A Short History of the United States Part 26

_a_. Write an account of life in the United States about 1790, or life in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Charleston.

_b_. Prepare a table of the two political parties mentioned, with dates and account of origin. As you go on, note upon this table changes in these parties and the rise of new ones.

_c_. On an Outline Map color the thirteen original states and then fill in, with dates, new states as they are admitted. Write on each state F.

for free or S. for slave, as the case may be.

TOPICS FOR SPECIAL WORK

_a_. Early life of Was.h.i.+ngton, John Adams, Jefferson, or Hamilton.

_b_. Was.h.i.+ngton's Farewell Address.

SUGGESTIONS

In this period we meet two questions, which are still important, tariff legislation and political parties. In connection with the Tariff Act of 1789 (-- 200), touch upon the industries of the different sections of the country and explain how local interests affected men's actions. Show how compromise is often necessary in political action.

It is a good plan to use Outline Maps to show the important lines of development, as the gradual drifting apart of the North and the South on the slavery question.

Ill.u.s.trate by supposed transactions the working of Hamilton's financial measures. By all means do not neglect a study of Was.h.i.+ngton's Farewell Address. Particular attention should be given to the two views of const.i.tutional interpretation mentioned in -- 207, and considerable time should be spent on a study of ---- 224 and 225.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE UNITED STATES IN 1800.]

VIII

THE JEFFERSONIAN REPUBLICANS, 1801-1812

Books for Study and Reading

References.--Higginson's _Larger History_, 344-365; Scribner's _Popular History_, IV, 127-184; Schouler's _Jefferson_.

Home Reading.--Coffin's _Building the Nation;_ Drake's _Making the Ohio Valley States;_ Hale's _Man Without a Country_ and _Philip Nolan's Friends._

CHAPTER 22

THE UNITED STATES IN 1800

[Sidenote: Area.]

[Sidenote: Population.]

228. Area and Population, 1800.--The area of the United States in 1800 was the same as at the close of the Revolutionary War. But the population had begun to increase rapidly. In 1791 there were nearly four million people in the United States. By 1800 this number had risen to five and one-quarter millions. Two-thirds of the people still lived on or near tide-water. But already nearly four hundred thousand people lived west of the Alleghanies. In 1791 the centre of population had been east of Baltimore. It was now eighteen miles west of that city (p. 157).

[Sidenote: Philadelphia.]

[Sidenote: New York.]

[Sidenote: The new capital.]

229. Cities and Towns in 1800.--Philadelphia was the largest city in the United States. It had a population of seventy thousand. But New York was not far behind Philadelphia in population. Except these two, no city in the whole United States had more than thirty thousand inhabitants. The seat of government had been removed from Philadelphia to Was.h.i.+ngton. But the new capital was a city only in name. One broad long street, Pennsylvania Avenue, led from the unfinished Capitol to the unfinished White House. Congress held its sessions in a temporary wooden building. The White House could be lived in. But Mrs. Adams found the unfinished reception room very convenient for drying clothes on rainy Mondays. A few cheaply built and very uncomfortable boarding-houses completed the city.

[Sidenote: Roads, coaches, and inns.]

[Sidenote: Traveling by water.]

230. Traveling in 1800.--The traveler in those days had a very hard time. On the best roads of the north, in the best coach, and with the best weather one might cover as many as forty miles a day. But the traveler had to start very early in the morning to do this. Generally he thought himself fortunate if he made twenty-five miles in the twenty-four hours. South of the Potomac there were no public coaches, and the traveler generally rode on horseback. A few rich men like Was.h.i.+ngton rode in their own coaches. Everywhere, north and south, the inns were uncomfortable and the food was poor. Whenever it was possible the traveler went by water. But that was dangerous work. Lighthouses were far apart, there were no public buoys to guide the mariner, and almost nothing had been done to improve navigation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE "CLERMONT," 1807.]

[Sidenote: The first steamboat]

[Sidenote: Fulton's steamboat, 1807. _Higginson_, 241-242.]

231. The Steamboat.--The steamboat came to change all this. While Was.h.i.+ngton was still President, a queer-looking boat sailed up and down the Delaware. She was propelled by oars or paddles which were worked by steam. This boat must have been very uncomfortable, and few persons wished to go on her. Robert Fulton made the first successful steamboat.

She was named the _Clermont_ and was launched in 1807. She had paddle wheels and steamed against the wind and tide of the Hudson River. At first some people thought that she was bewitched. But when it was found that she ran safely and regularly, people began to travel on her. Before a great while steamboats appeared in all parts of the country.

[Sidenote: Western pioneers.]

[Sidenote: Settlements on the Ohio. _Eggleston_, 232-234; _Higginson_, 243.]

232. Making of the West.--Even before the Revolutionary War explorers and settlers had crossed the Alleghany Mountains. In Was.h.i.+ngton's time pioneers, leaving Pittsburg, floated down the Ohio River in flatboats. Some of these settled Cincinnati. Others went farther down the river to Louisville, in Kentucky, and still others founded Wheeling and Marietta. In 1811 the first steamboat appeared on the Western rivers. The whole problem of living in the West rapidly changed. For the steamboat could go up stream as well as down stream.

Communication between the new settlements, and New Orleans and Pittsburg, was now much safer and very much easier.

[Sidenote: Cotton growing.]

[Sidenote: Beginning of exportation, 1784.]

233. Cotton Growing in the South.--Cotton had been grown in the South for many years. It had been made on the plantations into a rough cloth. Very little had been sent away. The reason for this was that it took a very long time to separate the cotton fiber from the seed. One slave working for a whole day could hardly clean more than a pound of cotton. Still as time went on more cotton was grown. In 1784 a few bags of cotton were sent to England. The Englishmen promptly seized it because they did not believe that so much cotton could be grown in America. In 1791 nearly two hundred thousand pounds of cotton were exported from the South. Then came Whitney's great invention, which entirely changed the whole history of the country.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA. As designed by Thomas Jefferson.]

[Sidenote: Eli Whitney.]

[Sidenote: His cotton gin, 1793. _McMaster_, 195-196.]

234. Whitney's Cotton Gin, 1793.--Eli Whitney was a Connecticut schoolmaster. He went to Georgia to teach General Greene's children. He was very ingenious, and one day Mrs. Greene suggested to him that he might make a machine which would separate the cotton fiber from the cotton seed. Whitney set to work and soon made an engine or gin, as he called it, that would do this. The first machine was a rude affair. But even with it one slave could clean one hundred pounds of cotton in a day. Mrs. Greene's neighbors promptly broke into Whitney's shop and stole his machine. Whitney's cotton gin made the growing of cotton profitable and so fastened slavery on the South. With the exception of the steam locomotive (p. 241) and the reaper (p. 260), no invention has so tremendously influenced the history of the United States.

[Sidenote: Early manufactures.]

235. Colonial Manufactures.--Before the Revolutionary War there were very few mills or factories in the colonies. There was no money to put into such undertakings and no operatives to work the mills if they had been built. The only colonial manufactures that amounted to much were the making of nails and shoes. These articles could be made at home on the farms, in the winter, when no work could be done out of doors.