A School History of the United States Part 28

[Ill.u.s.tration: Phoenix[1]]

[Footnote 1: From an oil painting.]

%285. Steamboats.%--This increasing demand for cheap transportation now made it possible for Fulton to carry into successful operation an idea he had long had in mind. For twenty years past inventors had been exhibiting steamboats. James Rumsey had exhibited one on the Potomac.

John Fitch had shown one on the Delaware in 1787. (See p. 190.) In 1804 Robert Fulton exhibited a steamboat on the Seine at Paris in France; Oliver Evans had a steam scow on the Delaware River at Philadelphia; and John Stevens crossed the Hudson from Hoboken to New York in a steamboat of his own construction. In 1806 Stevens built another, the _Phoenix_.[1]

[Footnote 1: Preble's _History of Steam Navigation _, pp. 35-66; Thurston's _Robert Fulton_ in Makers of America Series.]

These men were ahead of their time, and it was not till the August day, 1807, when Robert Fulton made his experiment on the Hudson, that the era of the steamboat opened. His vessel, called the _Clermont_, made the trip up the river from New York to Albany in thirty-two hours.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Model of the Clermont[2]]

[Footnote 2: Made from the original drawings, and now in the National Museum.]

Then the usefulness of the invention was at last appreciated, and in 1808 a line of steam vessels went up and down the Hudson. In 1809 Stevens sent his _Phoenix_ by sea to Philadelphia and ran it on the Delaware. Another steamboat was on the Raritan River, and a third on Lake Champlain. In 1811 a boat steamed from Pittsburg to New Orleans, and in 1812 steam ferryboats plied between what is now Jersey City and New York, and between Philadelphia and Camden.[3]

[Footnote 3: On the early steamboats see McMaster's _History of the People of the United States_, Vol. III., pp. 486-494.]

%286. The Currency; the Mint.%--Quite as marvelous was the change which in five and twenty years had taken place in money matters. When the Const.i.tution became law in 1789, there were no United States coins and no United States bills or notes in circulation. There was no such thing as a national currency. Except the gold and silver pieces of foreign nations, there was no money which would pa.s.s all over our country. To-day a treasury note, a silver certificate, a national bank bill, is received in payment of a debt in any state or territory. In 1789 the currency was foreign coins and state paper. But the Const.i.tution forbade the states ever to make any more money, and as their bills of credit already issued would wear out by use, the time was near when there would be no currency except foreign coins. To prevent this, Congress in 1791 ordered a mint to be established at Philadelphia, and in 1792 named the coins to be struck, and ordered that whoever would bring gold or silver to the mint should have it made into coins without cost to him. This was _free coinage._ As both gold and silver were to be coined, the currency was to be _bimetallic_, or of two metals.[1] The ratio of silver and gold was 15 to 1. That is, fifteen pounds' weight of silver must be made into as many dollars' worth of coins as one pound of gold. The silver coins were to be the dollar, half and quarter dollar, dime and half dime; the gold were to be the eagle, half eagle, and quarter eagle. Out of copper were to be struck cents and half cents. As some years must elapse before our national coins could become abundant, certain foreign coins were made legal tender.

[Footnote 1: The first silver coin was struck in 1794; the first gold, in 1795; the first cent and half cent, in 1793.]

%287. "Federal Money."%--The appearance of the new money was followed by another change for the better. In colonial days the merchants and the people expressed the debts they owed, or the value of the goods they sold, in pounds, s.h.i.+llings, and pence, or in Spanish dollars. During the Revolution, and after it, this was continued, although the Continental Congress always kept its accounts, and made its appropriations, in dollars. But when the people began to see dollars, half dollars, and dimes bearing the words "United States of America," they knew that there really was a national coinage, or "Federal money," as they called it, and between 1795 and 1798, one state after another ordered its treasurer to use Federal money instead of pounds, s.h.i.+llings, and pence; and thereafter in laying taxes, and voting appropriations for any purpose, the amount was expressed in dollars and cents. The merchants and the people were much slower in adopting the new terms; but they came at last into general use.

%288. Rise of the State Banks.%--Had the people been forced to depend on the United States mint for money wherewith to pay the butcher and the baker and the shoemaker, they would not have been able to make their payments, for the machinery at the mint was worked by hand, and the number of dimes and quarters turned out each year was small. But they were not, for as soon as confidence was restored, banks chartered by the states sprang up in the chief cities in the East, and as each issued notes, the people had all the currency they wanted.

In 1790, when Congress established the National Bank, there were but four state banks in the whole country: one in Philadelphia, one in New York, one in Boston, and one in Baltimore. By 1800 there were twenty-six, in 1805 there were sixty-four, and in 1811 there were eighty-eight.

In that year (1811) the charter of the National Bank expired, and as Congress would not renew it, many more state banks were created, each hoping to get a part of the business formerly done by the National Bank.

Such was the "mania," as it was called, for banks, that the number rose from eighty-eight in 1811, to two hundred and eight in 1814, which was far more than the people really needed.

Nevertheless, all went well until the British came up Chesapeake Bay and burned Was.h.i.+ngton. Then the banks in that part of the country boxed up all their gold and silver and sent it away, lest the British should get it. This forced them to "suspend specie payments"; that is, refuse to give gold or silver in exchange for their own paper. As soon as they suspended, others did the same, till in a few weeks every one along the seaboard from Albany to Savannah, and every one in Ohio, had stopped paying coin. The New England banks did not suspend.

%289. No Small Change.%--The consequences of the suspension were very serious. In the first place, all the small silver coins, the dimes, half dollars, and quarter dollars, disappeared at once, and the people were again forced to do as they had done in 1789, and use "ticket money." All the cities and towns, great and small, printed one, two, three, six and one fourth, twelve and one half, twenty-five, and fifty-cent tickets, and sold them to the people for bank notes. Steamboats, stagecoaches, and manufacturing companies, merchants, shopkeepers--in fact, all business men--did the same.

In the second place, as the banks would not exchange specie for their notes, people who did not know all about a bank would not take its bills except at very much less than their face value. That is, a dollar bill of a Philadelphia bank was not worth more than ninety cents in paper money at New York, and seventy-five cents at Boston. This state of things greatly increased the cost of travel and business between the states, and prevented the government using the money collected at the seaports in the East to pay debts due in the West.[1]

[Footnote 1: McMaster's _History_, Vol. IV., pp. 280-318.]

%290. The Second Bank of the United States.%--Lest this state of affairs should occur again, Congress, exercising its const.i.tutional "power to regulate the currency," chartered a second National Bank in 1816, and modeled it after the old one. Again the parent bank was at Philadelphia; but the capital was now $35,000,000. Again the public money might be deposited in the bank and its branches, which could be established wherever the directors thought proper. Again the bank could issue paper money to be received by the government in payment of taxes, land, and all debts.

The Republicans had always denied the right of Congress to charter a bank. But the question was never tested until 1819, when Maryland attempted to collect a tax laid on the branch at Baltimore. The case reached the Supreme Court of the United States, which decided that a state could not tax a corporation chartered by Congress; and that Congress had power to charter anything, even a bank.

SUMMARY

1. The census returns of 1790 showed that population was going west along three highways.

2. As a result of this movement, Vermont (1791), Kentucky (1792), Tennessee (1796), and Ohio (1803) entered the Union.

3. The population of the country increased from 3,380,000 in 1790 to 7,200,000 in 1810; and the area from about 828,000 to 2,000,000 square miles.

4. The period 1790-1810 was one of marked industrial progress, and of great commercial and agricultural prosperity. It was during this time that manufactures arose, that many roads and highways and bridges were built, and that the steamboat was introduced.

5. A national mint had been established. The charter of the National Bank had expired, and numbers of state banks had arisen to take its place. These banks had suspended specie payment, and the government had been forced to charter a new National Bank.

PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES FROM 1709 TO 1815

_Territorial Changes. 1790-1812.

_ Movement of Population into the West._

Northern Stream. Checked by Indian war.

Indians quieted by Wayne.

Population again moved westward.

New states. 1791. Vermont.

1792. Kentucky.

1796. Tennessee.

1803. Ohio.

1812. Louisiana.

New Territories. 1798. Mississippi.

1800. Indiana.

1802. Mississippi enlarged.

1804. Orleans.

1805. Michigan.

1805. Louisiana (called Missouri after 1812).

1809. Illinois.

_Expansion of Territory._ 1795. Spain accepts 31 as the boundary.

1802. Georgia cedes her western territory.

1803. Louisiana purchased from France.

_Industrial Progress_ First carpet mill.

First brooms.

First United States gold and silver coins.

First press in Tennessee.

Daily newspapers.

Discovery of hard coal.

Cotton gin.

Manufacture of clocks.

Sewing thread.

Rise of manufactures.

Dependence of United States on Great Britain before 1807.

Effect of the embargo.

Manner of encouraging manufactures.

_Agricultural Progress_ Effect of the French war.