A Brief History of the United States Part 36

[16] Martin Van Buren was born in New York state in 1782, studied law, began his political career at eighteen, and held several offices before he was sent to the state senate in 1812. From 1815 to 1819 he was attorney general of New York, became United States senator in 1821, and was reflected in 1827; but resigned in 1828 to become governor of New York.

Jackson appointed him Secretary of State in 1829; but he resigned in 1831 and was sent as minister to Great Britain. The appointment was made during a recess of the Senate, which later refused to confirm the appointment, and Van Buren was forced to come home. Because of this "party persecution"

the Democrats nominated him for Vice President in 1832, and from 1833 to 1837 he had the pleasure of presiding over the body that had rejected him.

He died in 1862.

[17] Specie payment was resumed in the autumn of 1838; but most of the banks again suspended in 1839, and again in 1841. Read the account of the panic in McMaster's _History of the People of the U. S._, Vol. VI, pp.

398-405.

[18] Financial distress was not the only thing that troubled Van Buren's administration. During 1837 many Canadians rebelled against misrule, and began the "Patriot War" in their country. One of their leaders enlisted aid in Buffalo, and seized a Canadian island in the Niagara River. The steamer _Caroline_ was then run between this island and the New York sh.o.r.e, carrying over visitors, and, it was claimed, guns and supplies.

This was unlawful, and one night in December, 1837, a force of Canadian government troops rowed over to the New York sh.o.r.e, boarded the _Caroline_, and destroyed her; it was a disputed question whether she was burned and sunk, or whether she was set afire and sent over the Falls.

The whole border from Vermont to Michigan became greatly excited over this invasion of our territory. Men volunteered in the "Patriot" cause, supplies and money were contributed, guns were taken from government a.r.s.enals, and raids were made into Canada. Van Buren sent General Scott to the frontier, did what he could to preserve peace and neutrality, and thus made himself unpopular in the border states. There was also danger of war over the disputed northern boundary of Maine. State troops were sent to the territory in dispute, along the Aroostook River (1839; map, p. 316); but Van Buren made an unpopular agreement with the British minister, whereby the troops were withdrawn and both sides agreed not to use force.

[19] In the West, men came to these meetings in huge canoes and wagons of all sorts, and camped on the ground. At one meeting the ground covered by the people was measured, and allowing four to the square yard it was estimated about 80,000 attended. Dayton, in Ohio, claimed 100,000 at her meeting. At Bunker Hill there were 60,000. In the processions, huge b.a.l.l.s were rolled along to the cry, "Keep the ball a-rolling." Every log cabin had a barrel of hard cider and a gourd drinking cup near it. On the walls were c.o.o.n skins, and the latch-string was always hanging out. More than a hundred campaign songs were written and sung to popular airs. Every Whig wore a log-cabin medal, or breastpin, or badge, or carried a log-cabin cane. Read McMaster's _History of the People of the U. S._, Vol. VI, pp. 550-588.

[20] The battle fought in 1811, meaning Harrison, the victor in that battle. See note on p. 254.

[21] John Tyler was born in Virginia in 1790 and died in 1862. At twenty- one he was elected to the legislature of Virginia, was elected to the House of Representatives in 1821, and favored the admission of Missouri as a slave state. In 1825 he became governor of Virginia, and in 1827 was elected to the United States Senate. There he opposed the tariff and internal improvements, supported Jackson, but condemned his proclamation to the milliners, voted for the censure of Jackson, and when instructed by Virginia to vote for expunging, refused and resigned from the Senate in 1836.

CHAPTER XXIV

GROWTH OF THE COUNTRY FROM 1820 TO 1840

POPULATION.--When Harrison was elected in 1840, the population of our country was 17,000,000, spread over twenty-six states and three territories. Of these millions several hundred thousand had come from the Old World. No records of such arrivals were kept before 1820; since that date careful records have been made, and from them it appears that between 1820 and 1840 about 750,000 immigrants came to our sh.o.r.es. They were chiefly from Ireland, England, and Germany. [1]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SETTLED AREA IN 1840.]

West of the mountains were over 6,000,000 people; yet but two Western states, Arkansas (1836) and Michigan (1837), had been admitted to the Union since 1821; and but two new Western territories, Wisconsin and Iowa, had been organized. This meant that the Western states already admitted were filling up with population. [2]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PUBLIC SCHOOL OF EARLY TIMES.]

THE PUBLIC LANDS.--The rise of new Western states brought up the troublesome question, What shall be done with the public lands? [3] The Continental Congress had pledged the country to sell the lands and use the money to pay the debt of the United States. Much was sold for this purpose, but Congress set aside one thirty-sixth part of the public domain for the use of local schools. [4] As the Western states made from the public domain had received land grants for schools, many of the Eastern states about 1821 asked for grants in aid of their schools. The Western states objected, and both then and in later times asked that all the public lands within their borders be given to them or sold to them for a small sum. After 1824 efforts were made by Benton and others to reduce the price of land to actual settlers. [5] But Congress did not adopt any of these measures. After 1830, when the public debt was nearly paid, Clay attempted to have the money derived from land sales distributed among all the states. The question what to do with the lands was discussed year after year. At last in 1841 (while Tyler was President) Clay's bill became a law with the proviso that the money should not be distributed if the tariff rates were increased. The tariff rates were soon increased (1842), and but one distribution was made.

THE INDIANS.--Another result of the filling up of the country was the crowding of the Indians from their lands. They had always been regarded as the rightful owners of the soil till their t.i.tle should be extinguished by treaty. Many such treaties had been made, ceding certain areas but reserving others on which the whites were not to settle. But population moved westward so rapidly that it seemed best to set apart a region beyond the Mississippi and move all the Indians there as quickly as possible. [6]

In 1834, therefore, such a region, an "Indian Country," was created in what was later called Indian Territory, and the work of removal began.

In the South this proved a hard matter. In Georgia the Creeks and Cherokees refused for a while to go, and by so doing involved the federal government in serious trouble with Georgia and with the Indians. In 1835 an attempt to move the Seminoles from Florida to the Indian Country caused a war which lasted seven years and cost millions of dollars. [7]

INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.--Another issue with which the growth of the West had much to do was that of government aid to roads, ca.n.a.ls, and railroads.

Much money was spent on the c.u.mberland Road; [18] but in 1817 Madison vetoed a bill appropriating money to be divided among the states for internal improvements, and from that time down to Van Buren's day the question of the right of Congress to use money for such purposes was constantly debated in Congress. [9]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NATIONAL ROAD.]

THE STATES BUILD Ca.n.a.lS AND ROADS.--All this time population was increasing, the West was growing, interstate trade was developing, new towns and villages were springing up, and farms increasing in number as the people moved to the new lands. The need of cheap transportation became greater and greater each year, and as Congress would do nothing, the states took upon themselves the work of building roads and ca.n.a.ls.

What a ca.n.a.l could do to open up a country was shown when the Erie Ca.n.a.l was finished in 1825 (see p. 273). So many people by that time had settled along its route, that the value of land and the wealth of the state were greatly increased. [10] The merchants of New York could then send their goods up the Hudson, by the ca.n.a.l to Buffalo, and then to Cleveland or Detroit, or by Chautauqua Lake and the Allegheny to Pittsburg, for about one third of what it cost before the ca.n.a.l was opened (maps, pp. 267, 279). Buffalo began to grow with great rapidity, and in a few years its trade had reached Chicago. In 1839 eight steamboats plied between these two towns.

A TRIP ON A Ca.n.a.l PACKET.--Pa.s.sengers traveled on the ca.n.a.l in packet boats, as they were called. The hull of such a craft was eighty feet long and eleven feet wide, and carried on its deck a long, low house with flat roof and sloping sides. In each side were a dozen or more windows with green blinds and red curtains. When the weather was fine, pa.s.sengers sat on the roof, reading, talking, or sewing, till the man at the helm called "Low bridge!" when everybody would rush down the steps and into the cabin, to come forth once more when the bridge was pa.s.sed. Walking on the roof when the packet was crowded was impossible. Those who wished such exercise had to take it on the towpath. Three horses abreast could drag a packet boat some four miles an hour.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOCKS ON THE ERIE Ca.n.a.l, ROCKPORT, N.Y.]

WESTERN ROUTES.--Aroused by the success of the Erie Ca.n.a.l, Pennsylvania began a great highway from Philadelphia to Pittsburg. As planned, it was to be part ca.n.a.l and part turnpike over the mountains. But before it was completed, railroads came into use, and when finished, it was part railroad, part ca.n.a.l. Not to be outdone by New York and Pennsylvania, the people of Baltimore began the construction (1828) of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the first in the country for the carriage of pa.s.sengers and freight. [11] Ma.s.sachusetts, alarmed at the prospect of losing her trade with the West, appointed (1827) a commission and an engineer to select a route for a railroad to join Boston and Albany. Ohio had already commenced a ca.n.a.l from Cleveland to the Ohio. [12]

EARLY RAILROADS.--The idea of a public railroad to carry freight and pa.s.sengers was of slow growth, [13] but once it was started more and more miles were built every year, till by 1835 twenty-two railroads were in operation. The longest of them was only one hundred and thirty-six miles long; it extended from Charleston westward to the Savannah River, opposite Augusta. These early railroads were made of wooden beams resting on stone blocks set in the ground. The upper surface of the beams, where the wheels rested, was protected by long strips or straps of iron spiked to the beam.

The spikes often worked loose, and, as the car pa.s.sed over, the strap would curl up and come through the bottom of the car, making what was called a "snake head."

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN EARLY RAILROAD.]

What should be the motive power, was a troublesome question. The horse was the favorite; it sometimes pulled the car, and sometimes walked on a treadmill on the car. Sails were tried also, and finally locomotives. [14]

Locomotives could not climb steep grades. When a hill was met with, the road had to go around it, or if this was not possible, the engine had to be taken off and the cars pulled up or let down an inclined plane by means of a rope and stationary engine. [15]

A TRIP ON AN EARLY RAILROAD.--A traveler from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, in 1836, would set off about five o'clock in the morning for what was called the depot. There his baggage would be piled on the roof of a car, which was drawn by horses to the foot of an inclined plane on the bank of the Schuylkill. Up this incline the car would be drawn by a stationary engine and rope to the top of the river bank. When all the cars of the train had been pulled up in this way, they would be coupled together and made fast to a little puffing, wheezing locomotive without cab or brake, whose tall smokestack sent forth volumes of wood smoke and red-hot cinders. At Lancaster (map, p. 267) the railroad ended, and pa.s.sengers went by stage to Columbia on the Susquehanna, and then by ca.n.a.l packet up that river and up the Juniata to the railroad at the foot of the mountains.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HANDBILL OF A PHILADELPHIA TRANSPORTATION COMPANY, OF 1835.]

The mountains were crossed by the Portage Railroad, a series of inclined planes and levels somewhat like a flight of steps. At Johnstown, west of the Alleghenies, the traveler once more took a ca.n.a.l packet to Pittsburg.

[16]

THE WEST BUILDS RAILROADS AND Ca.n.a.lS.--Prior to 1836 most of the railroads and ca.n.a.ls were in the East. But in 1836 the craze for internal improvements raged in Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan, and in each an elaborate system of railroads and ca.n.a.ls was planned, to be built by the state. Illinois in this way contracted a debt of $15,000,000; Indiana, $10,000,000, and Michigan, $5,000,000.

But scarcely was work begun on the ca.n.a.ls and railroads when the panic of 1837 came, and the states were left with heavy debts and unfinished public works that could not pay the cost of operating them. Some defaulted in the payment of interest, and one even repudiated her bonds which she had issued and sold to establish a great bank.

THE MAILS.--As the means of transportation improved, the mails were carried more rapidly, and into more distant parts of the country. By 1837 it was possible to send a letter from New York to Washington in one day, to New Orleans in less than seven days, to St. Louis in less than five days, and to Buffalo in three days; and after 1838 mail was carried by steamships to England in a little over two weeks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SAVANNAH.]

OCEAN STEAMSHIPS.--In the month of May, 1819, the steamship _Savannah_ left the city of that name for Liverpool, England, and reached it in twenty-five days, using steam most of the way. She was a side- wheeler with paddle wheels so arranged that in stormy weather they could be taken in on deck. [17]

No other steamships crossed the Atlantic till 1838, when the _Sirius_ reached New York in eighteen days, and the _Great Western_ in sixteen days from England. Others followed, in 1839 the Cunard line was founded, and regular steam navigation of the Atlantic was established.

EXPRESS.--Better means of communication made possible another convenience, of which W. F. Harnden was the originator. He began in 1839 to carry packages, bundles, money, and small boxes between New York and Boston, traveling by steamboat and railroad. At first two carpetbags held all he had to carry; but his business increased so rapidly that in 1840 P. B.

Burke and Alvin Adams started a rival concern which became the Adams Express Company.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CARPETBAG.]

MECHANICAL DEVELOPMENT.--The greater use of the steamboat, the building of railroads, and the introduction of the steam locomotive, were but a few signs of the marvelous industrial and mechanical development of the times.

The growth and extent of the country, the opportunities for doing business on a great scale, led to a demand for time-saving and labor-saving machinery.

One of the characteristics of the period 1820-40, therefore, is the invention and introduction of such machinery. Boards were now planed, and bricks pressed, by machine. It was during this period that the farmers began to give up the flail for the thrashing machine; that paper was extensively made from straw; that Fairbanks invented the platform scales; that Colt invented the revolver; that steel pens were made by machine; and that a rude form of friction match was introduced. [18]

Anthracite coal was now in use in the large towns and cities, and grate and coal stoves were displacing open fires and wood stoves, just as gas was displacing candles and lamps.

THE CITIES AND TOWNS.--The increase of manufacturing in the northeastern part of the country caused the rise of large towns given up almost exclusively to mills and factories and the homes of workmen. [19] The increase of business, trade, and commerce, and the arrival of thousands of immigrants each year, led to a rapid growth of population in the seaports and chief cities of the interior. This produced many changes in city life.

The dingy oil lamps in the streets, lighted only when the moon did not shine, were giving way to gas lights. The constable and the night watchman with his rattle were being replaced by the policeman. Such had been the increase in population and area of the chief cities, that some means of cheap transportation about the streets was needed, and in 1830 a line of omnibuses was started in New York city. So well did it succeed that other lines were started; and three years later omnibuses were used in Philadelphia.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NEW YORK OMNIBUS, 1830. From a print of the time.]