foreign ships engaged in carrying goods to or from these States; a discriminating tariff tax was imposed on all articles imported into these States in foreign ships; ship-builders in the United States were granted an absolute monopoly of the "home market" for ships; and New England's cod-fishermen were quartered on the taxpayers of all the States.

Such favoritism as this, bestowed mainly on a people unsurpassed in the United States for intelligence, skill, and energy, bore its legitimate fruits:

1. The victims of this paternalism began to ask what had become of the "justice" promised in the Constitution, and the resulting sense of wrong passed from father to son long after the occasion of it was forgotten; and

2. By 1810 the shippers of the United States controlled a greater proportion of the world's carrying trade than either Holland or England.2

'Twenty one years of paternalism ran up the tonnage in the following States, vessels under 20 tons being omitted, to the figures in the table:

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Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, 181,972 This was about eight times, on an average, what the tonnage of these States was in 1789.

But the principal beneficiaries of the favoritism can only be discovered by comparing tonnage with population. This comparison gives per 1,000 persons

In Massachusetts,

"New York,

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Virginia North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, 82.8

"Pennsylvania,

"Maryland,

-(See State Papers, Commerce and Navigation, Vol. I, pp. 896–901).

2

Smith's Wealth of Nations, American Edition, Volume I, page 266, foot note.

It is not necessary, in closing this chapter, to enlarge on the interests of other classes of the people. It is well known that agriculture was the principal business of an overwhelming majority at the time of the adoption of the Constitution and for several decades afterwards; and, furthermore, that diversification of employments was confined almost exclusively to the Northern States, with the result, at an early day, that the surplus crops of their farmers were consumed by those engaged in other occupations, while the Southern farmers were obliged to seek a market for most of their surplus in foreign lands. It was impossible, therefore, for them to quarter themselves on the taxpayers of the Union unless they could have prevailed on the Congress to give them bounties out of the Federal treasury. This they never applied for, because they inherited a respect for the Constitution which, they very well knew, conferred no such power on the Congress.

Under these circumstances the South was subjected to two wrongs by operation of Federal laws:

1. Foreign prices had to be accepted for her crops whether sold abroad or in the United States, and tariff laws compelled her to purchase her supplies of manufactured articles at prices considerably above those charged in foreign markets; and

2. Every act of Congress designed to counteract hostile commercial legislation by any foreign government— most of the tariff acts included-led to further restrictions on exports from the United States, of which the

In the Convention of 1787 Mr. Madison, on June 28, said: "The staple of Massachusetts is fish and the carrying trade; of Pennsylvania, wheat and flour; of Virginia, tobacco"; and on the next day he said: "The great danger to our general government is the great Southern and Northern interests of the continent being op posed to each other."-Yates.

South furnished from 80 to 90 per cent. In other words, every movement on the part of Congress to check imports of foreign manufactures has been met by real or threatened restrictions on our exports of agricultural products. In later years this retaliatory spirit has discovered trichinosis in the pork and tuberculosis in the beef exported from the United States.

The farmers and other producers of provisions and other raw material in the South were, therefore, kept between the upper and the nether millstone-the domestic manufacturer and the foreign farmer.

NOTE G.

The comparative wealth of the two sections before the Revolution can be approximately arrived at from the exports to Great Britain. Hildreth, Volume II, page 559, says: "The trade between Great Britain and the Colonies is stated for the year 1770, as follows, and the average for the last ten years, allowing for a moderate increase, had not been materially different:

Comparing these exports with population in 1790, we find that for every one hundred persons, including slaves, the value of the ex ports was as follows:

CHAPTER VI.

NEW ENGLAND'S SHIPPING INTERESTS (CONTINUED).—NAVI

GATION LAWS.

"An oak vessel could be built at Gloucester or Salem for $24 per ton; a ship of live-oak or American cedar cost not more than $38 per ton. On the other hand, fir vessels built on the Baltic cost $35 per ton, and nowhere in England, France, or Holland could a ship be made of oak for less than $50 per ton. Often the cost was as high as $60."-Fiske's Critical Period, etc., pages

141-42.

To the general discussion of New England's shipping interests in the preceding chapter, let us now enter upon an examination of the different laws passed for their benefit, except the fishing bounty acts, which will be found in the next chapter.

It is a matter of curious interest that the clause of the Federal Constitution conferring upon the Congress the power to regulate commerce was the result of a compromise between the agricultural interest of the South and the shipping interest of the Northeastern States. In Mr. Charles Pinckney's plan of a Constitution, which presented the general form and much of the substance finally agreed to, he proposed to grant this power with a very salutary proviso, inspired, perhaps, by that distrust of the commercial interests which seems to have been shared by many of the Southern delegates to the Convention. It was that any act reg

1

1 For some reason the New Englanders made unfavorable impressions on others besides the Southerners. In the Journal of William Maclay, one of Pennsylvania's first Senators, two opinions are recorded, which were kept by him and his family from publication for a century. The first is on page 260, as follows: "I would now remark, if I had not done it before, that there is very little candor

ulating commerce should require a two-thirds vote in its favor in each House.

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The subject was debated for months, and fruitless efforts were made by the Northeastern delegates to have the proviso stricken out. At last an opportunity for a bargain" arose. This was when the question was to be settled whether the Congress should have the power to prohibit the importation of African slaves. "As the system, says Luther Martin of Maryland, who was a member of the Convention, "was reported by the Committee of Detail" (the Committee of Five who reported the final draft), "the provision was general, that such importation should not be prohibited, without confining it to any particular period. This was rejected by eight States, Georgia, South Carolina, and, I think, North Carolina, voting for it. We were then told by the delegates from the two first of those States that their States would never agree to a system which put it in the power of the general government to prevent the importation of slaves, and that they as delegates from those States must withhold their assent from such a system. A committee of one member from each State was chosen by ballot to take this part of the system under their consideration and to endeavor to agree upon some report, which should reconcile those States. To this committee also was referred the following proposition, which had been reported by the Committee of Detail, to-wit: 'No navigation act shall be passed without the assent of two-thirds of the members present in each House'; a proposition which the staple and commercial (agricultural) States were solicitous to retain, lest

in New England men." The second is on page 341: "For my knowledge of the Eastern character warrants me in drawing this conclusion, that they will cabal against and endeavor to subvert any gov ernment which they have not the management of.”