“A house divided against
itself cannot stand. I believe
this government cannot
endure permanently
half-slave and half-free.”
Senatorial candidate Abraham Lincoln, 1858
TWO AMERICAS
whether such rough equality could
N
survive in the face of a growing fac-
o visitor to the United States left tory system that threatened to create
a more enduring record of his trav- divisions between industrial workers
els and observations than the French and a new business elite .
writer and political theorist Alexis
Other travelers marveled at the
de Tocqueville, whose Democracy growth and vitality of the country,
in America, first published in 1835, where they could see “everywhere remains one of the most trenchant the most unequivocal proofs of
and insightful analyses of Ameri- prosperity and rapid progress in ag-
can social and political practices . riculture, commerce, and great pub-
Tocqueville was far too shrewd an lic works .” But such optimistic views
observer to be uncritical about the of the American experiment were
United States, but his verdict was by no means universal . One skep-
fundamentally positive . “The gov- tic was the English novelist Charles
ernment of a democracy brings the Dickens, who first visited the United
notion of political rights to the level States in 1841-42 . “This is not the
of the humblest citizens,” he wrote, Republic I came to see,” he wrote
“just as the dissemination of wealth in a letter . “This is not the Republic
brings the notion of property within of my imagination . . . The more I
the reach of all men .” Nonetheless, think of its youth and strength, the
Tocqueville was only one in the first poorer and more trifling in a thou-
of a long line of thinkers to worry sand respects, it appears in my eyes .
130
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY
In everything of which it has made
The South, from the Atlantic to
a boast — excepting its education of the Mississippi River and beyond,
the people, and its care for poor chil- featured an economy centered on
dren — it sinks immeasurably below agriculture . Tobacco was important
the level I had placed it upon .”
in Virginia, Maryland, and North
Dickens was not alone . America Carolina . In South Carolina, rice
in the 19th century, as throughout its was an abundant crop . The climate
history, generated expectations and and soil of Louisiana encouraged
passions that often conflicted with the cultivation of sugar . But cotton
a reality at once more mundane and eventually became the dominant
more complex . The young nation’s commodity and the one with which
size and diversity defied easy gener- the South was identified . By 1850 the
alization and invited contradiction: American South grew more than 80
America was both a freedom-loving percent of the world’s cotton . Slaves
and slave-holding society, a nation cultivated all these crops .
of expansive and primitive frontiers,
The Midwest, with its bound-
a society with cities built on growing less prairies and swiftly growing
commerce and industrialization .
population, flourished . Europe and
the older settled parts of America
LANDS OF PROMISE
demanded its wheat and meat
B
products . The introduction of la-
y 1850 the national territory bor-saving implements — notably
stretched over forest, plain, and the McCormick reaper (a machine
mountain . Within its far-flung lim- to cut and harvest grain) — made
its dwelt 23 million people in a Union possible an unparalleled increase
comprising 31 states . In the East, in- in grain production . The nation’s
dustry boomed . In the Midwest and wheat crops swelled from some 35
the South, agriculture flourished . million hectoliters in 1850 to nearly
After 1849 the gold mines of Cali- 61 million in 1860, more than half
fornia poured their precious ore into grown in the Midwest .
the channels of trade .
An important stimulus to the
New England and the Middle At- country’s prosperity was the great
lantic states were the main centers improvement in transportation fa-
of manufacturing, commerce, and cilities; from 1850 to 1857 the Ap-
finance . Principal products of these palachian Mountain barrier was
areas were textiles, lumber, cloth- pierced by five railway trunk lines
ing, machinery, leather, and wool- linking the Midwest and the North-
en goods . The maritime trade had east . These links established the
reached the height of its prosper- economic interests that would un-
ity; vessels flying the American flag dergird the political alliance of the
plied the oceans, distributing wares Union from 1861 to 1865 . The South
of all nations .
lagged behind . It was not until the
131