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The greater
South

astonishing rapidity, carrying with it slavery and the plantation system. A greater South was thus brought into existence, possessing all the economic characteristics of the, old South in an intensified form. Cotton became the greatest of all exports and cotton dominated the politics of the South and of the nation. With the establishment of the "Cotton Kingdom" political leadership passed from Virginia to South Carolina and the Gulf States and remained there until the Civil War.

The rise of the West

In 1810 there were only three Western States. Of these Kentucky had a population, black and white, of over 400,000; Tennessee had about 260,000; and Ohio, which been admitted in 1803, had 230,000. By 1820 five more States had been admitted: Louisiana in 1812, Indiana in 1816, Mississippi in 1817, Illinois in 1818, and Alabama in 1819. The total population of the Western States was now over 2,000,000, and settlers were streaming into Missouri and beginning to enter Arkansas and Michigan. The rapid settlement of the West was greatly facilitated by the public land policy of the United States, which was outlined in 1787, but which did not come into successful operation until later, owing to the fact that much of the best land was under the control of the older States or had been granted to companies to develop. All lands under national control were, however, surveyed in advance of settlement and divided into townships six miles square, each township containing thirty-six sections of 640 acres each.

Public land

policy

A section was at first the smallest amount that could be purchased and the minimum price was one dollar an acre. An act of 1800 authorized the sale of 320-acre tracts and the price was raised to two dollars an acre. After 1820 the sale of 80-acre tracts was permitted and the minimum price was fixed at $1.25 an acre. This system simplified the question of titles and avoided lawsuits over conflicting claims.

The eco

the South

The first settlers in the West came largely from the South. This was true even of the States north of the Ohio River. During the first quarter of the nineteenth century settlers from Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, nomic deand North Carolina poured into Ohio, Indiana, pendence of Illinois, and Missouri. People from the Middle the West on States went into Ohio in large numbers, but in Indiana and Illinois the Southerners formed the largest element. New Englanders did not come in large numbers until the opening of the Erie Canal and the settlement of the Lake region. Most of the early settlements were along the Ohio River and the main trade outlet for this region was down the Mississippi River.

The development of the cotton States of the Southwest gave the people of the upper Mississippi and Ohio valleys a market for their produce. Without a market a pioneer community can make little progress; in fact it usually retrogrades, as did many of the mountain communities of the southern Appalachian range. As the people of the Gulf States devoted themselves more and more to cotton and sugar, they had to purchase their food supplies from other producers. This demand was met by the upper Mississippi region. Pork, bacon, lard, beef, butter, cheese, corn, flour, and whisky were sent down the Mississippi in large quantities, and Tennessee, Kentucky, and the States north of the Ohio underwent a development no less striking than that produced in the Southwest by the cultivation of cotton.

The North, too, shared in the prosperity of the South and the West, for the West now had the means to purchase goods freely from other communities. Traffic Threeup the Mississippi was much more difficult and cornered expensive than down. Hence the West bought its supplies from the Middle States and New England. What these States could not supply from their own manufactures they imported from abroad, and the goods pur

trade

chased abroad were paid for in Southern cotton and carried in New England ships. This three-cornered trade, which first opened up internal commerce and made western development possible, was all based on cotton and slavery. As soon as the prosperity of the West began to attract large numbers of people from the Middle and New England States the effect on manufactures was adverse, because the continual drain on population kept wages high, and the North began to oppose the easy sale of public lands.

The rapid settlement of the West fitted in well with economic conditions in the South, for the continuance of

Political
alliance of
South and
West

the plantation system necessitated the removal of the surplus population, both slave and free, to new lands. The southern origin of a large part of the western population, and the dependence of the West on the southern market tended to keep the West in political alliance with the South, and upon this alliance depended the political ascendancy of the South in the affairs of the Union. Notwithstanding the fact that the West favored a protective tariff, it could usually be relied on to vote with the South in a presidential election. This was not true of Kentucky, which was a Whig stronghold, nor of Tennessee, which after Jackson's time was usually Whig. The States north of the Ohio regularly voted the Democratic ticket, the only exceptions being when Clay and Harrison, both western men, were candidates. Clay carried Ohio in 1824 and in 1844, and Harrison carried Ohio and Indiana in 1836, and Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan in 1840. But as late as the elections of 1848 and 1852 every electoral vote north of the Ohio was cast for the Democratic ticket.

The Territory of Missouri, a part of the Louisiana purchase, had been organized in 1812, and in 1818 it applied for admission as a State. Illinois had just been admitted as a free State and the admission of Alabama as a slave

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