twelfth Census (1900), VII., liii.

northward and the economic interests of the sections grow diverse.

By the time that the last great wave of the westward movement was fairly under way, it was evident that the system of civilization in the North and that in the South were rapidly becoming too unlike to exist in the same nation. The nationalizing tendency must either be checked, or some of the more fundamental differences that were producing sectionalization must disappear. Even had there been no fugitive slaves and no territorial expansion, it would have been hard for the two sections, with such thoroughly divergent ideals, to join in working out a harmonious and consistent scheme of government. There can be no question of the hopeful honesty and sincerity with which the attempt was made by both sides. Never in the history of the world has the policy of mutual concession and compromise had a fairer and more patient trial than in the United States before the Civil War; the failure was sufficient to prove that a satisfactory adjustment was possible only if the Union remained on its original basis, to which the South so resolutely clung; but the preservation of such incompatible elements in the same political and social organization was rendered impracticable' by the growth of nationality.

Every additional step in the progress of centralization made it more certain that the South would some day be forced to submit to the process

VOL. XVII.-2

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