FROM JEFFERSON TO LINCOLN

CHAPTER I

THE UNITED STATES IN 1815

THE War of 1812 has been called, for the United States, a "second war of independence." Although, like many figures of speech, the saying is neither wholly accurate nor sufficiently comprehensive, it nevertheless serves to call attention to one important outcome of the war. The United States had, indeed, been a free and independent nation since the treaty of Paris, in 1783, yet it had not been able at all times to assert its full authority, or to resist aggression, or to protect its citizens or their property. Discriminating duties on American commerce, scant courtesy in diplomatic relations, the impressment of American seamen, the search and seizure of vessels and their crews, were only the more striking examples of the injuries to which, because of its youth, weakness, and inexperience, the nation had been obliged to submit, and against which its dignified protests had commonly gone unheeded.

With the ratification of the treaty of Ghent, however, in December, 1814, the long years of qualified dependence came to an end. To be sure, the treaty itself contained no reference to impressment, or the right of search, or arbitrary interference with American commerce, all of which Madison, in his war message of June 1, 1812, had adduced as sufficient grounds for a declaration of war; but it was generally understood that, though not formally renounced, none of these assumed rights would be exercised again. Nor was public opinion in this country disturbed by the fact that this renewed recognition of the complete independence which the United States had always claimed was due much less to England's failure in the war, than to the overthrow of Napoleon and the end of the gigantic European struggle which, to Englishmen at least, had seemed to make the conduct of Great Britain justifiable. It was enough that there had been a war, that the United States had won, and that now there was peace. As to the precise causes of the war, men might differ as long as they chose to debate, but there was general agreement, in England as well as in America, that those causes would never operate again.

The territory included within the limits of the United States in 1815 extended from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rocky Mountain

watershed on the west, and south to the Spanish provinces of East and West Florida. Portions of the northern boundary, from the mouth of the St. Croix River to the St. Lawrence, and from the western end of Lake Superior to the Rocky Mountains, were as yet undetermined notwithstanding several attempts to agree upon the line. The original area of 1783 had been more than doubled by the purchase of Louisiana, in 1803. Beyond the Rocky Mountains, where Spain still held possession, there was as yet no thought of ultimate American occupation; but the Florida provinces, possessing no natural land boundaries, yet at the same time blocking the natural expansion of the United States to the Gulf of Mexico, were already coveted and were destined shortly to be absorbed. Territorially, the country was a unit; expansion had followed natural lines, and the variety of soil and climate, the extent of coast line, and the control of the great Mississippi valley, made the area occupied by the United States preeminently fit for the home of a great nation.

The population had long been growing apace. The 3,900,000 inhabitants in 1790 had become 7,200,000 in 1810, and were to be 9,600,000 in 1820. Virginia, with a population of 974,000 in 1810, was the largest State, with New York second and

Pennsylvania third in rank. By 1820, however, New York, with a population then of 1,372,000, rose to first place, with Virginia second and Pennsylvania third. While no State lost population between 1810 and 1820, the older and smaller States of the Atlantic seaboard, with virtually their entire area occupied by settlement, showed, with one or two exceptions, the smallest gains. The lower South and the West, on the other hand, were exhibiting prodigious growth. Alabama, admitted as a State in 1819, had 127,000 people in 1820; Louisiana, with 76,000 in 1810, returned 152,000 ten years later. Between 1810 and 1820 the population of Kentucky leaped from 406,000 to 564,000, that of Tennessee from 261,000 to 422,000, that of Ohio from 230,000 to 581,000, and that of Indiana from 24,000 to 147,000. Even the then extreme frontier State of Illinois grew, in the same decade, from 12,000 to 55,000.

The source of this great gain in numbers was still, as it had been from the beginning, mainly the natural increase of population; foreign immigration, exclusive of the importation of negro slaves, being as yet of slight importance. The United States was still presenting the conditions which economists have pointed to as favorable for a maximum natural growth in numbers: numbers: namely, healthy climate, fertile soil, abundance of

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cheap land, freedom from pestilence or devastating epidemics, and, save for two and a half years, long-continued peace. Under such circumstances the birth rate tends to be high, families are large, and the duration of life is long. Perhaps nowhere in the world was there greater opportunity for every man to earn a living for himself and his family, a higher standard of domestic comfort, a more abundant food supply, or better physical conditions for health, longevity, and the care of young children, than in the United States in the first quarter of the nineteenth century.

The distribution of population, on the other hand, was very different from that with which we of the present day are familiar. In 1810 there were only eleven towns or cities in the United States with a population of 8000 or over, and but thirteen such places in 1820; and in each of these years this urban population comprised less than five per cent. of the total. Less than onethird of the total area of the country was properly to be regarded as settled. Extensive tracts in northern New York, northwestern Pennsylvania, western Virginia and northern Ohio were still practically unoccupied, as were nearly half of Georgia and Alabama and two-thirds of Mississippi, Indiana, and Illinois. Between the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the Great Lakes seven