UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA.

No single event in modern history has been of so much importance to mankind as the discovery of America. That great continent, which had been hid from the eyes of civilized nations for so many ages, comprises nearly one third of the habitable globe. In soil and climate it rivals the best parts of the old continent. It is not, like Asia and Africa, infested by the larger and more dangerous species of wild animals, nor deformed by vast deserts, which present insuperable obstacles to civilization. But its great and peculiar advantage lies in the unrivalled magnitude and number of its navigable rivers, which enable its most remote inland parts to hold commercial intercourse with each other, and with foreign states, with unparalleled case and rapidity. The position of these great rivers, whose estuaries all open to the east, points out the western side of the old continent as the region with which it is destined by nature to be most closely connected. Two great classes of colonists, widely dissimilar in character and in circumstances, came from Europe to occupy this new world. The Spaniards, who were first in the order of time, took possession of the most populous and fertile regions; but their natural advantages were rendered abortive by political and moral evils, a rapacious spirit, a corrupt religion, and a vicious system of government. The English, the other great class of colonists, owed their better fortunes in some measure to their apparent disadvantages. Having neither gold mines to work, nor wealthy Indians to rob, they cultivated with greater diligence the natural riches of the soil, and laid the foundation of future prosperity in habits of order and industry. Neglected by the government as a band of destitute refugees, they enjoyed what was then an unusual degree of civil and religious liberty. Their industry flourished, because it was unfettered and unburdened. They were well governed, because they were left to govern themselves. And if they wanted the aid of the mother country when that aid might sometimes have been useful, they were, on the other hand, exempted from those incessant exactions and vexations to which the Spanish colonists were exposed, from the ignorant, meddling, grasping, bigoted spirit of their European rulers. The troubles which they experienced from the hostility of the Indians diminished as their own numbers increased, and, except at first, were never extremely detrimental. Their common dangers served in some measure as a bond of union among themselves, and perhaps favoured their social improvement, by acting as a slightly compressing force to prevent the indefinite diffusion of the population over a large surface. To their free spirit, virtuous habits, intelligence, and industry, the English colonists certainly owed much of their early success; but we must not forget that a series of fortunate changes, not directly the consequence of their own exertions, has greatly contributed to place them in the enviable situation which they now occupy. Had the Dutch, French, Danish, and Swedish colonies planted in North America spread as fast and as far as those of England, and continued separate and independent, we should have seen, in the space between the Mississippi and the Atlantic, the same medley of nations and languages, with the same diversity of manners, religion, institutions, and clashing interests, which foster everlasting feuds and jealousies in Europe, engender desolating wars, load the people with oppressive taxes and military tyrannies, and present a formidable barrier to the circulation of knowledge and the progress of society. The conquests of England, which blended all these colonies into one nation, have secured to the United States an exemption from half the evils which afflict civil society in Europe, and have prepared for them a career of peaceful grandeur and growing prosperity, which divided Europe cannot hope to enjoy, and which has had no parallel in the history of mankind. The people of the United States find themselves in a condition to devote their whole energies to the cultivation of their vast natural resources, undistracted by wars, unburdened by oppressive taxes, unfettered by old prejudices and corruptions. Enjoying the united advantages of an infant and a mature society, they are able to apply the highly refined science and art of Europe to the improvement of the virgin soil and unoccupied natural riches of America. They start unencumbered by a thousand evils, political and moral, which weigh down the energies of the Old World. The volume of our history lies before them: they may adopt our improvements, avoid our errors, take warning from our sufferings, and, with the combined lights of our experience and their own, build up a more perfect form of society. Even already they have given some momentous and some salutary truths to the world. It is their rapid growth which has first developed the astonishing results of the productive powers of population. We can now calculate, with considerable certainty, that America, which yet presents to the eye, generally, the aspect of an untrodden forest, will, in the short space of one century, surpass Europe in the number of its inhabitants. We even hazard little in predicting, that, before the tide of civilization has rolled back to its original seats, Assyria, Persia, and Palestine, an intelligent population of two or three hundred millions will have overspread the New World, and extended the empire of knowledge and the arts from Cape Horn to Alayska. Among this vast mass of civilized men there will be but two languages spoken. The effect of this single circumstance in accelerating the progress of society can scarcely be calculated. What a field will then be opened to the man of science, the artist, the popular writer, who addresses a hundred millions of educated persons? what a stimulus given to mental energy and social improvement, when every new idea, and every useful discovery, will be communicated instantaneously to so great a mass of intelligent beings, by the electric agency of the post and the press? With the united intellect and resources of a society framed on such a gigantic scale, what mighty designs will then be practicable? Imagination is lost in attempting to estimate the effects of such accumulated means and powers. One result may however be anticipated. America must then become the centre of knowledge, civilization, and power; and the present leading states of Europe (Russia perhaps excepted), placed on the arena amidst such colossal associates as the American republics, will sink to a subordinate rank, and cease to exert any greater influence on the fate of the world than the Swiss cantons do at the present day.

The territory of the United States is situated between the 25th and 49th degrees of north latitude, and between the 67th and 124th degrees of west longitude from London. Its extreme length east and west is 2780 miles, its greatest breadth north and south 1230 miles, and its area, according to Mr Mellish, 2,076,410 square English miles. It is bounded on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the north by the British possessions, on the west by the Pacific Ocean, and on the south by Mexicoand the Mexican Gulf. The Mississippi divides it into two parts nearly equal in extent. In the north-east angle of this territory, there is a space of more than 100 miles square, of very barren ground, interposed between New Brunswick and Lower Canada, the possession of which has long been the subject [7:21:451]of negociation between the British and American governments. On the west coast the Americans have an unquestioned claim to the country, between the 42d and 47th parallels; but Russia disputes the right of possession with them to the tract of country between the 49th and 60th parallels. As the admitted boundaries are in general very distinctly marked, on the common maps, we shall not describe them in detail.

Two chains of mountains separate this extensive territory into three great natural divisions. 1. The Atlantic region, or the country lying east of the Alleghany Mountains. 2. The valley of the Mississippi, or the country watered by the Mississippi, Missouri, and their numerous branches. 3. The Pacific region, or the country lying west of the Rocky Mountains.

The Alleghany Mountains commence in Lower Canada, below Quebec; and passing along the northern boundary of Maine, and through New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the two Carolinas, they terminate in the upper parts of Georgia and Alabama, preserving a south-west direction throughout. They consist of three, four, five, or more distinct ridges, with wide and fertile valleys interposed. Their entire length is 1100 miles, their breadth varies from 110 to 150. In the northern half their height is greatest, but most unequal; detached peaks are numerous, and the ridges indistinctly marked. In the south, the ridges are lower, but better defined, and their summits are often distinguished by a very uniform continuous level. They attain their greatest height in New Hampshire, where Mount Washington has an elevation of 6600 feet. Their greatest height in New York is 3800, in Pennsylvania 2500, in Virginia 3900, in South Carolina 4000. The mean height is said by Mr Mellish to be from 1000 to 1800 feet, but his average is undoubtedly formed on wrong principles. That of the highest chain cannot be less than from 2000 to 2500 feet.^[1. Mellish’s Geographical Description of United States, Philadelphia, 1822, p. 20. Warden’s Statistical, Political, and Historical Account of United States, 1819. Introduction. ]

The Rocky Mountains, known but imperfectly, are a continuation of the Mexican Cordilleras, and extend to the Polar Ocean. They pass through the territory of the United States, at the distance of 500 miles from the Pacific Ocean, and consist of several elevated chains, occupying a breadth of 300 miles, with deep valleys between them. They rise abruptly from their base, and are supposed to reach the elevation of 12,000 feet in their highest summits, many of which are covered with perpetual snow. There are, however, several passes through them, which, with a little improvement, might be traversed by loaded waggons.^[2. Mellish, p. 21. James’s Account of an Expedition from Pittsburg to the Rocky Mountains in 1819, 1820, vol. iii. p. 238. Warden, iii. 161. ]

The Atlantic Region was the first settled, and is the most populous and improved portion of the United States, but not the most favoured as to soil and climate. It may be considered as the eastern slope of the Alleghanies. Including all the countries watered by rivers flowing into the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico east of the Mississippi, it is about 1700 miles in length, with an average breadth of 250, and embraces an area of 400,000 square miles. It includes three well-marked varieties of soil and surface. 1. The alluvial district, consisting of sand, gravel, and clay, comprising a stripe of level land, extending along the coast from New York southward, with a breadth varying from twenty miles to 100. The surface is level or slightly undulating, and it embraces large tracts of marsh near the coast. The soil is poor and sandy, producing almost nothing but pines, except in the alluvial tracts which skirt the rivers. About one half of the surface of New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, one fifth of Virginia, one third of the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, and Alabama, fall under this description. 2. The upland country, extending from the alluvial tract to the foot of the mountains, with a breadth varying from twenty to 200 miles. Here the soil is chiefly formed from the detritus of the primitive rocks, and is generally fertile, and well adapted for tillage. 3. The ridges of the Alleghanies, and the valleys between them, which bear a strong growth of natural wood, have generally a rich soil, capable of tillage, wherever the surface is not rocky or too steep; and are almost free from marshes. In part of Pennsylvania, New York, and in the six New England States,^[3. As the name of New England occurs often in American books. it may bu proper to mention, that the appellation is applied to the six states east of the Hudson,—Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. ] where the Alleghanies spread out into an irregular broken surface, the soil possesses a mixed character. The northern parts of New England are mountainous, the southern hilly or uneven. The soil, comparatively speaking, is rocky, has little depth, and is better adapted for pasture than tillage, and improves generally as we advance inwards from the coast. The south-east section of New York corresponds in character with New England. But, of all the old states, Pennsylvania contains the largest portion of good soil on the east side of the mountains. The woods originally covered all this Atlantic region, except some tracts called the American prairies, on which, from causes not well explained, no natural growth of timber exists. These are not meadows or wet grounds, as the French term might be supposed to indicate; but lands bare of wood, whether wet or dry, level or uneven. As the population thickens, the forests disappear; but even in the most densely peopled parts, the woodlands occupy so large a proportion of the surface, that the country generally presents, to the eye of a European, the aspect of a natural wilderness, broken by patches of cultivation, which are numerous round the great cities, but grow less frequent as we recede from the shore, till they terminate in the boundless forests of the Alleghanies.

The basin or Valley of the Mississippi, which extends from the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains, is not so large by one third as the basin of the Amazon, but being situated in the best part of the temperate zone, it may be pronounced the finest valley in the world. Its breadth east and west is 1400 miles; its length in the opposite direction 1200, and its area 1,400,000 square miles. It comprehends a great diversity of soil, surface, and climate. 1. The basin of the Ohio, including the Cumberland, 700 miles long and 300 broad, is a rich and beautiful country, the garden of the United States. The lower parts of the surface are from 500 to 800 feet above the level of the sea, and are finely diversified with round-topped arable hills, rising 400 or 500 feet above their base. The rivers generally run in deep hollows, sometimes mere ravines, but often spreading out into valleys, which include lands of exuberant fertility. This district includes Kentucky, Tennessee, with part of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio. Indiana, and Illinois. 2. The territory extending from the basin of the Ohio north-westward to Lake Superior, including the country between the Missouri and Upper Mississippi. The surface is sometimes undulating, sometimes so level that the waters stagnate on it, till carried off by evaporation; nor is it broken by any notable elevations, except one long ridge extending between the Missouri and Mississippi, and two low eminences called the Ocooch and Smoky Mountains. The soil is naturally rich, and covered with luxuriant herbage; but the climate is severe, and the woods so thin that the bare ground or prairies occupy three fourths of the surface on the east side of the Mississippi, and nineteen twentieths on the west.
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The absolute elevation of the northern parts is probably not under 1500 feet, for Cassina lake, thirty miles below the sources of the Mississippi, is 1330 feet above the sea. (Mellish, p. 32. James’s Expedition, iii. 204.) 3. The last and largest division of this great valley, extending from the Mississippi and Missouri to the Rocky Mountains, consists of two very different qualities of soil, which graduate into each other, but, on the great scale, may be conceived to form two parallel tracts of nearly equal extent, parted by the 98th meridian. In the middle of the eastern section, and, as it were, in the very bottom of the great basin of the Mississippi, he the Ozark Mountains; a chain, like the Alleghanies, of great length and breadth, and small height, rising only from 1000 to 2000 feet above the sea. (James’s Expedition, iii. p. 313.) Mr Mellish erroneously calls the height 3500 feet. Their breadth is from 100 to 150 miles: their sides, which slope with gentle declivities, are deeply furrowed with streams, and partly covered with small timber. The Arkansas and Red River are the only streams which cut their way through this chain. On the east side of the Ozark chain is the Great Swamp, 200 miles long and twenty broad, which is converted into a lake by the annual overflow of the Mississippi, but is dry during the heats of summer, and rendered impenetrable at all times by a thick growth of cypress. The country round it is rich bottom or meadow land, clothed with excellent timber. The country for one or two hundred miles west of the Ozarks is also good, but less wooded; and in the eastern section, taken altogether, the open ground occupies nineteen twentieths of the surface. The western section, extending from the meridian of 98° to the Rocky Mountains, is comparatively dry and sterile, and much of it an absolute desert, destitute of herbage, and unfit for human habitation. As we approach the mountains, the ground, which is at first hilly, subsides into smaller undulations, and these terminate in table-lands, nearly fiat on the top, with steep, and sometimes precipitous sides, and rising 600 or 800 feet above the common level. These table-lands, consisting of alternate beds of sandstone and breccia, increase in number and diminish in extent as we approach the base of the mountains, which is believed to have an elevation of 3000 feet above the sea. The desert aspect of the country, however, is not the effect of its elevation, but more probably of its aridity; for valleys among the mountains, which are still higher, are fertile. The rivers in this frightful solitude often spread out to a breadth of one or two miles, and dry up in the warm weather. Salt springs are numerous, and salt incrustations cover many square miles. Trees are only to be seen at some spots along the rivers, and arc rather more abundant in the south than in the north; but throughout the whole section, the wood does not cover the thousandth part of the surface. Of the basin of the Mississippi altogether, it may be observed, that the western side is a barren desert; the middle contains much good lands, but abounds in swamps; the east side, comprehending the basin of the Ohio, is the richest, and most eligible for human habitation. The woods, in their natural state, increase continually as we advance from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic; a proof, perhaps, that the summer heat, and the quantity of atmospheric moisture, follow a similar law.^[4. This account of the basin of the Mississippi is entirely taken from Major Long’s Memoir, published in the third volume of James’s Account of the Expedition to the Rocky Mountains. ]

The Pacific Region extends from the Rocky Mountains to the ocean, and (exclusive of disputed ground) from latitude 42° to 49°, embracing an area of 300,000 square miles, It consists almost entirely of the basin of the Columbia river. This country naturally divides itself into three parts, the first of which commences at the coast of the Pacific, and extends inland to a range of mountains running parallel with the coast, south-east and north-west, through which the Columbia river passes, and enters the sea in lat. 46° 19' N. and in long. 124° W. These mountains lift their bold summits several thousand feet from their bases, but from their mid distance upwards their barren sides present the naked deformity of rocks, lava, and cinders. Their elevated summits appear to be the craters of extinguished volcanoes. Some of the high snowy peaks of this range are seen far at sea on the Pacific Ocean. The extent of this tract from west to east is about 130 miles, and southward to the limits of California, and probably very fat north. The climate is remarkably moist, almost uninterrupted rain falling from October to April. In winter the weather is clear and the cold moderate. The temperature is mild and equable, resembling that of France and Spain much more than that of the Atlantic coast. Snow is seldom seen at the mouth of the Columbia river, so that ploughing could be carried on through most winters. This region contains a great proportion of barren inaccessible land; but the water-courses, which are numerous, afford valleys that are as fertile as can be found in the United States. The immediate sea-board is the worst part. For farming purposes, the level country may be upon the whole reckoned equal to any part of the state of New York. One half is of excellent quality, the other half inaccessible mountains.

The second division extends from the mountains, embracing the lower course of the Columbia, including its great tails, and eastward to the Blue Mountains a higher range, about 168 miles. The temperature differs little from that of New England; the snows are light, and do not last long, seldom so long as to obstruct the feeding of animals. Little rain falls in summer in this division; about the middle of October there are usually rains, but not heavy. In this division of country the river-bottoms are neither so frequent nor so extensive as in the first, but at the foot of the mountains bounding each side of the valley, there are large tracts very fertile.

The third division extends from the Blue Mountains on the west to the Rocky Mountains eastward, a distance of about 286 miles, and presents wide sandy deserts, almost destitute of water. The deposits of vegetable matter are few, and there is very little moisture except near the rivers; and thousands of acres are white with Epsom and Glauber salts. In this valley is the great salt lake, on the bottom of which, when low, the salt is deposited as in a salt-pan. The climate is remarkable for dryness, and for the difference between the temperature during the night and the day. Not a cloud will be seen in the sky for six weeks, and no rain falls except for a few days in the spring, nor is there much snow in winter. A traveller mentions, that on the 18th August 1832 the thermometer at sunrise was as low as 18°, a depression which it seldom reaches in Great Britain, and on the same day was at 92°. A difference of 40° between sunrise and noon is not uncommon. On the Columbia river, about eighty miles from its mouth, the two great companies of Canadian traders, who in 1821 were formed into the North-West Company, established a settlement and the fort of Vancouver, which has since become the centre of the fur trade. It has been gradually improved, and the cultivators, clerks, factors, and traders who reside here amount to about 2000 souls. In 1835, they produced 8000 bushels of wheat, 5500 bushels of barley, 6000 of or ts, 9000 of pease, 14,000 of potatoes, besides large quantities of vegetables. There is also a thriving orchard, in which are produced abundantly, apples, quinces, pears, and grapes. A large ship annually arrives from London with goods, and a trade is also carried on with the Sandwich and other of the South Sea Islands. There are other stations occupied by the North-West Company’s servants; namely, at Wallawallah, 250 miles above Vancouver, and at [7:21:453]Colville, 600 miles higher. There are several other posts along the upper course of the river. These are generally picketed enclosures, occupied by from fifteen to twenty servants of the North-West Company, for the purpose of trading with the Indians for furs. They have at Vancouver a large thrashing machine, a saw-mill, a distillery, a grit-mill, and, in short, all the necessary rudiments of a civilized community.^[5. See Report on the Territory of Oregan, presented to Congress February 16, 1839. ]

In 1835 a settlement was made on the river Wallamete, by a missionary of the name of Lee, which succeeded well. During the first year, a g∞d crop was raised of green pease and other vegetables. A school was established, at which native children were instructed in rending and in all mechanical arts. The state of this country was brought under the consideration of the Congress by a petition from different settlers, who were intending to emigrate to it, and there to establish a colony. They requested the countenance of the government, and the aid of a military force with which to maintain law and order; and an estimate was made of the expense of a battalion of troops, and the necessary stores for that purpose.^[6. See Letter of the Secretary of War. Jan. 4, 1839. Report from Committee on Foreign Affairs, App. K. ] This colony, the germ of a new state, has in this manner been established; the sovereignty of the country, obtained by the United States, will be duly maintained; and the seeds of population, planted in the congenial soil, will increase and multiply; and thus the desert will rejoice in a new and flourishing off-set from the great trunk of the American population.

The active population of the United States is rapidly spreading over the desert that lies to the westward of the cultivated portion of the United States, and the annual purchases of land bring a valuable addition to the revenue. The following is an account of the annual quantity of land that has been sold since the year 1820.
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The main flood of the American population is now rapidly making its way across the extended plains to the west of the Mississippi; numbers of adventurous emigrants are already settled in these western regions; the desert is rapidly assuming the aspect of cultivation, villages and towns supplanting the primeval forest; and in a few years the wild animals and the savage will alike disappear before the rapid progress of civilized man. The interminable woods of the west, and the inundations and marshes of the south, yield alike to the resistless sway of persevering energy; the great mass moves onward with increasing force, under the impulse of causes which no longer brook control, and which will no less bear down, it is to be feared, moral right than physical obstacles in its progress to the barrier of the ocean. Since the adventurous journey of Lewis and Clarke to the mouth of the Columbia river, the settlements have advanced farther to the west, and new and easier roads have been found across the wilderness and the Rocky Mountains, and down the great river of the Pacific. This country, the abode of wild animals, has been for more than twenty years a noted resort of the fur traders, and especially those in the service of the North-West Company.

The United States, whose territories almost touch the tropic on the one side, and reach to districts where frost lasts five or six months on the other, embrace greater varieties of climate than any other single state in the world. Generally speaking, the climate of the United States is distinguished from that of Europe by three peculiarities. 1. It is absolutely colder for the corresponding degrees of latitude, the mean temperature of the year, according to Humboldt, being nine degrees of Fahrenheit lower on the east coast of America than on the west coast of Europe at the latitude of 40°, and 12½° lower at the latitude of 50°. 2.

The thermometer has a greater range, as the heat of summer and the cold of winter reach greater extremes. 3. The climate changes more rapidly as we proceed from south to north, or a greater variety of climates is comprised within the same range of latitude. the mean temperature of Quebec, at one extremity, is 42°, and of Cape Sable, at rite other, 72∙7°. Between the parallels of 33 and 50, a degree of latitude which makes a change of 1∙13° (Fahrenheit) in Europe, makes a change of 1∙57° in the United States; and the same annual temperature which is found at a given degree of latitude in the United States, is found seven degrees farther north in Europe. The seasons are also differently distributed. Philadelphia, for instance, has the summers of Rome and the winters of Vienna. In Florida, at New Orleans, and at St Mary’s in Georgia, snow is never seen; but in Pennsylvania snow lasts three months, in Massachusetts four, and in Maine five.^[9. Humboldt, Prolegomena de Distrib. Geog. Plant. 1817, p. 68-71. Warden, vol. i. p. 287, 333; vol. ii. p. 60. ] In the two latter states, the ice bears loaded waggons, and the sea is sometimes frozen to a considerable distance from the coast. In all the low country, from Florida to the St Lawrence, the extreme summer heat is nearly the same, from 90° to 98°, and the varieties of climate are chiefly marked by the intensity and duration of the winter’s cold. The climate in the basin of the Ohio, compared with that of the Atlantic coast, possesses no very striking peculiarities, but seems, on the whole, to have its mean annual heat a little higher, to be rather more steady and equable, to be less frequently visited by the frigorifie north-west winds, and to have fits of cold weather almost equally severe, but more transitory. The great lakes appear to mitigate the winter cold in the country immediately around them, and probably in the basin of the Ohio too; for on the west and north-west of this district the climate is much more rigorous. At Council Bluffs, on the Missouri, in latitude 41½°, the thermometer descends to —22° in winter, and rises to 105° in summer. At St Peter’s Fort, on the Mississippi, in latitude 45°, it ranges from 92° to —30°, and the mean temperature of January is about zero. The absolute height of the fort, which cannot exceed 1000 feet, does not account for this excessive cold. We have already mentioned the equable temperature of the basin of the Columbia; and, from the observations made on the Missouri and Upper Mississippi, we have reason to believe that the mildest and the most rigorous winters known in any similar latitude are to be found at once on the opposite sides of the great rampart of the [7:21:454]Rocky Mountains. (On the subject of Climate, see Mellish, p. 59-77.)

So many local circumstances affect the annual depth of rain, that little reliance can be placed on general estimates. We find that it was forty-two inches at Charlestow n, on an average of some years, forty at Natchez, thirty at Philadelphia, thirty-six at Cincinnati. The mean fall of rain for the inhabited part of the United States (latitude 41°) should be about thirty-four inches. The frequent failure of the streams, and the scarcity of verdure in the country near the Rocky Mountains, indicate a deficiency of atmospheric moisture in that region. Snow falls to the greatest depth on the borders of the great lakes. On the sea-coast it is rarely seen farther south than Northfolk, latitude 37°; but in the interior it is found four or five degrees farther south. Compared with the middle countries of Europe, the United States occupying a more southern position, have rains more regular and heavy, and greater in absolute quantity, but a smaller number of wet days. Of the winds, the most remarkable are, 1. A moist and warm south or south-west wind, which is supposed to be a branch of the trade-wind, and is felt all over the Atlantic States as far as the Potowmac, and occasionally in New England. 2. Another wind, possessing the same qualities, and believed also to be a branch of the trade-wind: it blows from the Mexican Gulf, up the course of the Mississippi, and seems to send off subordinate branches, which ascend the courses of the Ohio and Missouri. In Louisiana and Arkansas, it is a south wind; at Council Bluffs, on the Missouri, it is a south-east; and in Ohio and Kentucky, a south-west wind. It is the prevailing wind in all these districts. 3. The north-weft blows occasionally on the west side of the Alleghanies, but more frequently on the east side, and is most prevalent in New England. It everywhere produces intense cold, depressing the thermometer to—7° or —8° in Ohio, and sometimes to —20° in Massachusetts. 4. The north-east is a cold wind, which, transporting the fogs of the Newfoundland bank, occasions showers of snow. Various facts observed in the United States seem to show, what some meteorologists have doubted, that clearing and cultivation improve the climate, at least so far as regards the growth of the cerealia.^[10. Warden, vol. i. p. 289. 355. Birkbeck’» Letters from Illinois, p. 37. ]

If we draw a line from New York to the cast end of Lake Ontario, the peninsula lying north-eastward between the St Lawrence and the sea consists of primitive rocks, interspersed with some patches of secondary. From this line southward the country has a different geological character. A belt of alluvial soil, beginning at Long Island, extends along the shore of all the southern states to Natchez on the Mississippi, having an average breadth of a hundred miles, and probably including all Florida, except some high ground in the interior. It is everywhere penetrated by the tide-water in the rivers. On the west side of this is a region of primitive rocks, from 100 to 200 miles broad, in which gneiss predominates. It embraces the eastern ridges of the Alleghanies, with the rolling country at their foot. On the west side of this, again, is a long narrow zone of transition rocks, including the western ridges of the Alleghanies, and extending from Lake Champlain to the northwest angle of Georgia. From this transition formation, which constitutes, as it were, the eastern edge of the basin of the Mississippi, immense beds of secondary limestone, sandstone, and shale, cover the country to the Rocky Mountains, interrupted only by the alluvial formations on the banks of the rivers, and by the Ozark Mountains. Like the Alleghanies, these mountains present the same formations, disposed in the same order. The Rocky Mountains, so far as they have been explored, consist of primitive rocks, granite, gneiss, quartz rock, &c,, covered on the east side by an extensive formation of old red sandstone.^[11. S Maclure’s Observation on the Geology of ιbe United States passim. Major Long’s Memoir; and Engraved Section« in James’s Expedition. ]

That important mineral, coal, is found on both sides of the Alleghanies. The two principal formations on the east side are, 1. On the river Apomatox, above Richmond in Virginia, where a seam of excellent coal, which occupies a basin twenty miles long and ten broad, has been long worked, and employs 5000 persons: 2. At various spots along a narrow tract of country, from the sources of the Juniata and western Susquehannah to Providence Bay. At Lehigh, and other places within this district, the coal is worked. On the western side of the Alleghanies, an immense formation of coal, probably the largest in the world, extends from the head waters of the Ohio southward to those of the Tombigbee, and westward, with some interruptions, beyond the Mississippi. A similar bed appears on the west side of the Ozarks, which is also traced far up the course of the Missouri; and there is a third bed of unknown extent on the east side of the Rocky Mountains.^[12. James’s Expedition, vol. iii. p. 96, 298, and Engraved Sections. Maclure, p. 35. Warden. Introduction, p. 32. ]

Salt, another mineral of primary importance, is distributed in considerable abundance over the United States territory, especially those parts that are remote from the sea. A great formation of rock-salt (and gypsum), indicated by numerous salt springs, is believed to accompany the coal formation over a great part of the basin of the Mississippi. Salt springs are numerous at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, and extensive plains occur covered with salt, one of which, the Grand Saline, is thirty miles in circumference, and in hot weather is covered with a crust of clear white salt from two to six inches deep, and superior in quality to manufactured salt. On the cast side of the Alleghanies, salt is generally obtained from the ocean, or imported.

Iron is found in nearly all the states, and is worked to such an extent that, of 50,000 tons consumed, according to computation, in the country, only 10,000 are imported. (Morse, i. 236.) A bed of magnetic iron ore, from eight to twelve feet thick, in gneiss, and another from two to twenty feet, extend, with some interruptions, from the White Mountains on the one side, and from Lake Champlain on the other, to the northern limits of New Jersey. Iron ore, of various kinds, is also found in Maryland and Virginia. On the west side of the Alleghanies it is abundant, and is extensively worked at Pittsburg, and in Kentucky and Tennessee. The whole number of furnaces, forges, and bloomeries, in 1810, was 530. Ores of copper are smelted in New Jersey, and are found in various other parts of the Union. Native copper is said to exist in great quantities near the river St Croix, in the NorthWest Territory; but at present the United States are chiefly supplied with this metal from Mexico Lead is found in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, but it exists most abundantly in Missouri, at the north-east angle of the Ozark Mountains, where forty-five mines are worked, which yield three millions of pounds annually. (Mellish, 366.) Gold is found in considerable abundance in Virginia, between the tide river, and the blue ridge in the Alleghany Mountains. A map has been published exhibiting a condensed view of this interesting region, which has been surveyed and explored; and the gold annually obtained is estimated, “it is stated, in millions of dollars,'’ and it is rapidly increasing, though, comparatively speaking, only the surface of the ground has been disturbed in obtaining this precious metal. Some of the Virginian ores were pounded in a mortar, and the sand being washed away, a large proportion of metallic gold appeared in numerous and beautiful grains, though no [7:21:455]gold was visible on the outside. Those who have explored this country are of opinion that it is decidedly rich in minerals; and. from the situation of the mines in a populous district, with a complete command of machinery of every description, there will be great advantages for working them. The gold mines on the Rappahannock are not above half a dozen miles from the city of Washington. The rich gold veins are said to be finely developed; to be composed of quartz, commonly called white flint, from one to five feet in thickness, generally perpendicular in the earth, like a wall, supported on both sides by sort talcose slate; and to extend from the surface to an unknown depth. Gold has not unusually been found in the broken veins of the fragments at the surface; and it has also been found at the depth of 160 feet, increasingly rich.^[13. See American Railroad Journal, p, 437. ] Mercury and tin have not been found. Cobalt, antimony, manganese, and ores of zinc, occur in some few spots. Nitre is obtained in vast quantities from the limestone caves in Kentucky. On a general view, it may be said that the United States have a supply of coal, salt, iron, lead, and probably copper, adequate to their own consumption.

The United States have no considerable lake entirely within their territory, except Michigan. But a series of fresh-water lakes, by far the largest in the world (for the Caspian Sea is salt), and connected with one another by the St Lawrence, extends along the northern frontier. The following is their extent, and their elevation above the level of the sea.
[table]

Reckoning from Quebec to the western extremity of Superior, these lakes afford a line of 1550 miles of inland navigation, which will be increased to 4500 miles if we include the whole extent of their shores. But Quebec is far from the open sea, and the shortest and best route to the Atlantic. from Lake Erie and the waters above will be by the New York Canal. Lake Erie is about twenty fathoms in average depth, Ontario eighty, and Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior are said to be still deeper. All these inland waters can be navigated with advantage; and will be crowded with vessels at some future period, when an active population covers the North-West Territory. The principal interruptions at present are, lst, at the rapids between Montreal and Kingston, where it is proposed to cut a canal; 2d, at the rapids and the great fall of Niagara, where a canal is also projected; 3d, in the stream of the river between Lakes Huron and Erie, where there are also rapids, and in Lake St Clair, which is full of shallows; 4th, at the falls of St Mary, between Huron and Superior, amounting to twenty-three feet in half a mile. All these obstructions, it is believed, can be surmounted by art. These various lakes evidently occupy the bottom of a raised plateau, the outer sides of which are not very distant; and hence they receive very few rivers of any magnitude. Their shores are beset with ice for two, three, or four months in the year.

Lake George, thirty-six miles long and seven broad, pours its waters into Lake Champlain, which is 160 miles long and eighteen broad, and communicates by the river Sorelle with the St Lawrence. A canal, twenty two miles long, now nearly finished, connects Lake Champlain with the Hudson. We pass over the other lakes of smaller size.

The rivers of the United States belong to four different systems: 1st, those which water the Atlantic region; 2d, the Mississippi and its branches, which water the great central valley of North America; 3d, those which flow into the St Lawrence; and, 4th, the Columbia and its tributaries, which flow into the Pacific Ocean.

The rivers which fall into the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico from Maine to the eastern boundary of Louisiana, all rise in the Alleghanies, except the Susquehannah and the Hudson, which pass entirely through the principal chains. Their length varies from 200 to 450 miles, increasing gradually with the breadth of the level country, as we advance southward. The tide-water ascends in all these rivers to the outer boundary of the primitive formations, where falls regularly occur, except on the Hudson. In this river the tide reaches to Albany, 160 miles from its mouth, to which point there is an uninterrupted navigation for sloops of eighty tons. This peculiar advantage has made the Hudson the scene of a more active inland trade than any river, perhaps, in the world, of the same magnitude. Tide navigation reaches a very short way up the great rivers in the northern states generally; but in those south of the Susquehannah, it reaches generally from 100 to 130 miles. Boats ply on these rivers much farther up, but the navigation is seldom uninterrupted. The following are the principal rivers on the Atlantic side, with their computed lengths.

Miles. Miles.

Connecticut 290 Roanoke 230

Hudson 300 Pedee 290

Delaware 270 Santee 300

Susquehannah 350 Savannah 280

Potomac 2G0 Catahouche 400

James River 200 Alabama 440

The rivers that fall into the St Lawrence and its lakes are comparatively small, and probably do not carry off one tenth part of the water that falls on the cast side of the Mississippi. The most considcrable are the Fox River, which falls into Lake Michigan, the Miamie of Lake Erie, the Genessee, and Seneca of Lake Ontario, and the Sorelie or Richlieu, which joins the St Lawrence below Montreal.

The majestic Mississippi drains a greater surface than any river in the world except the Amazon, and in the magnitude of its stream is only surpassed by the Amazon and the Plata. It has been computed to convey to the Mexican Gulf 1 / 38 th of all the water which the ocean receives from the dry land. The extreme length of the Mississippi proper, including all its sinuosities, is generally computed to be 2500 miles, but reckoning to the head of the Missouri, which is the largest branch, it is nearly 4000. It has three bars at its mouth, the deepest of which affords only seventeen feet of water. (Warden, i. 114.) Sloops of this draught can navigate to Natchez, 350 miles from its mouth. There is depth sufficient at all times for sloops drawing six feet to the Ohio, and for vessels drawing three feet to the junction with the Missouri. (James’s Expedition, iii. 258.) But during the floods in May, June, and July, the waters rise fifty feet, and are then navigable by vessels of any size. The Mississippi, from its junction with the Ohio to the sea, is about 1000 yards, or two thirds of a mile, in width, and below Red River it is about 120 feet deep. From the junction of the Arkansas, its banks form an elevated ridge or platform, which support the stream at the height of ten or twenty feet above the level of the adjacent lands. In its floods, it sometimes bursts the barriers which confine it, and inundates the flat country below. Οι the two great branches, the Missouri, and Mississippi proper, the former stream is the larger and more rapid, and also more turbid, from the quantity of travelled soil it transports; [7:21:456]but its waters, generally occupying a wider channel, are more loaded with bars and sand-banks, and the navigation is more intricate. (James’s Expedition, iii. 259.) The Platte, Kansas, and some other tributaries of the Missouri, often extend to a breadth of one or two miles, and during the warm season dry up entirely. But these, and all the branches of both rivers, generally admit of boat navigation for nine tenths of their course, during a longer or shorter period every year. In the Ohio, the boating season is from 20th February to the middle of June. Before this period the waters are icebound; after it they are too shallow except for very small craft. The length of the Mississippi, from its mouth to the junction of the Ohio, is about 1200 miles, and to its junction with the Missouri, 1300. The length of the Missouri, above the junction to its remotest branch, is, by Lewis and Clarke’s measurement, 2575 miles. The length of the Ohio, above the point of confluence, is 1188 miles. The other large branches of the Mississippi are the Red River and Arkansas, in the lower part of its course. The chief tributaries of the Missouri are the Osage, Platte, Kansas, and Yellowstone; of the Ohio, the Tennessee, Cumberland, and Wabash. The whole extent of the navigable waters above the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi has been estimated at 23,000 miles, to which, if we add 12,000 for the Ohio, Arkansas, Red River, &c., and their branches, we shall have 35,000 miles of boat navigation in the basin of the Mississippi. To this we may add 10,000 miles more for the eastern section of the states, with 5000 for the lakes and their tributary streams, and 2000 for the river Columbia, making altogether 51,000 miles of river navigation, which is probably three times greater than all the rivers of Europe afford. Except in New England, Pennsylvania, and New York, the rivers of the United States flow over a surface which has rather a small declivity. Of the two sides of the great central valley, the western is the steepest. The base of the Rocky Mountains is computed to have an elevation of 3000 feet. That of the beds of the rivers, where they begin to be navigable, may be about 2000; and estimating their average length of course to the sea to be about 2500 miles, the mean fall will be about nine or ten inches per mile. The Mississippi proper, at 2500 miles from the sea, has a height of 1330 feet, or a mean fall of six or seven inches per mile. The Ohio, at Pittsburg, 2200 miles from the sea, has a height of 600 feet, or a mean fall of four inches. In the Amazon and the Ganges, from the point where they leave the mountains, and in the Wolga from its source, the average rate of descent is from four to five inches per mile. In the middle and south of Europe generally, the fall of the rivers is probably twice as great.^[14. Warden. i. 115. Mell!ish. 32. Major Long’s Memoir, in James’s Expedition, with the Sectional Maps. ]

The variety of cultivated plants in North America corresponds to the diversity of its climates. At one extremity, the sugar-cane of the tropical regions thrives; and at the other, oats and barley, the staple crops of the arctic regions, are leading articles of cultivation. The high summer heat, however, in all parts of the United States, makes some plants which cannot be raised in England succeed in the coldest districts of the north. Of this description is maize, or Indian corn, an indigenous American plant, which is cultivated from Maine to Louisiana. It is a vegetable in universal use in the United States, yields generally double the produce of wheat, and is adapted to a variety of situations. The maple tree, which grows in all the states, yields a juice from which sugar is made. Nearly ten millions of pounds of maple sugar were made in 1810. Wheat is raised from one extremity of the Union to the other, but succeeds best in the middle and western states anti in the uplands of the southern. The cultivation of tobacco begins in Maryland, about the parallel of 39° or 40°, and continues through all the southern states, and through those in the west, south of the Ohio. The climate favourable for cotton is not found farther north than about the latitude of 37°, though it can be raised as far north as 39° on both sides of the mountains. The best grows in South Carolina and Georgia, in dry situations, upon the sea-coast. The rice crops, which require a marshy soil and a great heat, commence about the same parallel with cotton, and have nearly the same geographical range. The sugar-cane grows in low and warm situations, as high as the latitude of 33°, but the climate favourable for its cultivation does not extend beyond 31½°. Oats, barley, hemp, and flax, succeed well, except in the low grounds of the southern states. The vine can be advantageously raised as far north as Pennsylvania. The olive, orange, lemon, and fig. are injured by the frost in South Carolina; but it is believed that these trees, as well as the banana, will succeed in Florida.^[15. Warden’s Introduction, 27; ii. 399; iii. 222. Humboldt, proleg. 196. ] The forest trees of the United States comprise almost all the valuable and useful species of wood.

The United States contain about one fourth of the known species of quadrupeds. Some are common to both continents, others are peculiar to the western. Comparing individuals of the same species, some are perfectly similar; between others there is some difference in size, colour, or other circumstances. In a few instances, the animal of the eastern continent is larger than the American; in most, the reverse is the case. The following is a catalogue of the quadrupeds of the United States: Mammoth (an extinct species), bison or buffalo, moose-deer, caribou, red deer, fallow deer, roe, bear, wolverene, wolf, fox, catamount, spotted tiger, sallow cougar, gray cougar, mountain cat, lynx, kincagou, weasel, ermine, marten, mink, otter, fisher, skunk, opossum, wood-chuck, urchin, hare, racoon, fox squirrel, gray squirrel, red squirrel, flying squirrel, field-mouse, field-bat, ground mouse, wood cat, American rat, shrew mouse, purple mole, black mole, water rat, beaver, musquash, morse, seal, manati, sapajou, sagoin.

Nine tenths of these animals yield a fur, which is used for dress or in manufactures. The bison, or wild ox (improperly called the buffalo), is, according to some American naturalists, of the same species with the common neat cattle of the United States, the difference being the effect of the domestication of the latter. Buffon, however, thinks otherwise. The bison is larger than the domestic ox, has a fleshy or grisly substance extending along his shoulders and back, and has on his neck and shoulders a woolly hair, which admits of being spun or wrought into hats. The moose-deer, now rare, is a gigantic animal, one variety sometimes reaching the height of twelve feet. The caribou is probably the rein-deer of Scandinavia. the bear is of two species. The short-legged lives chiefly on vegetable food, and is probably not carnivorous. He dozes away the winter in a torpid state, sucking his paws, and expending the fat he had previously acquired. the ranging bear is larger, but more lean. He destroys calves, sheep, pigs, and sometimes children, and in winter migrates southward. The wolf, like the bear, is found in all the states. It is a voracious animal, stealing into sheep-folds at night, attacking deer, hogs, and small cattle, and sometimes hunting in packs. The catamount is of the size of a large dog, and extremely ferocious, but it is rarely seen. The spotted tiger is scarcely seen. except near Louisiana. It is from five to six feet long. The cougar or American panther is about the same size, but more common. It destroys sheep, calves, and hogs, and when hungry will attack large cattle. The urchin differs in several respects from the European hedgehog. The lion, leopard, striped or true tiger, hyena, elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, camelopard, are unknown in the New World. The horse, the ass, the sheep, the goat, the [7:21:457]hog, and the camel, did not originally exist there, but have been naturalized. The latter, however, are not numerous, and have never been introduced into the United States. Of the birds and reptiles our limits will not allow us to speak in detail. The eagle, pheasant, grouse, partridge, swan, Canadian goose, ptarmigan, are less or more numerous. In general, the small birds of America surpass those of Europe in the beauty of their plumage, but are much inferior to them in the melody of their notes. Among the reptiles, the most remarkable is the alligator or American crocodile, from twelve to twenty-three feet long, very strong and active. Of serpents, the rattlesnake, from four to six feet long, is the most formidable.^[16. Morse, vol. i. p. 2G3, &c. Warden, chap. vi. Buffon’s Quadrupeds, vol. ii. London, edit. 1775. ]

Perhaps no single circumstance connected with the United States has attracted so much attention as the rapid growth of their population. Philosophers had shown, from the laws which govern propagation, that the human species might double its numbers in a short period. But this was only known as a speculative truth, applicable, it was supposed, to small tribes under extraordinary circumstances, but not to a great nation of many millions. The Spanish colonies, planted a hundred years earlier than the United States, should have made this principle familiar to the world long ago; but ignorance and misgovernment, intercepting the bounty of nature, inflicted all the vices and evils of old societies upon these colonies, and a jealous policy threw a veil of secrecy over their condition.

The first European emigrants settled in the United States in 1607. From that period, colonists continued to flock to the country in small parties or large bodies. The last new settlement on a considerable scale was in 1733, when, by means of a grant of L.10,000 from parliament, and various sums raised by private contributions, 618 persons were sent out from England to Georgia.^[17. For an account of this and the earlier settlements, the reader may consult the History of the British Empire in America. Lend. 1741, 2 vols. 8vo. ] The growth of the colonies was rapid and obvious; but much more was probably attributed to the influx of settlers from the mother country than was consistent with the truth. No accurate enumeration of the inhabitants was made till the first census was taken in 1790. That for the year 1753, in Marshall’s Life of Washington, is undoubtedly erroneous. The ratio of increase being ascertained by the four separate enumerations, and having continued remarkably uniform for forty years, we can now, by calculating backwards, obtain results more deserving of confidence than the rude guesses made from uncertain data. The period of doubling at present is 24 1 / 6 years; but, taking it at 25 years, and reckoning backwards from 1790, we find the population at the under-mentioned periods would be,

1790 3,929,000 1715 490,000

(by census) 1690 245,000

1765 1,960,000 1665 122,000

1740 980,000 1640 61,000

Beyond the last-mentioned period we cannot, for obvious reasons, carry our calculation. If we suppose 1000 settlers to have come from Europe annually for the first thirty-three years, these, by natural multiplication, would amount to about 60,000 at the time alluded to, that is, in 1640. The following table, constructed from authentic documents, gives an interesting view of the progressive advances of population in the different states.
[table]
[7:21:458]

The following is a later census of several states and territories:
[table]

According to the census which is now in progress, and is nearly completed, the population, it is estimated, will nearly amount to 17,000,000.

It will be observed from the first table, that the rate of increase is very unequal for the different sections of the Union. The older states of Connecticut and Massachusetts have only added one fifth to their population, in the same period in which the new states of Kentucky and Ohio have quadrupled theirs; and, according to the more recent census of 1830, the increase of population has been in like manner far more rapid in the newly-settled states of Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, and Michigan, where it has more than doubled within ten years, than in any of the northern and first-settled states, in which the increase has only been from five to forty, fifty, and sixty-one per cent. Even in Kentucky and Ohio, where the population increased so rapidly the first thirty years after they were settled, it has now been checked by those causes which never fail to operate in all countries with the increase of inhabitants and the occupation of the land; which have been long felt in the crowded communities of Europe, as they are now in all the older states of America. There is still another reason for the comparatively rapid increase of the newly-settled states of the west, namely, that the more densely peopled parts of the Union, and in particular New England, serve as a nursery to the new states, to which they are continually sending out large draughts of emigrants. Thus there is a constant stream of population pouring across the Alleghanies, from the east side to the west, to occupy the vast plain of the Mississippi; and by this gradual generation of a mighty people from a central stock, a uniformity of language, manners, and institutions, is diffused over the whole, which will cement their union, in spite of local diversities of interest, and which promises to make the countless millions who will by and by cover North America from sea to sea. more truly one people than the inhabitants of Austria, Prussia, France, Spain, or Britain, are at this day.

If we calculate prospectively from the present rate of increase, assuming that it will continue permanent for some time, the population at the under-mentioned periods will be,
[table]

Before this last result is realized, some retardation will probably take place in the rate of increase. But even if the vast population alluded to were in existence, the average density for the whole territory would not be greater than it is at this day in Massachusetts, and only half as great as in Italy, France, and the British Isles.

The rapid growth of the population in America becomes much more striking when we contrast it with the scarcely perceptible progress of communities in the Old World. France, which, according to Marshal Vauban, had 19,094,000 inhabitants in 1700, had 26,363,000 in 1791. Now, according to the rate of increase which this indicates, that country would have doubled its population in 195 years; but the population of the United States in the same period would have increased to 220 times its first amount. The following table, calculated from the best data to be obtained, shows the comparative rate of increase in different countries.
[table]

From 1820 to 1830, the increase on each 10,000 of the American inhabitants amounts to about 3000.

The following table contains a census of the slave population, according to five enumerations.
[table]
[7:21:459]

The existence of slavery is the standing reproach of America. In the structure of society, it is a flaw which has corrupted the manners of the people and the policy of the state. In the northern provinces, the people are sensible of its evils, and of its peculiar reproach in a land of freedom; and they have not failed to convey these sentiments to the proprietors of slaves. Slavery has accordingly been abolished, and is nearly extinguished, in all the New England states and in New York, and is hastening to its extinction in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. By the laws of Pennsylvania, all persons born within that state since 1780 are free, the children of a slave being subject to a limited servitude to her owner. In New Jersey, every child born after July 1804 is declared free, and all traffic in slaves was prohibited in 1798. The revised laws of New York declare, that every person born in that state is free; that all persons brought into the state, except for a limited period, become free; and that no person can be sold within the limits of the state. The ordinance for the territory north-west of the river Ohio, passed in 1787, prohibits for ever the introduction of slavery into that tract of country in which the four states of Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Michigan, have already been formed. The introduction of slaves from abroad was prohibited by Virginia in 1798, and by Congress into the Mississippi territory in the same year; and in 1808, by the same authority, into any part of the United States. But though declining, slavery still prevails in the southern states, namely, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and even in the district of Columbia, and is the fruitful source of complicated evils. Louisiana and several other states prohibited the introduction of slaves from any other state except by an immigrant proprietor; but an active internal trade among the southern states is carried on in slaves, who are exported in great numbers from the worn-out districts towards the north and east, to be employed in the cultivation of new and fresh cotton lands in the south. Like the lower animals, slaves are encouraged to breed and to multiply, by those who have invested their capital in the trade.

But slavery, if it be the reproach of America, the far-famed land of liberality and freedom, is also her misfortune; and the slave-holders would receive, as they would merit, the sympathy and aid of Europe, if they would endeavour to improve the condition of the slaves, and gradually prepare them for emancipation, the only consummation in which it is so devoutly to be wished that slavery, so unhappily begun, should happily end. In a community divided, as in all slave-holding states, between two hostile races,—the oppressor and the oppressed,—there are two alternatives, either by kindness and humanity to mingle the two into one, or to maintain by rigour the bondage and degradation of the inferior cast. In the one case, the slaves are retained in chains and darkness, without hope, and the system will only stand so long as power remains on the side of the oppressor. But so surely as love springs from kindness, resentment, curses not loud but deep, are the fruits of oppression; and thus, in a long course of abused power, a standing feud is established between two great sections of the community, an arrear of vengeance accumulates, which, if occasion offers, will be duly repaid by the oppressed class, in a measureless retribution, for ages of violent wrong; and how precarious therefore must be the condition of society, where one class lives in continual dread of the other, the sentinel ever at his post, and where the slumbering vengeance of thousands may at any moment awaken into activity, and convert the whole country into one scene of anarchy and blood. It was from this just apprehension, and from a desire to wipe out the moral stain of slavery, that Great Britain, by a generous policy, emancipated the slaves in her West India colonies; and though the proportion of blacks to whites was much greater, being ten, and sometimes twenty, to one, than in North America, where they seldom amount to above a third of the population, yet their emancipation would be a great reform, which would conduce not less to the improvement of morals than to the peace of society. But this great change must be the work of time. The way must be prepared by the diffusion of intelligence and of purer morals; and great was the error of those over-zealous missionaries who went about preaching to the American slaves the dangerous doctrine of natural right; thus agitating society by the fear of some dreadful crisis, which might involve the land in devastation and blood, or, if authority were maintained, which would rivet, and render more cruel, the yoke of slavery. And such, in point of fact, has been its effect. The incendiary doctrines of these apostles of freedom really alarmed the slave-holders for their lives and properties; and they now regarded them as the enemies of good order, to be repressed and punished, and treated some of them so roughly that they narrowly escaped with their lives. It is char that slavery will never be abolished, either in America or elsewhere, except by the aid of the slaveholders themselves. In the West India islands they were gained over by a bribe of 20 millions sterling; and it is only, we fear, by some such powerful argument that the master will ever consent to the emancipation of the slave. There is no authority in America that could effect the abolition of slavery. An act of Congress for this purpose could scarcely be obtained; and it is even doubtful how far the wealthy planters of the south would submit to a law passed, as they would reason, by fanatical zealots, and endangering both their property and their lives. Such discussions are now considered to be dangerous and inexpedient. Hence they are forborne in the Congress, and still more all attempts to legislate on the subject, as putting in jeopardy the supreme authority and unity of the empire.

The alarm excited in the southern states, by the missionaries of freedom, has rather been unfavourable to the slaves. Fear has, as usual, been the parent of cruelty. It has added to the rigour of their bondage, and has given rise to laws without a parallel for barbarity in any civilized country, which are intended for ever to debar the slave from the blessings either of knowledge or of religion. In all the slave-states, namely, the Carolinas, Virginia, Georgia, Louisiana, &c., not only are those cruel laws enforced against slaves, but, in the wantonness of abused power, they are extended to free men of colour, who are exposed to every species of injury and insult. They are not allowed to pass from one state into another. Mr Stuart, who cannot be accused of prejudice against American manners or institutions, relates of an individual in South Carolina, who was accustomed, during the unhealthy season, to go from Charleston to New York, that, by a law recently passed, he was prohibited from crossing the boundary, under the pain of not being allowed to return; and thus, having his wife and children in the state, he was confined a prisoner within its limits; while a person of colour coming into the same state, or brought in by a vessel, is apprehended and confined in jail until the vessel is ready to sail. It ⅛ contrary to law that this class of nominal freemen, but real slaves, shall be educated; they are not competent witnesses where the rights of the other class are concerned, though their testimony is received against each other, as is even the evidence of slaves; and they are tried for any offence with which they may be charged, by a justice of the peace and freeholders, without the benefit of a jury. From those laws passed against the offspring of slaves having the original taint of slavery, we may infer the treatment of the slaves themselves. Several barbarous enactments have lately been passed. In 1830 the state legislature of Louisiana ordained, that “whosoever shall write, print, publish, or distribute any thing having a tendency to create discontent among the free coloured [7:21:460]population of this state, or insubordination among the slaves, shall, at the discretion of the court, suffer death, or imprisonment at hard labour for life." The same language used in any public discourse from the bar, the bench, the stage, the pulpit, or in any place, or in private conversation, or the bringing into the state any paper, pamphlet, or book, having any such tendency, shall subject the offender to not less than three years and not more than twenty years hard labour, or death. The teaching of a slave, or permitting or causing to be taught, any slave, to read or write, is declared punishable with imprisonment for not less than one and not more than twelve months. Another act provides for the expulsion from the state of all free people of colour who came into it subsequent to the year 1807; it prohibits any of this class from entering the state, and sentences to imprisonment or hard labour for life such as disobey the order for their departure. These laws present a revolting picture of degradation and suffering on the one hand, and of disquiet and terror on the other. The ruling class live in daily terror of vengeance from their wretched slaves, and hence these cruel precautions. Their cruelty brings its punishment along with it; it is the measure of their misery; and therefore in relaxing the bonds of slavery, the happiness of all parties would be promoted.

in Europe, many cruel and unjust laws have been passed, which have fallen into disuse with the progress of society. But in the slave-holding states of America, congenial manners give force to tyrannical laws. With some exceptions, the general treatment of slaves is harsh and cruel; a fact to which all travellers in the southern states of the Union bear ample testimony. Mr Stuart, already mentioned, and the duke of Saxe-Weimar, in describing the treatment of American slaves, give the particulars of the grossest cruelty, by individuals who are in the habit of beating and ill-using their slaves on the slightest offence, or sending them to gaol, where the slave, on the payment of a fee to the gaoler, is, without further inquiry, fastened to a machine and lashed without mercy. “Nothing is more common,” says Mr Stuart, “than for the masters and mistresses of slaves, either male or female, when they wish them to be punished, to send them to a prison, with a note to the gaoler, specifying the number of lashes to be inflicted. If the master so orders it, the slave receives his whipping laid flat upon his face upon the earth, with his hands and feet bound to posts. In passing the prison in the morning, the cries of the poor creatures are dreadful.”^[19. Stuart’s Three Years in America, vol. ii. p. 26. ] At the public sales of slaves, where the ties of nature are rudely tom asunder, scenes occur which are revolting to humanity, and which, without the aid of laws, would be utterly repudiated by the improved manners of Europe. Where these maxims prevail, they forbid all hope of alleviating the lot of the slave; and the great point would therefore be, to impress on the slave-holders themselves, not only the cruelty, but the error of their measures. They are no doubt obstinate and prejudiced; but in time the voice of reason may prevail so far as to lead to a mitigation of the present harsh code, and pave the way for the abolition of slavery throughout the country.

In the southern states of the Union, namely, the Carolinas Virginia, Georgia, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi* Tennessee, Arkansas, slavery appears to have fixed its permanent abode; and, according to the following table, which exhibits the progressive increase of the two different races for the last forty years, there has not been so rapid an increase in the white as in the black population.
[table]

In France and England, and probably in Europe at large, the females exceed the males by two or three per cent.; but in the United States generally, the males exceed the females by nearly four per cent. In the newest states, the excess is as high as nineteen per cent. (Seybert, p.42.) The difference is still more striking in what relates to ages. In the United States, children form a much greater, and aged persons a much smaller, proportion of the population than in Europe. In Sweden, according to Wargentin’s Tables, the persons under the age of sixteen form thirty-six per cent. of the population; in Britain, according to the last census, forty; and in the United States fifty per cent. The persons aged above forty-five form twenty-two per cent. of the whole population in Sweden, eighteen per cent. in Britain, and twelve per cent. in the United States. This peculiarity arises from the rapidly progressive state of the population. Since the inhabitants of the United States quadruple their numbers in fifty years, a person born half a century ago belongs by his birth to a society of two millions and a half of persons but now lives in a society of ten millions which will furnish four times as many old men to a future and equidistant period. The annual amount of immigration (to borrow an American word) is very variable, and its effects have been greatly overrated. The whole number of passengers who arrived in 1817, at the ten principal ports, was 22,240, including citizens, and persons on business who did not mean to remain in the country. In 1816, it was estimated at 20,000; in 1818 and 1819, at 28,000 each, not more than one half of whom, very probably, were strangers [7:21:461] come to settle. In 1820, the true number of immigrants, according to the National Calendar, was 7001, of whom 5042 were males, consisting of 997 agricultural persons, 1461 commercial, 1407 manufacturers, artisans, &c. Dr Seybert thinks the average number of foreigners who come to settle in the United States does not exceed 6000 per annum; but assuming it to be 8000 or 9000, this is only from 1 / 30 to 1 / 35 of the whole annual increment, which must amount to 290,000 persons to make the population double in 241 years.^[20. Seybert, p. 28. Carey’s Essay on Political Economy, 1822, p. 453, 467. Niles’s Register. ]

This rapid increase does not greatly affect the rate of the annual mortality, which is proportionally rather greater among the persons under twenty-five than among those of all ages. In the absence of proper data for ascertaining the annual mortality of the whole country, or of any particular state, we can only refer to a single fact. The average number of deaths in Philadelphia, for eight years (1807 to 1814), was found to be about 1 / 43 of the contemporaneous population. (Seybert, p. 50.) In Birmingham, in the ten years ending 1811, it was about 1 / 30 , in London 1 / 34 and in all England, including the army and navy, about or 1 / 45 . (Milne’s Annuities, p. 456.) This single fact, therefore, as far as it goes, bears testimony to the salubrity of the climate, and to the comfortable condition of the inhabitants, of the United States.

The active population in the United States is pro∣>or-tionally greater, and the idle population less, than in any other country. They have few public functionaries, preachers, or annuitants, and a very small army and navy. According to a table which will afterwards be inserted, the active population amounts to twenty-seven per cent. of the whole, or two per cent. more than the number of males above the age of sixteen. The proportions employed in agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, according to the census of 1820, were,
[table]

But the number assigned to commerce evidently does not include mariners, or includes only those who resided on shore at the time the census was taken. For the sake of comparison, we give the general result of the British returns for 1811, remarking however that the two classifications are not constructed on the same plan, the second head in our arrangement corresponding to the second and third in the American.
[table]

The situation of the labouring classes in the United States is confessedly far superior to that of the same 'description of persons in any other part of the world. Wages are so high, compared with the price of provisions, that an American labourer, who should live exactly as labourers live in other countries, might always save the half of his earnings. The average wages of a labourer were estimated at seventy-five cents a day by Mr Blodget, and more recently at eighty cents by Mr Niles, wheat being one and a half dollar per bushel. (Warden. Introduction.) In such circumstances, a very moderate degree of industry suffices to place a man above want, and pauperism can only be the lot of those who are debilitated by old age or disease. Accordingly, it is a proud distinction for North America, that this moral deformity, except so far as it is the consequence of natural and unavoidable misfortunes, is almost unknown within her borders. It is not there as in the old countries of Europe, where a person who is able to provide comfortably for his own wants, has still his feelings exposed to daily laceration from the sight of multitudes of miserable beings, who exhibit human nature in its most loathsome and degraded state, and whose wretchedness it is beyond his power to relieve. It is Rochefoucault, we think, who remarks that he had seen only one beggar in the United States. Mendicity does exist; but except in the large cities, where foreigners are often found in a state of destitution, it rarely obtrudes itself on the eye, and may be said generally to be as rare in that country as it is abundant everywhere else. In Europe, the paupers have been supposed, on a rough calculation, to amount to one-twentieth part of the population. In the United States, they were estimated by Mr Niles, some years ago, at one person in 250 on the Atlantic coast, and one in 350 in the interior. But in times of great public calamity, the proportion is much higher. In the New England states, and in some of the others, though not the whole, each parish is obliged to provide for the support of its own poor, according to the humane spirit of the English laws. (Morse, vol. i. p. 293. Warden, passim.)

The North American Union comprehends at present twenty-six distinct states, each governed by its own constitution; three territories, in which civil governments are established without constitutions, namely, Florida, Wisconsin, and Iowa, the two latter having been erected into territorial governments in 1836 and 1838;^[21. A territory becomes a state when its inhabitants, amounting to not less than 60,000 persons, have met and formed a constitution. Previously to this, they are placed under the civil authority of a governor appointed by the president and Congress. ] s and other three territories, which are yet unoccupied by a civilized population. To these we must add the district of Columbia, comprising a space of ten miles square round Washington, and placed under the exclusive authority of the federal government.

The thirteen original states which concurred in the declaration of independence on the 4th July 1776, were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New-York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia. Vermont was then an appendage to New York, and Maine to Massachusetts. The extent of the several states is very unequal. Rhode Island and Delaware are specks in the map, rather smaller than Devonshire or Perthshire. New York, Pennsylvania, and the new states generally, are each larger than Ireland or Scotland; while Virginia, Georgia, Missouri, and Illinois, severally exceed England in extent. The density of the population diminishes pretty regularly in every direction as we recede from Massachusetts; and in that state, where it is greatest, it rather exceeds that of Spain or Poland, or Europe taken altogether. The mean density for all the states east of the Mississippi, including the district of Columbia, and also the state of Louisiana, is nearly forty-one persons to the square mile.

Some writers, who derive their political ideas from the old institutions of Europe, strongly disapprove of the division into states, with distinct local governments. But this arrangement, though originally the effect of accident, is admirably adapted to the circumstances of the country, and deserves to rank as an improvement in the science of legislation. It is the only system by which the great advantages of union could be combined, in such a gigantic empire, with a due attention to the separate interests of all the parts. The federal compact, by preserving peace and [7:21:462]friendship among states that would otherwise be rivals and enemies, exempts them from the scourge of frequent wars, gives unbounded freedom to their internal trade, and, while it enables them to dispense with that sort of strong government which is scarcely compatible with liberty, it gives them an aggregate strength, which secures them against external attacks. On the other hand, each separate district, acting by its own legislature, is invested with the entire regulation of its local concerns, which can never be intrusted to others without the certainty of mismanagement. No single legislative body, even were its sessions perpetual, could properly conduct the local business of such an empire as that now forming in North America. In our own parliament, it is notorious, that, from the multiplicity of business transacted, the general style of legislation is most slovenly, and bills of all kinds, but especially local bills, are often grossly mismanaged. How great an impediment is it felt to be to the redress of grievances, or the promotion of improvements, in the remote parts of Scotland and Ireland, that witnesses, parties, and agents, must be carried six or seven hundred miles, at a vast expense, and that, when they reach the seat of legislation, every thing must depend on the votes of persons who either understand their business imperfectly or not at all, and who are only prevailed upon, by solicitation, to bestow a slight attention upon it. The division into states supplies the only remedy to this great evil. It encourages local improvements, by uniting those whose situation gives them a community of interest as to certain objects. It lessens corruption in the general government, by subdividing patronage. In times of public phrensy, it multiplies the securities against the persecution of individuals, because such persons w ill always find protectors in some one of the state governments. It has indeed one disadvantage; the state legislatures may become the strongholds of faction, as was exemplified in Massachusetts during the last war. But as the number of states increases, the weight of each in the confederacy, and its power to disturb the union, are diminished. Even out of this danger a security arises against another. The existence of the separate state governments forms a strong barrier against despotism, because it creates so many distinct centres of power, from which resistance might be made, if a military tyrant should master the general government, as Cromwell mastered that of Britain, and Bonaparte that of France. Some inconvenience, no doubt, arises from the unavoidable diversity of laws in such an aggregation of republics; but the evil is not much felt or complained of practically, and it is the necessary concomitant of a union producing boundless advantages. An iron despotism may subject all its slaves to the same laws, without regard to the distinctions of climate, character, or situation; but freemen will not associate voluntarily on such a principle. Liberty consists not in being governed by the laws that are absolutely best, but by those which are deemed best by the people w ho obey them. No w ise and liberal statesman will hold it necessary that the fishermen of Massachusetts, the husbandmen of Pennsylvania, and the sugar-planters of Louisiana, should live under one perfectly uniform system of jurisprudence. Such a uniformity could not be enforced without rending asunder the union. And let it be recollected, that the diversity of laws, such as it exists, is much less than it would be if the federal compact were dissolved, and the several states entirely independent. In short, if it is possible by any device to reconcile freedom with extensive empire; to unite all the parts of a vast continent together in the bonds of peace and commercial intercourse; and yet not to trench materially on the natural rights of each part, or the free use of its natural powers and advantages; it must be by a federative system similar in its essential characters to that of the United States. The experiment is by far the most interesting that has ever been made in the science of legislation; and the steadiness and success with which it has hitherto proceeded opens up the most encouraging prospects as to the future destiny of mankind.

The federal government, of which we shall afterwards speak, possesses merely those specific powers which are vested in it by the constitution. Ali other powers and rights remain with the state governments, in which the sovereignty essentially resides. The territory of each state is not the territory of the Union, but of that particular state. The people and militia are the people and militia of the several states, not of the Union. Lands are held under the laws of the states; descents, contracts, and all the concerns of private property, the administration of justice, and the whole criminal code, except in the case of breaches of the laws of the federal body, are regulated by state laws.^[22. Views of the President of the United States on the subject of Internal lmprovements, Laid before Congress 4th May 1822. ] All the twenty-six states have written constitutions, formed subsequently to the Revolution, except Rhode Island, which is still governed by the charter granted by Charles II. in 1663. These constitutions are purely republican, though the right of suffrage (for the term franchise is inapplicable and odious where voting is a general right, not a special privilege) is restricted in one or two states, and unequally divided in one or two others. In every one of the states, the legislature consists of two chambers, both chosen by direct popular election, except in Maryland, where the senators are chosen by delegatee, ln eighteen states out of the twenty-six, the representatives (or members of the lower house, according to our phraseology) are elected annually, and in Tennessee and Louisiana biennially, and in three triennially, viz. in South Carolina, lllinois, and Missouri. The period of service in the senates (or upper houses) varies from one to four years, except in Maryland, where it is five: in some cases one third or one fourth, in others one half, of the members are renewed every year; in others, one half every two years. In some of the states the right of suffrage was formerly limited to freeholders or corporations, but by amendments in most of the old constitutions these restrictions have been abolished; and the right of suffrage, though variously defined in the different states, is substantially universal in them all, except in New Jersey and Virginia. In these two states, the possession of a small amount of property still constitutes the citizen’s title to vote. In many of the states, there are certain qualifications prescribed for the persons elected. A senator must, in general, be a freeholder, and not under thirty years of age; a representative not under twenty-five. The governors act in some cases with, in others without a council, and hold their offices, some for one year, some for two, some for three, but none for more than four years. In all the constitutions recently framed, an express provision is introduced for adopting amendments. The rule generally is, that if any alteration is judged necessary and approved of by two successive legislatures, it may then be submitted to the people, who appoint a special convention to decide upon it. In some cases it is provided that a convention shall meet periodically to revise the constitution. The existing legislature is always considered as exercising a trust, in the terms of which it has no power to make the smallest change. By this principle, legislation is founded on a clear and rational basis. It gives stability to institutions that might otherwise be the foot-ball of domineering factions; it checks the growth of sinister interests, and, while it affords a safe and easy remedy for grievances, it is so far from being an inlet to rash innovations, that it is the best guarantee against them, as the history of the United States demonstrates. To suffer those who exercise the supreme power of a country to change at pleasure the conditions by which [7:21:463] they hold it, is as absurd as to suffer the judge to make the laws which he administers, or the steward to fix the terms of the engagement which invests him with the management of an estate. Under such a system, the steward unavoidably becomes a peculator, the judge a tyrant, and the legislature a junto of conspirators against the public weal.

The agriculture of the United States varies according to the climate, soil, and situation, of the several divisions of the country; but, taken altogether, it differs materially from that of Britain, in the nature of the productions cultivated, in the condition of those who are engaged in it, and in the general principles by which it is conducted. Besides our staple productions, wheat, barley, oats, pease, beans, turnips, and potatoes, the soil of the United States yields rice. Indian corn, indigo, cotton, sugar, tobacco, the vine; and Florida will probably add to these the olive and the banana, which scarcely succeed in the other states. The staple produce of New England is Indian corn; that of the middle states wheat and tobacco; that of the southern, cotton, rice, and, to a limited extent, sugar. Dr Morse indicates the proportional quantity of each species of produce raised, by naming them in the following order, the greatest being first. In New England. Indian corn, grass, rye, oats, flax, wheat, buck-wheat, barley, and hemp; in the middle states, wheat. Indian corn, tobacco, grass, oats, buck-wheat, flax, barley, potatoes, spelts, rye; in the southern states, cotton, wheat, tobacco. Indian corn, rice, indigo (formerly), barley, and hemp. the western states, along the Ohio, correspond in their productions to the middle states on the Atlantic. Good soils, carefully cultivated, in the United States, yield 100 bushels of Indian corn or 50 of wheat per acre. But the average produce of the cultivated land in Ohio and Kentucky, districts not inferior in soil to any in the Union, is estimated as follows: Maize 40 bushels per acre, wheat 22, rye 26, oats 35, barley 30, tobacco 12 to 15 cwt., cotton 5 to 7 cwt. in the seed, or from 150 to 200 pounds cleaned. (James, vol. iii. p. 199.) This great staple of the United States consists of two sorts, the sea-island or long staple, and the upland or short staple. The former, of a superior quality, is grown along the sea-coast of South Carolina and Georgia. Cotton was first sown in the United States in 1787, and was exported in small packages, called packets, in 1790. In 1800 the produce amounted to 85,000,000 lbs., which has gradually increased to 480,000,000 in 1836, of which there were exported 386,000,000 lbs. The value of the crop was estimated to amount to 80,000,000 dollars, and that of the exports to 63,000,000 dollars. A great fall has since taken place in the price; but even at this lower rate the value of the cotton exported in the year ending September 1838 was 61,536,811 dollars, and the quantity of cotton 595,952,297 lbs. Tobacco, an indigenous American plant, has been the staple of Maryland and Virginia from their first settlement; and it is also extensively cultivated in Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri, and other states. The quantity of tobacco exported in 1838 amounted to 100,593 hhds., in value 7,392,029 dollars; besides 75,083 lbs. snuff, and 5,008,147 lbs. of manufactured tobacco, amounting in value to 577,420 dollars. An acre sown in rice yields from 1200 to 1500 pounds on what are called tide-lands, and from 600 to 1200 on inland plantations. Rice was first cultivated in South Carolina in 1694; and its culture has been so successful that, in addition to the home consumption, it was exported in 1838 to the amount of 71,048 tierces, of the value of 1,721,819 dollars. In 1835 the quantity exported amounted to 110,851 tierces, of the value of 2,210,331 dollars. An acre planted in canes yields about 1000 or 1200 pounds of sugar, with an equal quantity of molasses. The necessity of renewing the canes annually by planting, in consequence of the winter’s frost, renders the cultivation less advantageous than in the West Indies. In 1817, however, it was calculated that 20,000,000 of pounds of sugar were made in Louisiana alone; a quantity estimated to be about two sevenths of the whole annual consumption of the United States. (Warden, ii. p. 483,541. Morse, i. p. 668.) The culture of sugar has since been greatly extended; and in 1838 the quantity exported amounted to 408,802 pounds, and the value to 30,487 dollars;^[23. Reports from the Secretary of the Treasury to Congress, with the Annual Statement of Commerce and Navigation, No. 5, p. 230, 331. See Report for 1835. ] besides 2,610,649 pounds of refined sugar, value 219,671 dollars.

The rural population of the United States presents an extraordinary contrast in its constituent parts to that of every country in Europe. The class of extensive proprietors living on their rents, and the class of peasants living merely by their labour, are almost equally unknown. The great bulk of the inhabitants consists of farmers, who are the owners of the lands they occupy, and the greater proportion of whom work with their own hands. “The number of those who are mere labourers,” says Dwight, “is almost nothing, except in a few populous towns, and almost all these are collected from the shiftless, the idle, and the vicious. A great part of them are foreigners. Every young man hired to work upon a farm aims steadily to acquire a farm for himself, and hardly once fails of the acquisition.” (Dwight’s Travels, vol. iv. p. 335.) Except in some few spots near large towns, there is scarcely any land rented. The price is generally so low, that a small addition to the sum necessary for stocking a farm suffices to purchase it; and even where the value is higher, an individual who has money enough to stock a large farm will prefer buying one of half the size. Of the state of New York, only one fifth, and of the whole inhabited country east of the Mississippi (excluding Michigan and Florida), only about one tenth part is yet cleared and cultivated. Of course the best soils are first used, and, till population thickens and produce rises, soils of the second and third quality will not repay the expense of culture; and as a necessary consequence, those of the first quality yield no rent. The farms occupied by the owners are seldom large, because, where wages are high, agriculture cannot be advantageously conducted on an extensive scale; and the large property in land occasionally acquired by an individual is soon broken up by division among his children. Thus situated, the rural population certainly enjoy a greater share of happiness in the United States than in any other country in the world. They are exempted from the fluctuations incident to the commercial and manufacturing classes; they feel none of the evils of dependence, and are far above want; without possessing that wealth which engenders idleness and vanity, and often becomes a snare to its possessor. They have the means of settling their families well, without making great sacrifices; they live in the enjoyment of all the substantial comforts of life, and can look forward to old age with less anxiety and apprehension than any class of men in any other country.

The system of agriculture is necessarily less perfect in the United States than in Britain. Where prime soils can be had for almost nothing, where the price of labour is high, and that of produce low, the elaborate and costly modes of cultivation adopted in Britain cannot be advantageously applied. Some English farmers, who have gone out to America with an impression that large gains might be made by introducing our improved system of husbandry, have found themselves disappointed. Something the Americans may learn from us; but, till the country is more densely peopled, it will be more profitable to cultivate a large surface rudely than a small one laboriously. In the middle and eastern states, however, where produce brings a considerable price, farming is carried on with care and [7:21:464]skill. In Pennsylvania, which holds the first rank as an agricultural state, in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Jersey, agricultural societies exist, and much attention is paid to the cultivation of the indigenous grasses and to the use of manures. Grazing is well understood in New England, where it is considered the most profitable species of farming. Much care has been bestowed on the breeding of sheep, and Merinos are now spread over all the northern, middle, and western states.

Hutchins reckoned that 13 / 16 ths of the land east of the Mississippi were covered with a strong fertile soil, and that the remaining 3 / 16 ths were occupied by lakes and rivers, or consisted of land too poor or too steep for cultivation. In 1811, Mr Blodget estimated the land under “actual improvement” to be 40,950,000 acres, or 5¾th acres for each inhabitant, a proportion which is found to be near the truth. In 1798, when a census was taken for the imposition of a tax, the quantity of land valued and taxed in sixteen states was one hundred and sixty-three millions of acres out of three hundred and eight millions, the estimated value of which was four hundred and seventy-nine millions of dollars. The value per acre varied widely. In Connecticut it was fifteen dollars per acre, in Pennsylvania six, in Georgia three fourths; but the average for the whole was about three dollars. The value of the houses was estimated at a hundred and forty millions of dollars, or two sevenths of that of the land. When new returns were procured in 1814, the value of lands and houses conjointly had risen from six hundred and twenty to one thousand six hundred and thirty millions of dollars. From these two documents, which afford a curious view of the state and growth of property in the republic, we find that, in the sixteen states organized in 1798, rather more than one half of the surface was the property of individuals. In the old states, such as Massachusetts and Connecticut, the appropriated land embraced nearly the whole surface; in New York it embraced about four sevenths, in Georgia one third. The number of acres appropriated for each individual of the population was about thirty, of which five and one half or six acres were cleared or “improved.” The estimated value of the houses and lands was at the rate of 125 dollars for each individual of the contemporaneous population in 1798, but had risen to 200 dollars in 1814. Supposing every other species of property to have grown as rapidly, the rate of increase would be about 6¼th per cent. per annum, and the capital of the country must double itself in 11¼th years, or it increases twice as rapidly as the population. With a stationary population, the rate of increase would be 5∙4 per cent., and the period of doubling 18¼th years. We have no similar data for other countries to found a comparison on, but we are certain that such a velocity of accumulation is unknown anywhere else.

The value of houses, lands, and slaves, in 1814, was, according to the returns, 1902 millions of dollars. If we add one eighth for omissions and under estimates, and for Louisiana, which was not included, with fifty millions for state lands, and two thirds additional for all other species of property (this being nearly the proportion in Colquhoun’s estimate for Britain), namely, agricultural stock, manufactured goods on hand or in progress, ships, harbours, canals, roads, public buildings, &c., the whole will be 3550 millions of dollars, equal to 780 millions sterling, or about L.95 for each individual of the contemporaneous population. Colquhoun’s estimate for Britain was 2700 millions sterling, or L. 150 for each inhabitant. This gross amount, increasing at the rate of 6 per cent., would become 1400 millions sterling in 1824; and the annual increment, or the value added to the national capital, every year, should be about eighty millions sterling. The whole annual produce of the national industry, which affords a saving of eighty millions, cannot be less than four times as much, or 320 millions, that is, L.S2 per head on the population. Colquhoun’s estimate for the British Isles in 1812 was 430 millions, or L.24 per head on the population. (Colquhoun, p. 55, 65.) These calculations are founded on the returns taken as they stand. It is probable, however, that the second census would be more accurately taken than the first, and that the growth of the national capital is not quite so great as it appears.

The large profits which farming yields, the high price of labour, and the comparative scarcity of capital, are discouragements to manufacturing industry in the United States; and hence they naturally rely for a supply of manufactures on countries that have been longer settled, and where industry has made greater progress. Great Britain is a vast storehouse of ready-made goods; and it is more for the interest of an advancing and imperfectly cultivated country, such as America, to purchase with its rude produce the manufactures of Britain, than to divert her scanty capital (scanty, when compared with the boundless outlet which lies before it in the improvement of the interior wilderness) from the important business of cultivation. By this exchange, America is supplied on the easiest terms with manufactures, while Great Britain, rich in capital, and still more in art and industry, finds a vent in the increasing demands of the American people for her surplus produce, and receives in return cotton and the other raw materials of her industry. Domestic manufactures will no doubt be gradually improved in America with the progress of wealth and population. But at present they have not made nearly the same progress as in Great Britain. Yet there is no art or trade necessary for comfort or convenience which is not pursued in America; only the great manufactures of cotton, linen, woollen, iron, glass, &c., are not on the same great scale, or in such perfection, as in Britain; they are however all established, and are rapidly advancing. There are manufactures of soap, candles; of leather in all its branches; of household furniture, coaches, and other carriages; of snuff and tobacco; of paper and stationery; of printing presses and types; and printing and engraving are carried on in all their branches. There are also manufactures in all the metals; of combs and brushes, umbrellas, &c. Pianofortes are respectably made. The saw gin for cleaning cotton from the husks, and the nail making machine, are American inventions. The woollen manufacture is almost entirely domestic, being carried on in the houses of the farmers; but the cotton manufacture is partly conducted in large works. This last, as well as several other manufactures, received a great stimulus during the last war with Britain; but they have declined since the peace, though a few of the works then established are still carried on with advantage. It was computed by a committee of Congress, that the cotton manufactures, which consumed only 10,000 bales of the raw material in 1810, consumed 90,000 in 1815, employed 100,000 hands (10,000 men, 66,000 women and girls, 24,000 boys), and produced 81,000,000 yards of cloth, valued at 24 millions of dollars. In 1835 the number of looms was estimated at 48,000, from eighty-five to ninety millions of pounds were consumed, and the value of the manufactures was computed at 50,000,000 dollars. The value of the woollen manufacture was estimated at nineteen millions of dollars, and was supposed to employ 50,000 hands constantly, and as many more occasionally. (Reports of 13th February and 6th March 1816.) The total value of the woollen manufactures has since been computed at between sixty-five and seventy millions of dollars. Broad cloths are manufactured; as are also cassimeres, satinets, flannels, blankets, carpeting, &c. Hemp and flax are manufactured in considerable quantities, but chiefly in families. Very ingenious machinery has however been applied to the spinning of cables and cordage, which are manufactured to the value of five millions of dollars. Some sailcloth is also made.

Iron being abundantly distributed throughout the country, is manufactured to a considerable extent. The quantity [7:21:465]of bar iron made in 1810 was estimated at 27,000 tons; in 1830 it had increased to 112,000 tons. Of pig iron 191,536 tons were also produced, amounting in value to 13,329,760 dollars. The iron manufactures, which in 1810 amounted in value to 14,364,526 dollars, are now estimated at little short of 50,000,000 dollars. The manufacture of machinery in which iron is required, is carried to great perfection. Steam-engines of all dimensions, and every description of machinery, chain-cables, agricultural and mechanical tools of all kinds, fire-arms, nails, fire-grates, and stoves, have long been made in different parts of the United States. There is no country in which the application of the steamengine to the purposes of navigation has been of greater practical value than in America; and the number of steamers amounted in 1838 to 800,^[24. See Report of the Select Committee to Congress, on the subject of Steam-Engines, December 13, 1838. ] the number of steam-engines to 1860, which may give an idea of the extent of this manufacture. The manufacture of spirits is carried on to a large extent throughout the United States. The materials used are grain, molasses, and fruits, chiefly the two former, from which it was estimated that the spirits distilled amounted to 25,000,000 gallons in 1810. It is stated that in 1835 4000 distilleries had been stopt through the influence of temperance societies, but the truth of this statement is doubted. Tobacco is manufactured to the annual value of 2,000,000 of dollars, and glass and paper to the respective values of 3,000,000 and 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 of dollars. There were in 1831 thirty chemical establishments in the United States, of which the produce was estimated at 1,000,000 dollars a year. Cabinet-ware is made to the value of about 10,000,000 dollars; and horn, wood, ivory, and shell combs to the value of 800,000, and buttons to an equal amount. According to the returns made in the census of 1810, the whole annual value of the manufactures of the United States was 127,694,602 dollars. But Mr Tenche Coxe calculated, that, making allowance for articles omited or under-estimated, the true value would not be less than 172,700,000 dollars (L.37,500,000). Mr Pitkin, in his elaborate work on the Statistics of the United States, estimates the aggregate value of manufactures in 1835 to be from 325,000,000 to 350,000,000 dollars; and he adds, that the amount of foreign articles consumed in the country, exclusive of tea, wine, coffee, and spices, does not exceed one third of that sum. Nearly one fourth of the manufactures is in Pennsylvania; Massachusetts ranks next, then New York, Virginia, Maryland, Connecticut, North Carolina, New Jersey, Vermont, Kentucky. It may be remarked, that the effect of the high price of labour in discouraging manufactures is counteracted by three circumstances. 1. The United States being far distant from Europe, the expense of freight, and still more that of inland carriage, makes a material addition to the prime cost of all bulky or heavy articles. 2. As the use of machinery comes to be substituted more and more for manual labour, the disadvantage of high wages gradually vanishes; and the Americans, who possess great mechanical genius, have the means of procuring steam and water power to an unlimited extent. 3. The American women prefer working in factories to domestic service, which they consider degrading; and hence female labourers are not scarce, and may be procured at moderate wages.^[25. Seybert, 6, 8. Mellish, 90. Warden, iii. 262. Fearon, 389, &c. ] “

The commerce of the United States has gradually expanded to a vast extent, and has made much greater progress than manufactures. The Americans are not surpassed in activity and enterprise by any other nation; and the surplus produce, which in every country is the means of its foreign trade, naturally increases with the progress of cultivation. The wars and convulsions of Europe consequent on the French Revolution threw a great proportion of the general carrying trade into their hands; and in the interval from 1790 to 1807, their exports increased from 20 millions to 108 millions of dollars. But in the course of the war, Great Britain and France differed concerning the respective rights of the neutral and the belligerent; and this dispute ended in their defiance of all those maxims of public law which formerly restrained the rage of war. They refused any longer to recognise the rights of the neutral trader; his merchandise was considered to be lawful prey, France issued the Berlin decrees for the seizure an,d confiscation of all British goods on the land, which were ordered to be consumed in the flames; and Great Britain issued her orders in council for the proscription of all trade with France by sea, and for the detention of all vessels bound to a French port. Lawless violence thus reigned, and the unprecedented outrages which followed gave a sudden check to the growing trade of the United States, from which it did not recover and attain its former extent till the year 1835. The progressive increase of the American trade will be seen from the following table of the exports and imports of the country from the year 1791 to 1838 inclusive.
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The two following tables contain an account of the exports from the United States, and of the merchandise imported in return. A third table is added of the different countries to which the produce of America is exported, and from which other articles are brought in exchange. These tables are official documents laid before Congress, and they afford an ample view of the value and progress of the American trade.
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From these tables it will be seen, that foreign produce or manufactures constitute about one ninth of the exports. The leading articles chiefly consist of the produce of the land. Cotton forms about 60 per cent. of the domestic exports; wheat. Indian corn, and other bread-stuffs, 10 per cent.; tobacco 12 per cent.; lumber, bark, &c. 3½ per cent.; horses, beef, &c. 2½ per cent. The leading imports are the fine products of the loom in wool, cotton, silk, and linen, or articles not raised in the country, such as tea, coffee, sugar, and wine. In hemp, iron, and leather, the imports are small. Nearly one half of the whole imports come from Britain, and only about one seventh from France.

The internal and coasting trade of the United States has increased more rapidly than their foreign commerce, and is undoubtedly far greater than that of any other state with an [7:21:469]equal population. The enrolled and licensed tonnage, which was only 184,000 tons in 1795, had risen to 588,000 in 1821, and in 1838 to 1,133,999. It now exceeds the registered tonnage, of which it formed only one third in 1795. The Hudson is the great channel of inland trade for districts containing nearly two millions of inhabitants, and is rapidly advancing, both in its commerce and navigation. 'The Delaware, Susquehannah, Potomac, and other large rivers farther south, all exhibit an active and growing traffic. The vessels on the majestic Mississippi, though they do not yet equal those on the Hudson, are fast increasing with the progress of cultivation and commerce.
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We subjoin a farther account of the American tonnage from the year 1815 to 1838 inclusive.^[26. ' See Report from file Secretary of the Treasury, with the Annual Statement of Commerce and Navigation, ending on the 30th September 1838. ]
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The application of steam to the propelling of vessels forms a great era in the history of navigation. It is perhaps one of the greatest practical discoveries of which modem times can boast. It even effects a greater improvement in the intercourse by sea, than the railroad in that by land; and perhaps no other country, owing to natural advantages, has derived such incalculable benefits from it as America. From the rapidity of the vast rivers by which the country is intersected, the navigation against the stream by means of wind and sails was seldom practicable; and as the voyage downward was speedy and certain, the upward voyage was in proportion tedious. Accordingly, the boats that brought down the produce of the interior from the Ohio and other streams to New Orleans, were generally broken up and used for fire-wood, and the crew were thus compelled to retrace their course by land. But the power of steam, unlike the fickle gale, is equable and constant. It can at all times be relied on; and, surpassing in force the raging torrent, it propels the vessel with the same certainty through the adverse waters as in the downward voyage. Some such agency was required to facilitate the navigation of rivers, and to turn to full account the advantages which they afford for internal intercourse. A voyage from New Orleans to Pittsburg against the current of the Mississippi, running from four to six miles an hour, generally occupied six weeks; it now does not occupy as many days. What a boundless field is here opened for steam-navigation, which accordingly is universally extended through the whole country. Experiments were made at an early period, both in America and elsewhere, for propelling vessels by steam. The idea was broached in England in 1736, in France in 1782, and various trials were made in America from 1783 to 1787. A steam-vessel was actually constructed by Mr Miller of Dalswinton, and was seen sailing on the Clyde about this period; but the discovery was not followed out. It was however from his model that Mr Fulton constructed in 1807, on the Hudson river, in the state of New York, his first steam-vessel, which, with an engine of only eighteen horsepower, made the passage between Albany and New York, a distance of 160 miles, in thirty-three hours. The whole number of steam-vessels in the United States was estimated, from the information collected by the select committee on steam-engines, and laid before Congress, at 800 in December 1838. Of these, nearly 400 are now computed to be running on the western and south-western waters, comprising chiefly the Mississippi and its tributary streams, where none was used till 1811, and where in 1834 the number was computed to be only 234. On the Ohio, the number of passages by steam-vessels through the Louisville Canal, which in 1831 was 406, had increased in 1837 to 1501, or nearly fourfold in six years. About seventy steam-vessels were running in 1838 on the north-western lakes, where in 1825 there were only twenty-five. Of the whole number, nearly 800, sailing in 1838 chiefly on the American rivers, 140 belong to the state of New York. Of these, very few are sea-going vessels. The government of the United States never owned more than two steam-vessels of war, one of which is now lost; though about thirteen other steam-vessels are employed by the war department on the public works, and in the transportation of troops and stores. The steam-boats in the United States are computed at 60,000 tons. The largest of those that run between New York and Mississippi is supposed to be 860 tons, and nearly 300 horse-power. There are two on Lake Erie of 755 and 700 tons. The chief places for the construction of steam-vessels and their engines arc, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, and Louisville, on the western waters; and New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, on the Atlantic[7:21:470].^[27. See Letter of the Secretary of the Treasury to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, December 12. 1838, p. 11. ] Owing to the numerous and fatal accidents that have befallen steam-vessels in the United States, the subject was early investigated, under the directions of Congress, when ample information was obtained from every part of the Union respecting the causes and consequences of these casualties. A stringent enactment had been previously passed by this active and energetic government, ordaining, under heavy penalties, increased caution in the management of this craft; frequent examinations, by qualified persons, of the nature and strength of the machinery; and prosecutions against the officers and owners for injuries to life and property; thus evincing that vigilance and laudable anxiety for the public safety which so well merits the confidence of the people. Another law, it is expected, will follow, providing for the employment of careful and skilful engineers.

Those accidents that have occurred to steam-vessels are computed to have amounted to 260; ninety-nine occasioned by explosions of the boilers, or the bursting of some part of the engines, or by collapses; twenty-five by shipwreck from collision, gales, &c.; twenty-eight by fire; fifty-two by snags or sawyers, which are trees that, having been swept away by floods, have, in their course down the river, stuck in the bottom, and there remain, moving up and down, and have, from the resemblance of their motion to sawyers, received that name. They are extremely dangerous to vessels that run against them. Different and unknown causes have occasioned the loss of twenty-four steam-vessels. “The general impression,” says the secretary at war in his letter, “is, that a great part of the boats destroyed by explosions, as well as many lost by fire and other accidents, would have been saved by proper experience, science, and attention, on the part of the engineers and commanders.” Such accidents are in all cases occasioned by ignorance or carelessness; and it is highly necessary that the agency of steam, as it is so powerful and useful, should be also rendered comfortable and safe. This has not been the case in America; and the frequent explosions which have occurred with loss of life, give an impression of recklessness and mismanagement, highly disgraceful to those in the immediate charge. In this country such evils could not have continued so long. They would have been put down by the scandal which they would have excited, even by the force of public opinion, without the aid of laws.^[28. It appears that a prejudice bad arisen in favour of copper boilers, which, as copper is inferior to iron in tenacity, were not so safe. But one of the proprietors or managers of steam-boats said it was impossible to disabuse the people of this error; and that unless the, used a boiler of this metal, a vessel would be built, and provided with a copper boiler, and run against them. So, this person adds, in a tone of reckless levity that cannot be too severely reprobated, “we have concluded, therefore, to give them a copper boiler, the strongest of its class, and have made up our minds that they have a perfect right to be scalded by copper boilers if they insist on it. ’ “Hament to add," says Wm. C. Redfield, the writer of the excellent letter to the secretary to the treasury, in which this anecdote is given, “that the exercise of this * right’ to the use of copper was attended, within a few years, with a fearful destruction of life, as bad been foretold.” ] The number of lives lost in these various accidents is differently stated. The lowest amount is stated at 2000; though, according to other accounts, it is double or triple. The secretary to the treasury states that be had been able to ascertain 1676 killed and 443 wounded in steam-boats. By the sinking of a vessel on the Mississippi in 1837, 300 lives were lost, which is the greatest number by any one accident. By the explosion of a vessel on the same river in 1838, 130 lives were lost, and 120 by that of another on the Ohio. By the burning of a vessel on the Mississippi in 1837, 130 persons perished; and 100 by shipwreck in the same year on the North Carolina shore. The loss of property from the same cause is estimated at between five and six millions of dollars.

The internal intercourse of the United States has been wonderfully improved by the construction of canals, which fill up the blanks left by nature in the water communications of the country, and more recently by railroads, which now intersect the American territory in all directions. Plans of improvement, which, when they were proposed, were regarded as visionary, have been actually executed, and have far outstript the most sanguine hopes of their projectors. Capital to a prodigious amount has been laid out on these improvements, which have already produced, and are destined to produce still more, mighty changes in the internal intercourse and genera) aspect of the world. In a lew years they will connect the St Lawrence with the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic with the Mississippi. Nor need we wonder if we yet see the railroad car speeding its course, on wings of fire, from New York, along the great table-land of New Spain, to Mexico The following account of the canal navigation of the United States is abridged from Mitchell’s Compendium of the internal Improvements of the country.

Maine.— The only canal of any importance in this state is Cumberland and Oxford Canal, which extends from Portland to Sebago Pond. By means of a lock constructed in Songo river, it is connected with Brandy and Long Ponds, and comprehends a water communication, natural and artificial, of about fifty miles in extent. It was completed in 1829, at an expense of 250,000 dollars.

New Hampshire.— The internal improvements in this state consist of a series of short canals, constructed on the Merrimack river, for the improvement of its navigation, by means of which, and the Middlesex Canal, Boston is connected with the interior of New Hampshire.

Vermont.— There are several short canals constructed in this state on the western bank of the Connecticut river, intended principally for improving the navigation of that river.

Massachusetts.— The Middlesex Canal, in connection with those in New Hampshire, opens a water-communication between Boston and the interior parts of that state. It connects the Merrimack river with Boston harbour, and extends from Charlestown, opposite Boston, to Chelmsford, twenty-seven miles. It was completed in 1808, at an expense of 528,00 dollars. The Blackstone Canal commences at Worcester, Massachusetts, and extends to Providence, Rhode Island. It was completed in 1828, at an expense of 600,000 dollars. The Hampshire and Hampden Canal, uniting with the Farmington Canal at Southwick, and extending thence to Northampton, twenty miles, connects the Connecticut river with New Haven harbour. The entire distance is seventy-eight miles. It was commenced in 1825, and finished at an expense of 600,000 dollars. There are other two canals, constructed for passing two fulls in the Connecticut river.

Connecticut.— The Farmington Canal, in Connecticut, commences at New Haven, and passes through the state fifty-eight miles, to its northern boundary, where it is connected with the Hampshire and Hampden Canal in Massachusetts.

New York.— The Erie Canal is by far the most important work of the kind in the United States, or indeed in the world. It was commenced in 1817, and completed in 1825. It unites the Hudson with Lake Erie, extending from Albany, on that river, to Buffalo on Lake Erie, a distance of 363 miles, with a width at the bottom of twenty-eight feet, at the surface of forty feet, and a depth of water of four feet. The number of locks is eighty-four, and the rise and fall 698 feet. This great work was begun without any sanguine hopes of success, and was generally pronounced to be vain [7:21:471]and chimerical; and four years after its commencement, the revenues derived from the tolls were estimated at the low rate of 150,000 dollars a year, whereas they amounted for the first ten years after its completion to ten millions of dollars; and the tonnage brought down by the canal, which was estimated, with a fear of its being deemed extravagant, at 250,000 tons, actually exceeded, in 1836, 1,300,000 tons. The whole debt incurred in the construction of this canal is now paid off, and it yields, over all expenses, a considerable surplus, which is expended on other public works. This however is one of the most successful undertakings in the United States. There are others of which the revenue hardly pays the expense of repairs. But the influence of this great work on the general prosperity of the country has been still more remarkable. It has given a wonderful impulse to the agriculture of the interior; it has converted deserts into fruitful fields. Flourishing towns have been seen to spring up in its track. Albany, l’tica, Rochester, and Buffalo, have, from the facilities of communication which it has afforded, the two first doubled their respective populations within ten years, and that of the two latter has increased, Rochester from 5271 in 1825, to 14,404 in 1835, and Utica from 2600 to 15,661. Champlain Canal extends farther from Whitehall, on Lake Champlain, to Albany, a distance of sixty-three miles. Oswego Canal, a branch of the Erie, connects Lake Ontario with the Erie Canal. It is thirty-eight miles in length. Cayuga and Seneca Canal extends from Geneva, on Seneca lake, to Montezuma, on Erie Canal, a distance of twenty miles. Chemung Canal extends eighteen miles from the head waters of Seneca lake to the Chemung or Tioga river. Chenango Canal extends from the Erie Canal, near Utica, in Oneida county, to Binghampton in Broome county, on Susquehannah river, in length 9.3¾ miles. Black River Canal extends thirty-six miles, from Rome to the high falls on the Black River. The net revenue received from the Erie and Champlain Canals was, for the year ending September 1834, 1,035,644 dollars. The other canals have not been profitable. The following is a statement of the different canals already constructed by the state, and of the expense of their construction.
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All these may be considered as constituting one work, the main object of which is to connect the valley of the Hudson with that of Lake Champlain on the north, and the great central basin of the Canadian lakes on the west; while, by the various lateral canals, the produce of the neighbouring countries is brought into the main track, and the produce of foreign countries transported into the inmost recesses of the state.^[29. See Trotter’s excellent work, chap. vii. 134, on the Financial Position and Credit of the States of the American Union, which contain· ample details respecting the internal improvements of the United States. ] The Delaware and Hudson Canal, undertaken by a joint-stock company, extends from the Hudson river, ninety miles above New York, in a south-west direction, to Port Jervis on the Delaware, fifty-nine miles, where it unites with the Lackawaxen Canal, proceeds up the left bank of the Delaware to Lackawaxen Creek, thence to Honesdale, the termination of the canal, 108 miles. It was completed in 1828. There are several other inconsiderable canals within this state.

New Jersey.— The Morris Canal, in this state, extends from Jersey city on Hudson river, across the state of New Jersey, to Delaware river, opposite Easton, Pennsylvania, where it connects with the Lehigh Canal; the distance being 101 miles, the expense nearly two millions of dollars. The Delaware and Raritan Canal extends from Bordentown, on Delaware river, to New Brunswick, on the Raritan, forty-two miles. In this state there are several other inconsiderable canals.

Pennsylvania The main division of the Pennsylvania Canal commences at Columbia, at the termination of the Columbia Railroad, passes up the bank of the Susquehannah to the mouth of the Juniatta river, and thence to Holidaysburg, at the eastern base of the Alleghany Mountains; its length being 171 miles. The western division commences at Johnstown on the Conemaugh, pursues the course of that stream, and also that of the Kiskiminitas and Alleghany rivers, and finally terminates at Pittsburg. In connection with the Columbia Railroad, it forms a grand chain of communication between the eastern and western parts of the state, the distance from Philadelphia to Pittsburg being about 395 miles. It is proposed to extend this communication to the town of Beaver, so as to unite with the Beaver division. The distance is only twenty-five miles; and this, with a proposed canal from Newcastle to Akron on the Ohio and Erie Canal, would, with the exception of the passage over the Alleghany Portage Railroad, of thirty-six miles, form a water-communication from Philadelphia to New Orleans of 2435 miles. The Susquehannah division of the Pennsylvania Canal leaves the main division at the mouth of the Juniatta, and passing up the west bank of the Susquehannah river, intersects the north branch and west branch divisions at Northumberland. Its length is thirty-nine miles. The north branch division commences at the termination of the Susquehannah division, and passes along the right bank of the north branch of the Susquehannah. The west branch division commences at the same point as the north branch division, and is carried along the left bank of the west branch of the Susquehannah. The Beaver division of the Pennsylvania Canal commences at the town of Beaver on the Ohio river, twenty-six miles below Pittsburg, and ascends the valley of the Ohio river, and its tributary the Chenango Creek, to its termination in Mercer county, a distance of forty-six miles. It is intended, by a farther extension of this canal, to connect Lake Erie with the Ohio; and by another canal from Newcastle on the Beaver division, twenty-four miles above the town of Beaver, along the valley of the Mahoning river to Akron, a distance of eighty-five miles, to connect the canal navigation of the Ohio with that of Pennsylvania; and thus a water-communication being opened to Philadelphia, that city will rival New York as the maritime emporium of the western states. At present the valuable produce of these rising states is carried through Lake Erie, the navigation of which is frequently dangerous, and the Erie Canal, to New York, a distance of 760 miles, while the route by the proposed series of canals to Philadelphia is not above 575 miles. This route would also possess this additional advantage over that by the Erie Canal, that it would not be interrupted for so long a time by the winter frosts. All traffic on the Erie Canal is suspended during five months of the year, it being seldom navigable till the 20th April, and rarely after the 20th November; while, from the milder climate of Pennsylvania, its canals are open from the 10th March to the 25th December. When all the projected lines of intercourse by canals and railroads are completed in Pennsylvania, from Pittsburg to Philadelphia, the merchants of the latter city will be enabled to monopolize the western trade during the [7:21:472] commencement of spring and autumn, the busiest seasons of the year.

The Delaware division commences at Bristol, eighteen miles above Philadelphia, and passes thence in a direct line to Morrisville, opposite Trenton, a distance of fifty-nine miles. This is the channel by which the coal-trade of the Lehigh reaches Philadelphia. The Schuylkill Canal extends from Philadelphia to Reading, and thence to Mount Carbon, a distance of 108 miles. The Union Canal connects the borders of the Susquehannah with those of the Schuylkill, and is in length eighty-two miles. The Lacka-waxen Canal commences at the termination of the Delaware and Hudson, and unites with a railroad at Honesdale, a distance of forty-nine miles. The Lehigh Canal extends from Easton, on Delaware river, to Mauch Chunk; its length being 46¾ miles. There are several other smaller canals, chiefly for improving the navigation of the Susquehannah river.

Delaware. —The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal connects Delaware river with Chesapeake Bay. It is fourteen miles in length, and was constructed at the immense expense of 2,200,000 dollars, owing to its size, being sixty-six feet broad at the surface, and eight feet deep, and to the depth of its excavations and the extent of its embankments.

Maryland.— The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, commenced in 1828, is a great undertaking, which, extending from the tide-water of the Potomac river, above Georgetown, in the district of Columbia, and terminating at Pittsburg in Pennsylvania, a distance of 341¼ miles, would connect the Atlantic with the Ohio and the Mississippi, terminating in the Gulf of Mexico The breadth of this canal, which would be a splendid improvement, is from sixty to eighty feet at the surface, and fifty at the bottom. In the year 1835 it was only completed to the distance of 100 miles. The undertaking languished for want of funds. The estimated expense is 3,650,000 dollars. The district of Columbia has two branches connected with the above canal.

The Dismal Swamp Canal, in Virginia, connects Chesapeake Bay with Albemarle Sound; and various other small canals have been constructed for improving the navigation of James River, by avoiding the falls which interrupt the navigation. They may be considered as the commencement of a series of improvements, by which the waters of James river may be connected with the Great Kanawha, one of the head streams of the Ohio, and a short and direct communication thus opened from the Atlantic, into which the James river falls, to the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico Companies have also been formed to improve the channels of the Roanoke and its confluents in both Virginia and North Carolina. The canals in South Carolina are small, and chiefly have in view to improve the navigation of the different streams which water this state, namely, the Catawba, the Saluda, the Wateree, and others. In North Carolina there is a canal which connects North-West River with the Dismal Swamp Canal, and others for improving the navigation of the Roanoke and other streams. In Georgia there is only one canal which unites the waters of the Ogeechee with those of the Savannah. In the state of Kentucky there is a small canal for avoiding a fall on the Ohio; and in Tennessee similar improvements are projected for improving the river of that name.

Ohio.— The canal navigation of this state is of great magnitude and importance, and further improvements are in progress. The Ohio and Erie Canal, completed in 1832, commences at Cleveland, at the mouth of the Cuyahoga, and, passing through a number of towns in its route, joins the Ohio river at Portsmouth, connecting it with Lake Eric. The main trunk is 310 miles in length, and, including its branches, the total length is 334 miles. This canal has been a most successful undertaking, and has in many places through which it has passed quadrupled the value of private property. The Miami Canal commences at Cincinnati and terminates at Dayton. An extension of this work is in progress, by which it will be connected with the Wabash and Erie Canal at Defiance. The expense of these two canals has been 5,500,500 dollars. The total length of canals in Ohio is 409 miles. The net revenue on these two canals was, for the year 1834, ending in October 31, 191,444 dollars. Other plans are in contemplation for extending brandies from this canal in different directions. It is proposed, by the Mahoning and Beaver Canal, to connect it by a canal eighty-five miles in length with the Beaver division of the Pennsylvania Canal, by which a communication would be secured to the western states with the Atlantic section of the Union, and a choice would thus be afforded them of two, and eventually, when the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal are completed, of three great outlets for their produce.

Indiana.— The Wabash and Erie Canal, in this state, extends from near Lafayette, on the Wabash river, up the valley of that stream, across to the Maumee at Wayne, 105 miles. This work is to be carried from Wayne to the east boundary of the state, where, uniting with that part of it authorized by the state of Ohio, the whole distance will be 187 miles. Other canals are proposed in this state, some as branches from the main trunk of other canals already made, and others new.

In the western states, Alabama. Mississippi, and Louisiana, there is no extent of canal navigation, and those which are projected are chiefly for improving the navigation of the streams tl>at abound in the country.

A canal across the peninsula of Florida has for some years been considered an object of national importance, and would greatly facilitate the transmission of the produce and merchandise constantly passing and repassing to an immense amount between the seaports on the Gulf of Mexicoand the Atlantic region of the United States, and at present carried by a dangerous navigation among the Bahama Islands and around the southern point of Florida, where the loss of shipping has been so great that it is estimated to have been nearly equal to the expense of the proposed canal.

The railroad is a still more striking and splendid improvement than the canal, and affords even greater facilities to internal intercourse. This great improvement is marvellously aided by the power of steam, by which the speed may be indefinitely increased; so that the time spent in travelling hundreds of miles is no longer counted, as formerly, by weeks, or even days, but by hours, and the remote extremities of a kingdom appear to be brought nearer than were formerly those of the same county. The enterprising spirit of the Americans has eagerly laid hold of this singular improvement, which they are rapidly extending in all directions. We shall endeavour to give a short notice of such as are connected with the great communications of the country, omitting those which, being more local, are of less importance.

Massachusetts.— In this state, Boston is the centre from which the railroads diverge in different directions. 1. The Boston and Worcester Railroad, which extends southwest to Worcester, 43¼ miles, at an expense of 900,000 dollars, and which it is proposed to carry into the state of New York, and to connect with the New York and Albany Railroad at Greenbush, opposite to Albany, the whole distance being about 200 miles. 2. The Boston and Providence Railroad, which extends in a straight line south from Boston to Providence, Rhode Island, 42 miles, and which will connect with the Stonington and Providence Railroad, making the distance to Stonington 90½ miles. 3. The railroad from Boston westward to Lowell, 25 miles, which is considered the commencement of a series of railroads, still westward, through the states of New Hampshire and Vermont, to a point in Lake Champlain, opposite Plattsburg, and thence across [7:21:473]the state of New York to Ogdensburgh on the St Lawrence river, the entire distance being about 335 miles. A railroad extends from Boston to Taunton, thirty-two miles, which it is proposed to unite with the Boston and Providence Railroad at Sharon, eighteen miles from Boston. ft is also proposed to extend the Worcester Railroad to Norwich, a distance of sixty miles.

New York.— The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad extends from Albany to Schenectady, about fifteen miles, and affords communication between the tide-water of Hudson river and the Erie Canal. It is continued by the Saratoga and Schenectady Railroad, twenty-one miles, to the villages of Ballston Spa and Saratoga, which it unites with the line of steam-navigation upon the Hudson. The Ithaca and Oswego Railroad extends from the village of Ithaca, at the head of the Cayuga lake, twenty-nine miles, to the village of Oswego on the Susquehannah river. The Haerlem Railroad is from New York to that city. The Rensselaer and Saratoga Railroad, in length twenty-five miles, commences at and crosses the Hudson at Troy, and passes to Waterford, and thence to Ballston Springs. The Catskill and Canajoharie Railroad extends between the two places, a distance of seventy miles. The Utica and Schenectady Railroad, between these two places, extends 100 miles. Railroads are besides projected, 1st, from New York to Lake Erie, with a capital of 10,000,000 dollars; 2d, from New York to the Hudson, opposite Albany; 3d, from Newburgh to the Delaware river, distance fifty-one miles; 4th, the Brooklyn, Jamaica, and Long Island Railroad, from Brooklyn to Greenport, about 100 miles, thence by steam-boat to Stonington, thirty-five miles, then by railroads now in progress through Providence to Boston, 90½ miles; total from New York 225½ miles. This work was commenced in 1835. In 1832, various companies were incorporated for railroads in different directions, which would require a capital estimated to amount to 12,000,000 dollars.

New Jersey. —The chief railroads in this state are, the Camden and Amboy Railroad, ninety-six miles in length, which unites the two great cities of Philadelphia and New York; the Paterson and Hudson Railroad, extending from Paterson to Jersey city on the Hudson, opposite to New York, sixteen miles in length; the New Jersey Railroad, extending from New Brunswick to Jersey city, opposite New York. The New Jersey, Hudson, and Delaware Railroad is intended to unite the Delaware with the Hudson, opposite New York.

Pennsylvania The Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad extends 81½ miles in length, from the former city to Columbia on the Susquehannah. The cost, including engines, is estimated at 3,595,809 dollars. From this railroad branches extend in different directions to Westchester, twenty-one miles; and about forty miles from Philadelphia the Oxford Railroad, passing through Oxford, terminates at the south line of the state, where it will unite the Baltimore and Port Deposit Railroad; the distance being twenty-one miles.

Alleghany Portage Railroad commences at Holidays-burg, the termination of the main division of the Pennsylvania Canal, and crossing the Alleghany Mountains at Blair’s Gap Summit, descends to its final termination at Johnstown, where it intersects the western division of the canal, being a distance of 36½ miles. There are railroads from Philadelphia to Germantown, seven miles, and to Morrisville, opposite to Trenton, twenty-six miles.

The Central Railroad commences two and a half miles beyond Pottsville, and extends 44½ miles to Sunbury, opposite the forks of the Susquehannah river. There are besides numerous railroads on a smaller scale from the coal-mines which are found in this state, or connected with the main canals or railroads which are formed.

Delaware.— The Newcastle and Frenchtown Railroad extends 16½ miles from Newcastle on Delaware river to Frenchtown in the state of Maryland, and affords a direct communication between Delaware river and Chesapeake Bay. The Wilmington and Susquehannah Railroad will extend 26½ miles from Wilmington to Semper’s Point on North-East Bay, which communicates with Chesapeake Bay near the mouth of the Susquehannah river.

Maryland.— The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, begun in 1828, will extend from Baltimore to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, thus affording a communication between the waters of the Chesapeake Bay and those of Ohio. A farther extension of thirty miles will carry it to Williamsport, and another of seventy-five miles to Cumberland, a country abounding in rich bituminous coal, making the whole distance 325 miles.

Baltimore and Susquehannah Railroad, commenced in 1830, extends seventy-six miles in length, from Baltimore to York. A railroad from York to Columbia, eleven miles in length, which was sanctioned by the Pennsylvania state legislature in 1835, will unite the Baltimore, and Susquehannah, and Philadelphia, and Columbia Railroads, and will form a railroad communication between the cities of Philadelphia and Baltimore, 168 miles in length. Branches are proposed from this railroad, to improve the communications of the country; one from Baltimore, in length fifty-two miles, to join with the Oxford Railroad, and to form a railroad communication of 117 miles between the cities of Baltimore and Philadelphia.

Virginia.— The Petersburg and Roanoke Railroad extends from Petersburg to Blakeley, North Carolina, at the foot of the Roanoke Canal, a distance of fifty-nine miles. The Portsmouth and Roanoke Railroad, seventy-seven miles in length, commences at Portsmouth, opposite Norfolk, and terminates at the head of the Roanoke Falls, a short distance below the Petersburg branch. The Winchester and Potomac Railroad extends from Winchester to Harper’s Ferry, about thirty miles, where it unites with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. This is an important link in the great chain of communication now extending in the southern section of the Union; and measures have been taken to continue it through the great valley of Virginia towards Tennessee. The Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad is to extend from the river Potomac, at the mouth of the Potomac creek, through Fredericksburg, to Richmond, about seventy-five miles. This work connects at Richmond with the Richmond and Petersburg line, twenty-one miles long, and, with the Petersburg and Roanoke Railroad, will form a continued railroad communication from the Potomac to the Roanoke rivers of 155 miles in length. Railroads are also proposed from Fredericksburg to Guyandot on the Ohio river; from Richmond to Lynchburg, thence to Knoxville, Tennessee; and from Lynchburg to New River.

North Carolina— Cape Fear and Yadkin Railroad commences at Wilmington, and extends to the Yadkin river by the way of Fayetteville; thence to Beatty’s Ford, or some other point on the Catawba river, a distance of about 230 or 250 miles. This work is advancing very rapidly. A railroad is begun from Newbern, on the Neuse river, through Raleigh, to Clinton on the Yadkin. The Roanoke, Raleigh, and Fayetteville Railroad will begin at the termination of the Petersburg and Roanoke Railroad, and will extent to Fayetteville.

South Carolina.— The South Carolina Railroad, begun in 1830 and finished in 1833, in length 135¼ miles, commences at Charleston, and terminates at Hamburg on the Savannah river, opposite Augusta. At Augusta the Augusta and Athens Railroad will connect with it, which it is proposed to carry on westward to unite with the Tuscumbia, Courtland, and Decatur Railroad in Alabama, and the great Tennessee Railroad to Memphis on the Mississippi, which when finished will be one of the most important works in the Union. The Columbia and Branchville Railroad will extend from Columbia to Branchville, where it will unite with the South Carolina Railroad. This work [7:21:474]was about to be begun in 1835; as also the Peedee and Wateree Railroad, to extend from Cheraw to Charleston, 153 miles; the Edgefield Railroad, to run from Aiken to Charleston, 137 miles; a railroad to extend from Cheraw to Columbia, eighty-eight or ninety miles; another from Barnwell to a point on the South Carolina Railroad, and likewise from Beaufort to Hamburg on the Savannah river, 110 or 112 miles in length.

Georgia.— The Savannah and Macon Railroad is 210 miles between these two places. The Augusta and Athens Railroad is 114 miles between the two places, and may be considered as an extension of the South Carolina Railroad. When the whole work is finished, the route from Charleston to Memphis will be 700 miles. A railroad is projected from Augusta to Columbus on the Chattahoochee, twenty miles in length, with other railroads branching from it.

Florida.— A railroad is to extend from Tallahassee, the capital, twenty-two miles, to the town of St Mark’s, to be carried to Jacksonville on the St John’s river, 150 miles.

Alabama.— the Tuscumbia, Courtland, and Decatur Railroad extends from Tuscumbia to Decatur, forty-five miles. The Daletown, Woodville, and Greensborough Railroad, is to extend from Daletown, on the Alabama river, northward through Woodville to Greensborough, fifty miles; the Florida, Alabama, and Georgia Railroad, to run from Pensacola in Florida, crossing the Escambia river about twenty-two miles above that place, thence in a north-east direction to Columbus, Georgia, on the Chattahoochee river, about 210 miles. Railroads are also proposed from Montgomery to Columbus, Georgia, 100 miles in length; from Montgomery to Decatur on the Tennessee river, about 200 miles; and from Tuscaloosa to Decatur, about 120 miles. Partly by the Tennessee and Alabama Railroad, partly by a water-communication from the Hiwassee, a considerable tributary of the Tennessee, which rises in the mountains of Georgia, it is proposed to continue a line to Selma on the Alabama, 371 miles, and to Mobile, 600 miles.

Mississippi.— Several railroads have been projected in this state, the most important of which is the Natchez and Jackson Railroad, in extent about ninety miles between those places, and onwards to Livingston, thirty-one miles more.

Louisiana.— In the legislature of Louisiana a bill has been introduced for a magnificent scheme of internal improvement; namely, a railroad from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, St Francisville, and Clinton, thence eastwardly to the boundary line of Mississippi. This plan is recommended as part of a great route through Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North and South Carolina, and Virginia, to Washington city. The New Orleans and Nashville Railroad is proposed to extend from New Orleans to Nashville in Tennessee, from 480 to 500 miles in length.

In Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan. Indiana, and Illinois, extensive schemes of railroads have also been projected, which, when they are executed, will completely intersect these districts, and afford great facilities to internal intercourse.

The substitution of paper-money for specie is a modern improvement of obvious advantage, but liable to peculiar risks. Dr Smith very clearly explains the benefits which arise from the judicious operations of banking, as well as its evils when it is carried to excess.^[30. Smith’» Wealth of Nations, vol. i. p. 510. ] The great security against the abuse of paper-money, is its immediate convertibility into specie. It is a promise to pay on demand a certain amount of gold or silver. The punctual performance of this promise is the only sure guarantee of its value, which, where it is not performed, may vary to any amount, until the note degenerate into a mere piece of waste paper, as was the case in France during the progress of the revolution, from the inordinate issue of assignats. The great profit of a bank arises from the circulation of its notes, and its chief danger from the sudden return of those notes in exchange for specie. It is well known that no bank has a store of specie equal to the amount of its notes in circulation. The liabilities of the Bank of England have often been between twenty and thirty millions, while its stock of specie did not exceed one or two millions. Specie being, however, an expensive stock, a bank is tempted to carry on business with the lowest possible quantity; and as the disproportion between this fund and the liabilities increases, the hazard also increases of a run upon the bank, and a suspension of cash payments. Against this danger the American banks, though many of them conducted their business with success, and possessed ample funds, were not sufficiently guarded. In a time of panic, a bank, by the sudden influx of its notes, may be drained of its last guinea or dollar, as happened to the Bank of England in 1797. But when a bank has ample funds, every effort should be made, at whatever expense, and with the least possible delay, to provide specie, and to resume cash payments. In this country, though the Bank of England in 1797 might have been forced for a time to suspend its cash payments, yet the continuance of the suspension after the panic, and when the necessity had ceased, was a fatal error, and a most disgraceful fraud on the community, which was followed by the depreciation of the currency, and by great injustice and disorder. In 1805, the bank of Paris was exposed to a drain of specie to be remitted for payment of the French armies when they were in Germany, and was under a like necessity of suspending its cash payments; but when the pressure ceased, its payments were resumed early in 1806, after the conclusion of the peace of Presburg.

In 1836 the number of banks in America amounted to 636, in 1838 to 663, besides 166 branches, and several other banks from which no returns were received in reply to the application made. Including these, the whole may be estimated at between 800 and 900. Their capital was either subscribed by individuals, or it consisted of loans from the several states in which they were situated; and in many cases the state was a shareholder or sole proprietor of the bank. Where the state agreed to aid the bank with funds, or with its credit, bonds bearing interest, and payable in ten, twenty, or thirty, or any greater number of years that might be agreed upon, were issued to the amount of one or two millions of dollars, or to any greater or less amount, for which the borrowers gave a mortgage on real property to double the amount. The state bonds being disposed of in the market, the bank acquired the necessary funds for carrying on its business. In some cases banks have been established on the frail foundation of fictitious capital. The fourth part of its capital, for example, or out of 160,000 dollars, only 25,000 were really subscribed. For the residue the shareholders gave their bills, and pledged as a security the stock they had paid in; and thus the nominal capital was 100,000 dollars, but the real capital only one fourth. In one case the whole capital subscribed was next day given back under the name of a loan to the subscribers. Though such fraudulent transactions were not common, yet many of the banks possessed a slender foundation of capital, not amounting to 100,000 dollars, and in some cases not to above 60,000 or 30,600 dollars, and this often made up with paper promises. In most cases, however, the banks carried on a profitable business, and divided from five to eight and ten per cent.

No country has suffered so much from the mania for banking, or been so deluged with depreciated and worthless paper money, as the United States. There were 400 banks in existence in 1819, many of which had no adequate foundation[7:21:475] of real capital. They were generally got up by knots of speculating tradesmen and lawyers, often without depositing a dollar beyond what was necessary to pay for paper and engraving. Even the respectable banks issued notes for a single dollar; but in the western country, where these establishments were on the worst footing, notes were issued for a half, a quarter, an eighth, and even a sixteenth of a dollar. An immense mass of paper money was thus put into circulation by these banks, which, when it fell into discredit, was followed by a degree of embarrassment and distress that had almost the character of a general bankruptcy. The paper bubbles burst, one after another, with extraordinary celerity, and involved multitudes in ruin. Of a hundred banks in Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana, there were only two whose notes were received at the land-offices. In some of these states, acts were passed by the legislature, suspending legal proceedings to compel payment of debts. It may be imagined what an extraordinary derangement was produced in the state of property, when the circulating medium was reduced in three years (1815 to 1819) from 110 to forty-five millions of dollars.^[31. Report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the Currency, 1820. Flint’s Letter« from America, Nov. 16 and 17. ]

Of the 663 banks which were established in America in 1838, the bank of the United States is by far the most important, from the extent of its capital, which amounts to 35,000,000 of dollars. It was incorporated in 1791, under the presidency of General Washington. The charter, which was for twenty years, expired in 1811; and from the fear that had in the mean time arisen, of this great national bank being converted into a political engine, it was not renewed. But owing to the disorder that arose at this time in the trade, and in the state of the currency, the consequence partly of the war with Great Britain, it was thought expedient to establish a new bank, with a charter for twenty years. General Jackson was decidedly opposed to this establishment; and in 1829, in his message to Congress, he expressed his opinion in the strongest terms. The senate and house of representatives entirely disapproved of the president’s views, in which he however persevered; and though in 1832 an act was passed for renewing the charter of the bank, the president exercised his constitutional privilege of rejecting the act, it not being sanctioned by two thirds of the legislative bodies. In pursuance of his views, he in 1833 directed the government deposits to be removed from the federal bank to certain other banks, which he selected; though a committee of the house of representatives declared, on inquiry into its affairs, a balance in its favour of 43,058,143 dollars.^[32. See Mr Trotter’s Observations on the Financial Position of the States of the North American Union, i. p. 15. ] The contest between the executive and the monied interest was carried on with increasing acrimony; and such was the distrust of the banks by General Jackson and his friends, that they proposed to collect the public revenue entirely in specie, to be laid up in vaults under the charge of public officers. This question has created a great division in the American community, and has finally decided the late contest for the great office of president against Van Buren, an advocate of this system, and in favour of General Harrison.

But though General Jackson has carried too far his distrust of the banks, yet his measures, however mistaken, could not have occasioned the great calamity which soon after befell the credit and commerce of the United States. The cause was more deeply seated in the general condition of commerce, arising from the great extent to which credit was carried in Great Britain and in the United States, and the intense spirit of speculation thence arising, under the influence of which vast funds were lavished in ruinous adventures. A great increase had taken place in the importations, especially from Great Britain, which had risen from 108 millions, the amount in 1833, to 190 millions in 1836. A large debt was thus incurred to Great Britain, while vast sums, mostly in paper, to the amount, as estimated, of 125,000,000 of dollars, were expended on railroads, canals, banks, insurance and other companies, by which states, cities, corporations, and merchants, were involved in extensive engagements: wild tracts of government lands were purchased on speculation with paper to the estimated amount of about forty millions of dollars. The sales of these lands had increased from five millions of dollars in 1833, to twenty-five millions in 1836; extensive lots were besides purchased around the different cities, towns, and villages, with borrowed funds, and large sums were expended on rash improvements and on town buildings.^[33. See Statements in relation to the Condition of the Slate Banks, laid before Congress February 27, 1839, p. 404, Doc. No. 227. Report to the Missouri Assembly on the Currency, November 20, 1838. ] An immense superstructure was thus reared on a slender basis. There was a fair show of outward wealth and a false security, which continued until the unfortunate speculator was roused from his golden dreams by the commercial storm, and by a scene of ruin which was without a parallel in the history of commerce. The alarm began in Great Britain, where credit had been carried to a great excess. The bank contracting its credit to American houses, they in their turn called for payment of their American debts. At the same time Congress passed a bill, in June 1836, ordering that the surplus revenue of the United States, which had accumulated in the treasury, should, after reserving five millions of dollars, be deposited, by four quarterly instalments, with the several states. This sum amounted to 37,468,859 dollars. It had been lent out by the banks in which it was deposited, to the merchants of New York and other cities; and they being now suddenly called upon for payment, insisted on prompt payment from the merchants, at the time they were called upon to pay their European debts. The treasury order issued on 11th July 1836, in order to check the inordinate speculations in land, ordaining all payments at the land-offices to be made in specie, increased the pressure for money, and combined, with all the other causes, to hasten on the crisis for which the materials had been long prepared. The scarcity of money rapidly increased; those who in the riot of speculation had recklessly borrowed, were now called upon to pay: the golden dream had vanished, and they had no funds. A general panic now spread far and wide; the banks were assailed by demands for specie; and in May 1837 cash payments were universally suspended throughout the United States. This was follow ed by a general depreciation of the currency, which was more or less in proportion to its excess or its discredit; by a varying rate of exchange in consequence, for all remittances of money between the different states; by a universal panic, a fall in the price of all goods, and heavy sacrifices of property in order to procure funds. But these calamities, though they were aggravated, were not altogether occasioned by the failure of the banks. They were involved in the general ruin which arose from other causes, namely, the undue extension of credit, and the excess to which speculation was carried. Great commercial distress was also experienced from the same cause in Great Britain, where the Bank of England and the other banks continued to pay in specie.

To supply the want of change, notes were issued under the value of five dollars, though they had been prohibited by law; and it is mentioned in a Report on the State of New York, that “it was flooded with every species of depreciated paper, to the general annoyance and loss of the people at large.” The suspension of cash payments is an [7:21:476]expedient to which banks too readily resort in critical times. The Bank of England was extremely reluctant to part with this privilege, which it had so recklessly abused, and in which abuse it was, with little regard to justice, countenanced by those who then ruled the country. During the commercial pressure of 1814, all the banks south of New England suspended their cash payments; and they were countenanced in this proceeding by the merchants of New York and other places, though not by the government or congress, where other and wiser views prevailed. the merchants depending on the banks for accommodation, did not insist on a strict fulfilment of their engagements, lest it should compel them to contract their discounts, and to call in their debts, which would have added to the general distress. It is accordingly mentioned as a proof that public opinion was in favour of the banks, that in Massachusetts “suits for refusing specie were instituted against thirteen only of all the banks, and those suits are for trifling amounts.”^[34. See Document No. 227, laid upon the Table of Congress February 27. 1839. Report of the Bank Commissioners of Massachusetts to the Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. ] The same feeling prevailed in all the other states. " The suspension,” says the comptroller of the state of New York, in his Report, “was forced upon the New York banks by several powerful classes of persons, as a measure of relief,” on the supposition that as soon as the banks were relieved from the obligation of redeeming their notes, they would discount more freely.^[35. “If the legal consequence of suspension,” it is observed in the same document, “had been a contraction of bank issues, those who congregated in Wall Street, instead of coercing the banks to suspend, would have rallied round them to prevent a catastrophe so destructive to the honour and detrimental to the morals of the country, and so injurious to the credit of our great commercial emporium.” Document No. 227. Extract from the Report of the Comptroller of the State of New York, p. 205. ] The attention of the Congress and of the legislatures of the different states was deeply aroused by the catastrophe which had befallen the banks, and the credit and commerce of the country; and acts were passed for regulating the issues, and the general management of their business. Commissioners were also appointed to inquire into the general condition of all the banks, to call for and examine their books or accounts; and they were empowered to bring the case of any bank under the consideration of a court of law, which might issue an injunction to its managers, setting aside and appointing receivers to take charge of its effects. Various acts were passed abolishing the issue of notes under the value of five dollars, and fixing a certain proportion between the circulation and the liabilities of the different banks. By an act passed in 1838, it is declared, that when any bank shall transfer to the comptroller of banks, an officer appointed in each state, a given amount of the public debt, he shall receive in return from the said comptroller an equal amount of circulating notes, which the said comptroller is required to cause to be printed and engraved, and to be countersigned, numbered, and registered in proper books, kept in his office, and to be delivered to any bank on the conditions above specified. According to this law, the circulating notes of banks are to be furnished by the state; and for the whole amount delivered, an equal amount of public stock, on which the bank receives interest, must be conveyed to the comptroller, as a security to the public for the payment of the notes.

The commissioners appointed to inquire into the condition of the banks made their reports, containing the returns of their capital, circulation, discounts, specie, deposits, &c.; besides just and clear views of the principles of paper currency, and of the necessity of specie payments to the maintenance of its value. From these reports, it appears that the American banks, with few exceptions, were solvent. They had ample funds for the discharge of their debts, though their stock of specie proved unequal to the ruinous drains to which they were exposed during the prevailing panic. A table is subjoined, containing a condensed statement of the capital, the circulation, deposits, debts due to other banks, other liabilities, together with the amount of specie in the different banks of the United States, on the 1st January 1889.
[table]
[7:21:477]

From the above table it will be seen that the greatest banking establishment in America is the United States Bank of Pennsylvania, with a capital of 35,000,000 of dollars. There is another bank in this state, with a capital of 5,000,000 dollars, seven with capitals of between 1,000,000 and 2,500,000 dollars, eighteen with capitals from 224,000 to 752,000 dollars, and seventeen with capitals from 60,000 to 185,000 dollars.

The following is a statement of the banking capital in the state of New York.
[table]

Of fifty-one banks in Maine, the largest capital is 300,000

dollars; and there are only six that have a capital above 100,000 dollars. Of the twenty-eight banks in New Hampshire, there are only six that have a capital above 100,000 dollars. Of eighteen banks in Vermont, the highest capital is 300,000 dollars; and there are only three that have a capital above 100,000 dollars. In Massachusetts there are 120 banks.
[table]

Of sixty-two banks in Rhode Island, there are fifteen of which the capitals are between 200,000 and 500,000 dollars, and there are twenty-nine under 100,000 dollars; the residue between 100,000 and 200,000 dollars. Of twenty-three banks in Maryland, there are three whose capitals are from 2,000,000 dollars to 1,199,350; eleven with capitals from 250,000 dollars to 627,110. Of the residue, the capitals are from 50,900 to 175,000 dollars. In Virginia there are five banks, with twenty branches, of which the capitals of three amount to 6,337,000 dollars; those of the other three are from 500,000 to 700,000 dollars. In North Carolina there are three banks, with seven branches; amount of their several capitals, 1,500,000, 800,000, 225,000 dollars. In South Carolina there are eleven banks, with two branches; eight with capitals varying from 800,000 to 2,000,000 dollars. In Georgia there are twenty-one banks, with sixteen branches; six with capitals from two millions to one million of dollars; ten from 600,000 to 250,000 dollars. In Alabama, New Orleans, Tennessee, Kentucky. Indiana, the capitals of the banks vary from 500,000 to 2,500,000 dollars. They are generally above a million of dollars.

From the above statement, the capital of the American banks in many cases appears to be inconsiderable. Even this capital was not always paid up, but consisted in part of the promissory notes or simple bonds of the shareholders, or for which the stock primarily paid in was pledged. Laws were passed to guard against such abuses, but these were evaded. Complaints were general against the banks in the southern states, for entering into rash engagements to assist, with permanent loans, railroads, canals, and other improvements; thus locking up the funds that should have been available for other purposes.^[39. The Select Committee of the State of Ohio observe: “This sudden expansion of the currency gave an unnatural impetus to the ordinary business of the country, and opened the way to all the wild schemes of speculation that the imagination of the most enthusiastic fortune-hunter could invent. the hitherto honest, industrious, and virtuous tiller of the soil, became a bold adventurer upon the broad sea of speculation; the mechanic turned merchant; while the professional man, and the cautious dealer in dry goods and groceries, became proptietors of cities, and the nominal owners of immense tracts of wild lands." See Papers laid before Congress, Document No. 227, p. 617. “No state in the Union,” says the Report of the Commissioners of the State of Mississippi, “is more deeply injured by an expanded currency than Mississippi. the price of almost every article is nearly doubled, and in some instances trebled.” In this state, the capital invested in banks bad increased from 950,000 dollars, the capital of one bank, to 75,000,000 dollars in 1839. ] Among other expedients, the issue of bank post-bills was resorted to, by which debt was accumulated, and the evil day of payment was for a time delayed. The Scotish banks were formerly in the practice of issuing notes with what was called an optional clause, deferring payment for six months, which was wisely prohibited by act of parliament. The post-notes of the bank of the United States were gradually increased, as its affairs became involved, from 4,376,424, its amount in July 1838, to 8,994,443 dollars in November following; and other banks in the United States resorted to this and to other hazardous devices for raising money. It is not easy to determine the due proportion between the stock of specie and the liabilities of a bank. The bullion in the Bank of England has varied from one third and one fourth to one fifteenth of its circulation and other liabilities; and the American banks have generally retained in their coffers a proportion of bullion, amounting to a tenth, a seventh, a fifteenth, but sometimes not to above a 200th part, of the circulation and other liabilities. On a general average of all the American banks, the stock of specie amounted, in January 1839, to about forty-three millions of dollars, which was about one fourth of the circulation and other liabilities.

Though cash payments were generally resumed in 1838, a partial suspension again occurred at the close of the year 1839. The commerce of the country had by no means recovered from the recent shock; want of confidence still prevailed, and a scarcity of cash; and many were deeply involved in speculations of doubtful issue. The great bank of the United States in Pennsylvania, notwithstanding its large capital of thirty-five millions, was engaged in vast adventures, and was greatly embarrassed by the want of funds, to provide which it had been reduced to various shifts; among others, to the issue of post-notes, to the amount, as already stated, of above eight millions of dollars. No efforts however could any longer maintain its sinking credit; and its notes being refused by the bank of the United States in New York, as well as in Europe, its payments were finally suspended in October 1839, when the notes fell to a discount of ten per cent. It was proposed to resume cash payments in January 1841; but, according to the last accounts, a new panic bad arisen in the United States, and it was doubted whether this resolution would be carried into effect, and even whether the assets of the bank would be found equal to its liabilities. All the southern banks suspended their cash payments as soon as they heard of the suspension of the Philadelphia bank; but those in New York honourably fulfilled, and still have continued to fulfil, their engagements, and to pay their notes on demand.

The debt incurred by the United States at the close of the war with Great Britain in 1783 amounted, with arrears of interest in 1794, to 76,096,468 dollars, equal to L.17,121,704. It was reduced to 45,154,189 dollars in 1812. In 1815, after the conclusion of the war which began with Great Britain in 1812, the debt had increased to 158,713,049 dollars, and was reduced in 1820 to 91,225,560 dollars. In 1835 it was entirely redeemed; and in the following year a surplus had accumulated, which, with the reservations of five millions of dollars, was, in conformity with an act of Congress, distributed, as already stated, among the several [7:21:478]states of the Union. This sum amounted to 37,468,859 dollars, and was to be paid in quarterly instalments. The last instalment was however deferred for a time, in consequence of the commercial embarrassments that occurred, and afterwards, by an act of Congress, indefinitely. The prudence, forethought, and economy of the American government in the management of its affairs is singularly contrasted with the reckless improvidence of the mother country, whose vast debt, increasing for more than a century, now swallows up for interest thirty millions a year, about two thirds of the whole national revenue. The following is the state of the American finances for 1837.
[table]
[table]

Available balance in the treasury 1st January 1841 estimated at one million and a half of dollars.

The article entitled “deposits with the states” is the surplus revenue that was distributed among the several states. The United States are entirely free from the grievance of internal taxes, the public revenue being wholly derived from the customs and the sale of public lands. The post-office merely defrays its own expense.

Besides the public debt of the United States, several states of the Union have incurred debts for money laid out on railroads, canals, banking schemes, and public institutions of every description. In 1835 these debts were estimated at sixty millions of dollars; and they have since been greatly increased. Of the amount raised from 1835 to 1838, about forty millions of dollars were appropriated to the establishment of banks, and about sixty-eight millions to works of internal improvement. In many cases the funds have been judiciously laid out, and will make a suitable return;^[40. See Trotter’s Observation· on the Financial Position and Credit of the States of the North American Union, chap. viii. ] but in other cases they will not yield a revenue sufficient for the repairs of the canals or railroads on which they have been expended, and for the payment of interest. When there are no adequate auxiliary funds, taxation must be resorted to for upholding the credit of the state. The Pennsylvania legislature has already agreed to the imposition of taxes, if no adequate funds accrue from other sources; and it is not doubted that all the other states will follow this example, and join in upholding the credit of the state bonds, which now form an article of traffic in the money markets of Europe. The following table, taken from the American Almanac for 1840, contains an account of the total amount of stock issued and authorized to be issued by each of the eighteen states where this mode of raising money has been resorted to. It is partly founded on the Annual Report for 1839, of the comptroller appointed under the general banking law passed in 1838, to inquire into the amount of the public debt in all the states, which was stated in that Report at 123,703,750 dollars, and partly on information derived from the state laws, which have been carefully examined, though it is probable that the aggregate amount of stock authorized by all the states is even greater than the amount stated in the table.
[7:21:479]
[table]
[7:21:480]

The free spirit of the Americans, and still more their parsimonious habits in public matters, make them averse to the existence of a large standing army. In this, as in some other things, they carry their opposition to the practice of European states too far. There is no danger to liberty in a free state from a standing army which is collected from the great body of the people, deeply imbued from the highest to the lowest rank with the spirit of freedom, and in all respects a most unfit instrument of tyrants. In Great Britain, the old constitutional jealousy of a standing army has been long exploded; and there is even less reason for jealousy on this subject in the democratical states of America; besides, that regular troops can be effectually opposed only by regular troops; and, in the present condition of the world, the state which denudes itself of efficient defensive weapons may be said to court disaster and disgrace. To supply the want of a small number of regular troops by masses of raw militia six times as numerous, who leave their homes under great personal and pecuniary sacrifices, is not economy, but the reverse; to say nothing of the certain defeat and disgrace to which such a force is subjected in its conflicts with a veteran enemy, and the humiliations which these produce to national feeling. After the close of the late war, the Congress, by act of 3d March 1815, fixed the strength of the regular army at 9980 men; but it was afterwards reduced, and its actual strength, as reported to Congress in March 1822, was,
[table]

It has however been again increased, and the following is the general return, as stated by the adjutant-general, November 1838.
[table]

The army is distributed at about fifty posts and places along the sea-coast and inland frontier. The pay of a colonel of infantry is seventy-five dollars (L.16. 10s.) per month, and six rations a day; of a captain, forty dollars and three rations; of a first lieutenant, thirty dollars and three rations; of a sergeant, eight dollars and one ration; of a private, five dollars and one ration. The Americans have a well-conducted military academy at West Point, on the Hudson, where 230 cadets, between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one, are instructed in the branches of knowledge necessary to form engineers. The period of service is five years, and the expense for each pupil is about 500 dollars per annum. But the chief military force of the United States is the militia, consisting properly of all the males between eighteen and forty-five, but always less or more deficient. A return made to Congress in February 1839 makes the number amount to 1,350,805. When called out to the field they have the same allowances as the regular army, and their period of service is limited to six months.

The American militia are under the charge of the state governments. They generally if not universally elect their own officers, and are said to be very indifferently disciplined.^[41. Warden, iii. 402, the . Niles’s Register, 16th and 30th March 1822; and American Papers. ]

The naval branch of the service became extremely popular, from the exploits which it performed during the last war; and in 1816 Congress appropriated a million of dollars for eight years to increase the navy. The grant was afterwards reduced to 500,000 dollars, and continued till 1825, The following statement is given of the strength of the navy in August 1839.
[table]

The expense of the naval service in 1837 was 6,854,059 dollars; and in the first three quarters of the year 1838 it was 4,325,563 dollars.

The navy is managed by a board of three commissioners and a secretary. A small tax of twenty cents per month is paid by all officers and seamen, both in the navy and merchant service, for the relief of sick and disabled mariners, part of whom are lodged in hospitals.

The great distinction of the American government is, that the first magistrate is chosen by the people, solely on account of his fitness for the office. In an hereditary monarchy, the same office descends from father to son, without regard to fitness. He who is in the line of succession obtains the throne, though he may be a minor or an infant, or however otherwise unfit for its great duties. This distinction of birth has been adopted in all the modern kingdoms of Europe, as the best security against rival claims, and the danger of a disputed succession. The illustrious historian of Romeobserves, that of “all the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule a nation being handed down like a drove of cattle to an infant son, and the “bravest warriors and wisest statesmen” approaching the royal cradle with bended knees and protestations of inviolable fidelity. Still, however, he adds, that though “satire and declamation may paint these obvious topics in the most dazzling colours, our serious thoughts will respect a useful prejudice, which establishes a rule of succession independent of the passions of mankind....In the cool shade of retirement,” he continues, “we may easily devise imaginary forms of government, in which the sceptre shall be constantly bestowed on the most worthy, by the free and incorrupt suffrage of the whole community. Experience overturns these airy fabrics, and teaches us that, in a large society, the election of a monarch can never devolve to the wisest or to the most numerous part of the people."^[42. Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. vii. ] The truth of these eloquent observations, and their agreement with all previous experience, could not have been questioned at the time the historian wrote. The ancient democracies of Greece and Rome presented one continued scene of violence and disorder; they were bold but rude sketches of civil freedom, and they shine as meteors in the page of history; but the proper materials were wanting for the nice machinery of a popular government. The people were fierce and ignorant; they would not submit to the curb of the law; and those rude constitutions, loosely held together, perished amid the popular conflicts to which they gave rise. During the elective monarchy of Rome which [7:21:481]succeeded, how often was the crown the prize of successful violence. Nor can the remark of the Roman historian, that “to the firm establishment of this idea (namely, the hereditary principle), we owe the peaceful succession and mild administration of European monarchies,” well be questioned, in the face of our own experience twice during the last century, of a disputed succession to the crown, and two civil wars in Great Britain.

Popular election, however, if it lead to faction and disorder, never fails to insure an able government, as the hereditary principle is as certainly a source of weakness. When the people have a free choice, they will always prefer merit to demerit; capacity for service becomes in this manner a passport to honour and distinction, and ability is secured for the business of the state. The great men who ruled in Greece and Rome almost invariably justified the choice of the people; their genius shone alike in war and policy, and the conquest of the world attested the wisdom of their councils. Still, if the elective principle, an ever-living source though it be of energy, give rise to violence and disorder, it must be sacrificed to peace, the greatest of all blessings. We cannot make use of an agency, however powerful, which we cannot control. But in America they had no choice; they could not possibly have established a hereditary government, and hence they were driven upon the critical experiment of a republic. That experiment however has succeeded. The great political principle of popular election has been found to be compatible with all the great ends of government; and the election of a supreme ruler takes place every four years, without the least disturbance. The system therefore no longer answers to the description of the Roman historian; it is not an imaginary form of government, an airy fabric which experience overthrows; it has been sanctioned by experience, and has been found to combine liberty and every civil right with good order and peace, while it admits no principle that can impair the native vigour of a pure democracy.

The legislative power is vested in a Congress, consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives. The senate is composed of two members from each state, chosen for six years, by the respective state legislatures, and the seats of one third are vacated every two years. A senator must be thirty years of age, an inhabitant of the state for which he is chosen, and he must have been a citizen of the United States for nine years. The members of the House of Representatives are chosen every second year, by the people, in the proportion of one for every 40,000 inhabitants, excluding the Indians, and two fifths of the people of colour. The electors being the same as for the most numerous branch of the state legislature, the right of suffrage may be described as universal. A representative must be an inhabitant of the state for which he is chosen, twenty-five years of age, and he must have been seven years a citizen of the United States. No law can be passed without the concurrence of both houses. When that is obtained, it is presented to the president, who, if he approves, signs it; if not, he returns it, with his objections, for the reconsideration of Congress, and it cannot in that case become a law without the concurrence of two thirds of the members. The executive power is vested in a President, who is elected for four years, by a number of electors chosen for the purpose by the people, distinct from the senators and representatives whom each state sends to Congress, but equal to them in number. The president must be a native citizen of the United States, and not under thirty-five years of age. His salary is 25,000 dollars (L.5500) per annum.

The Congress has power to impose taxes and duties to pay the debts and provide for the defence of the republic; to borrow money; to regulate commerce; to establish uniform laws of bankruptcy and naturalization; to coin money, and fix the standard of weights and measures; to establish post-offices; to constitute tribunals; to declare war, raise and support an army and navy; to call out the militia, and to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining it. The president is commander-in-chief of the army, navy, and the militia, when in active service. By and with the advice of the senate (two thirds concurring), he makes treaties, and nominates ambassadors, ministers, consuls, and judges.

The federal judiciary consists of the Supreme Court (formed of a chief judge and six associate judges), which sits at Washington, and a District Court in each state, in which one judge sits. The chief justice has 4000 dollars a year, an associate judge 3500, and a district judge from 800 to 2000. The supreme court, deriving its authority from the constitution, is not bound by the proceedings of the legislature farther than they are consistent with that charter. It has, accordingly, set aside several acts of the state legislatures, and even of Congress itself, on the ground that they contravened an express provision of the constitution, by annulling or impairing the validity of contracts. The laws of the United States are substantially the same with the laws of England, but differently modified in each state by causes springing out of the physical, moral, and political situation of the people.

There is no national church in the United States; each congregation pays its own minister, and each sect regulates its own concerns. Notwithstanding this, wherever the population is dense, the means of religious instruction are as ample as in any country in Europe. It is computed that there are above 8000 churches, or religious societies, of which about 3000 belong to the Baptists, 2000 to the Methodists, 1200 to the Congregationalists, 900 to the Presbyterians, 600 to the Episcopalians, and a small number to the Catholics, Dutch Lutherans, Universalists, and other sects.