Cronyism

CHAPTER 11

ERECTING THE AMERICAN SYSTEM: SECTIONAL FISSURES

Protective Tariffs

Protective tariffs and internal improvements formed the cornerstone of the American System: they privileged industry, recruited necessary business interests, and integrated the vast empire. Henry Clay explicitly linked the policies; tariff revenue would fund public works. But the Panic of 1819 sectionalized both issues, dividing the National Republicans. They succeeded in passing the mercantilist tariffs of 1824 and 1828 by corrupting key Crawfordite Radicals and Jacksonians. But National Republicans failed to entice their opposition during internal-improvement debates, managing to only pass the 1824 General Survey Act. Despite the added difficulties, the American System lumbered onwards.

Before the panic, increased protection occurred with little sectional animosity. In 1818, at the behest of the American Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Manufactures, Congress overwhelmingly agreed to increase iron rates and make cotton rates permanent. However, as with every other issue, the panic changed the picture, crushing manufacturing enterprises and causing protectionists to long for higher tariffs. At the same time, the international crisis decreased export prices and encouraged the South to favor lower rates (in addition, southerners wanted to soothe their troubles by importing cheap manufactures).

With Monroe’s support, protectionists seized the initiative. They created a flurry of new lobbying associations, spearheaded by the indefatigable protectionist Mathew Carey of Pennsylvania. In 1819, Carey, funded by wealthy manufacturers, formed the Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of National Industry and the Pennsylvania Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Manufactures. He also helped establish the Convention of the Friends of National Industry, which held a conference in New York City later in the year. The Convention boasted thirty-seven delegates from nine states, largely from New York and Pennsylvania (the South only sent tiny Delaware and Maryland).

In December, protectionists sent several lobbyists to Congress, including the economist Condy Raguet of Philadelphia, at the time still a protectionist before converting to free trade, and Eleazar Lord of New York City. The House split the Committee on Commerce and Manufactures and Speaker Clay packed the new Committee on Manufactures with likeminded colleagues. He appointed to the chair Henry Baldwin of Pittsburgh, a manufacturer who owned large rolling mills. Baldwin, whose ascension marked the beginning of Pennsylvania iron’s influence over tariff policy, unabashedly believed that the primary goal of tariffs should be protection, not revenue. Greed caused him to break ranks with fellow northerners on the Missouri Compromise of 1820 so the House could take up more important matters, in particular the Baldwin bill.

After the Missouri Compromise, the lower chamber debated the Baldwin bill. The proposal increased tariffs on cotton and woolen products from 25 to 33 percent and raised rates on other products, including substitutes for Pittsburgh iron and cut-glass. Lord asked Carey for new protectionist propaganda because “every new memorial does as much good as ten at the early part of the session.” Seven northern state legislatures urged passage. Notably, Massachusetts did not, because the Boston Associates and their Boston Manufacturing Company still preferred only the regressive minimum valuation on cotton goods, not overall protection.

Old Republican Congressmen John Randolph, Philip Barbour, and John Tyler of Virginia, along with the theorist John Taylor of Caroline, trenchantly criticized the legislation. While Clay and American System allies scorned Adam Smith, Barbour defended his free trade theories. Crucially, southern National Republicans also balked at the bill, particularly South Carolina Congressman William Lowndes. They managed to kill the proposed legislation in the Senate. The parties split in both chambers, though Federalists favored it by larger margins (Republicans voted 91-88, Federalists 21-12). The sectional schism remained far more important: the North voted 96-24 in favor, similar to 1816, while the South voted 16-76, less than half of its previous support. The first tariff battle ended as a defeat for protectionists because of the sectional rupture among National Republicans.

When Speaker Clay temporarily retired to work for the SBUS, Congress hesitated to increase protection. Thanks to Crawford’s Radicals, ably led by US senator Martin Van Buren, Barbour secured the speakership. He appointed anti-tariff men to the Committee on Manufactures to deliberately thwart Chairman Baldwin. Clearly, a permanent rift emerged on the tariff question. Raguet, now converted to free trade, informed David Ricardo that the country divided into two factions, one in favor of privileging manufacturers and the other for “the natural course of things.” Everyone knew that the conflict would reignite after the protectionist Clay returned to Congress in 1823 and regained his speakership.

In January 1824, the Committee on Manufactures, now led by John Tod of the Pennsylvania iron interests, reported on a bill similar to the earlier Baldwin proposal. Barbour once again rose up in laissez-faire opposition to attack the constitutionality of protective tariffs, arguing the Constitution only sanctioned tariffs for revenue. He demonstrated another instance of strict constructionism limiting cronyism. In response, Clay famously outlined his pro-tariff American System. In addition to acknowledging the propagandist Carey, the reactionary paid homage to one of his idols—“the master spirit of the age” Napoleon Bonaparte. He knew how to build an empire, and so did Clay.

Critics descended upon the Kentuckian. Congressman Churchill C. Cambreleng of New York City, president of an importing firm and Van Buren’s chief House Radical, pointed out that lobbying manufacturers designed many rates. Opponents accused Clay of favoritism: the hemp tariff shielded Clay, a hemp planter, and his constituents from Russian hemp. South Carolinian Radicals particularly heaped scorn, and activists William Smith and Thomas Cooper, the aging English Jeffersonian, led the assault. Adam Smith, Ricardo, Say, and Taylor of Caroline heavily influenced Cooper, and the South Carolina professor published tracts attacking the protective tariff, consolidation, and Secretary of War John Calhoun’s strident nationalism. Consequently, South Carolina turned into the most vocal free trade state.

Despite this resistance, the House narrowly passed the bill, with the North split and the South deeply opposed. In the Senate, even with Senators Nathaniel Macon and John Taylor’s fierce attacks, a revised version passed, but barely, thanks to growing northern sentiment for protectionism and the new Senator Andrew Jackson, who voted on grounds of national defense and paying off the national debt.

Crucially, the Crawfordite Senator Van Buren moderated. He favored low tariffs to build a new libertarian political party and recognized New York’s growing free trade sentiment (from 1821 to 1831 New York City’s import share of the country rose from 23 to 50 percent). But he also wanted to cater to New York textile manufacturers and wool farmers to strengthen and expand his political base. Van Buren did vote for Macon’s amendment to reduce cotton bagging rates, but New York’s manufacturers corrupted him into supporting the final bill, the first of two tariff votes the Radical regretted.

Clay’s imperial Tariff of 1824 increased rates on a number of products, including iron and hemp. It privileged cotton and woolen product manufacturers by raising rates from 25 to 33.33 percent. Overall, the average rate on total imports increased to 47 percent, and the benefits accrued to the North at the expense of the South. However, the Boston Associates, currently shifting into woolen manufacturing, frowned at the lack of a minimum valuation for woolen goods. In addition, the law raised rates on raw wool more than on woolen goods, from 15 to 30 percent. The Associates actually instructed their stool pigeon in the lower chamber, Daniel Webster, to vote against it. This could lead to only one result: another tariff bill for the woolen manufactures, to the further detriment of the American consumer and the South.

After Congress passed the Tariff of 1824, several momentous changes occurred. First, John Quincy Adams controversially defeated Jackson in the presidential election after promising Clay the secretary of state position (Calhoun handily won the vice presidency). Against this third “corrupt bargain,” the Radical Van Buren decided to forge his new party around the charismatic Jackson. Second, the North augmented protectionist sentiments while the South hardened resistance. Many Boston Associates now invested in manufacturing woolen goods (of course, Webster borrowed from his donors to invest in the companies). South Carolina’s venom continued to grow, especially after export prices declined. Empowered Radicals convinced the state’s legislature to declare protective tariffs and internal improvements unconstitutional. In Madisonian fashion, Calhoun opportunistically shifted to free trade and turned into a dedicated sectionalist, joining his supporters, particularly Senator Robert Hayne and Congressman George McDuffie. The stage was set for a climactic battle.

In the fall of 1826, wealthy New England woolen manufacturers lobbied for increased protection. Recognizing the wool growers’ importance, manufacturers advocated higher rates for raw wool and woolen goods, including a minimum valuation. The Boston Associates, particularly Abbott Lawrence, one of the “large-scale industrial capitalists with very deep pockets,” sent lobbyists to the Committee on Manufactures. The committee responded with a bill increasing rates on raw wool and added a prohibitively high minimum valuation on woolen textiles. For example, the minimum valuation assessed woolen cloth that was priced at forty-one cents at the much higher $2.50, so the 33.33 percent tariff would translate to an astounding 200 percent rate. The proposed legislation clearly favored wool interests without any façade of national benefit, worrying Carey—some thin veneer of public interest is always required to convince the public!

In 1827, the House debated the bill. Webster, backed by the Massachusetts legislature, conducted a public relations campaign in the National Intelligencer. Webster’s blatant flip-flopping earned the ire of the New York Evening Post, edited by the libertarian William Cullen Bryant. Although the House passed the measure, the Senate blocked it, thanks to Van Buren. He avoided voting to bring about a 20-20 tie, which Calhoun broke by voting nay. The entire vote split along sectional and factional lines: the South voted 9-93 and the North 117-22. The protectionist Adams supporters voted 98-21 while free trade Jacksonians stood at 28-94. Of the twenty-two northerners who sided against the bill, seventeen favored Jackson.

Ominously, the South increasingly fumed at protective tariffs. After corresponding with Van Buren, Cooper controversially questioned the “value of our union . . . [because] the monopolists are bent upon forcing the decision upon us.” This deeply worried Calhoun. Cooper’s threat of state secession in the face of continued northern cronyism was a highly libertarian response in accordance with the Principles of 1798. South Carolina would not sit idly in the face of the protective tariff.

Undeterred, protectionists redoubled their efforts. The Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of Manufactures and the Mechanic Arts, Carey’s new front, proposed a Harrisburg convention. In reality, the Pennsylvania Society did not come up with the idea; a Boston manufacturer gave it to Carey. One hundred delegates from across the country showed up, virtually all Adams supporters. Prominent attendees included Carey; Hezekiah Niles of the Niles Weekly Register; Ezekiel Webster, brother of the new senator; and Lawrence. Webster and Clay did their part by assiduously promoting the meeting. The Harrisburg Convention advocated a 50 percent rate and a minimum valuation for woolen goods as well as increases for other goods.

Notably, the arch–American System economist Friedrich List hoped the convention would “lay the axe to the root of the tree, by declaring the system of Adam Smith and Co. to be erroneous.” The protectionist implored “the friends of domestic industry” to establish an agency that educated the public. List advocated taking over an existing organization, such as the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia or establishing a new institution of higher learning to promote the American System—with himself as a professor. The delighted Carey tried to secure List an academic job. Unfortunately for the protectionists, negotiations in the laissez-faire colleges fell through.

The Harrisburg Convention worried Jacksonians because emboldened Adams supporters started attacking them for waffling on protection. While free trade in spirit, northern Jacksonians, particularly New York’s Senator Van Buren and Congressman Silas Wright, still courted key protectionist areas in the North. The Adams forces hoped they could exploit this weakness. Fortunately, Jacksonians controlled Congress and could make the first move. Van Buren cleverly created a bill that appeared protectionist but actually infuriated the New England woolen manufacturers. He wanted to recreate the magic of the 1820 defeat in a twisted fashion: New England would join the South, not because of their shipping interests, but because the legislation was not protectionist enough.

In December 1827, the Jacksonian Committee on Manufactures listened to inefficient protectionists plead their case. While the bill reported in January 1828 increased the tariff on raw wool from 30 to 50 percent, it conspicuously kept rates on woolen goods the same. This infuriated protectionists, including Adams, Clay, Carey, and Niles. Clay complained that the bill was “framed, purposely, to create divisions among the friends of the American System, and thus to defeat the measure.” Maryland’s Senator Samuel Smith called it a “bill of abominations.” During the debate, the South stayed unusually silent because they knew New England would vote against the bill and prevent its passage.

But just when the Jacksonians thought they had secured a delightful victory, catastrophe hit: nothing stopped New England woolen manufacturers from amending the bill to create a truly protectionist monster. Soon enough, Adams supporters introduced an amendment to raise rates, causing panic in the Jacksonian ranks. Shortly thereafter, the House passed the bill. In the Senate, Webster added amendments favorable to Lawrence, the oligarch who frequently gave Webster “loans of a permanent nature.”In May, the Boston Associate wrote that the amended bill, which included a 50 percent tariff on woolen manufactures along with a minimum valuation, was “now good enough,” cheerfully noting it would “keep the South and West in debt to New England the next hundred years.” A Bostonian protectionist editor also wrote to Webster stating the amended bill “comes so near to the Harrisburgh Platform.” A Tariff of Abominations indeed!

Senator Van Buren was bested. Some historians previously argued that he always secretly wanted to pass the bill. However, Daniel Peart has shown that Van Buren and his northern allies indeed desired a losing protectionist bill and convinced southerners to go along. But once New England swung in support, he privately decided to secure its passage on behalf of northern wool manufacturers. Power inexorably corrupts. It was the second vote on the tariff Van Buren came to regret—and this one would be a very deep regret. Thanks to Van Buren, the Senate barely voted 24-22 to add the woolen provisions. If Van Buren had voted in the negative, Vice President Calhoun would have assuredly killed the measure. Shortly thereafter, the Senate narrowly passed the bill. Bryant, a die-hard Jacksonian, criticized President Adams in the Evening Post for signing into law a “ruinous unjust and oppressive system of monopoly.”

The Tariff of Abominations raised the average rate to an astounding 51 percent. The South fumed at Van Buren’s treachery, and South Carolina debated its next moves. Although Jackson won the White House later in the year, the tariff actually played little role in the out-come. But to the South, the Tariff of Abominations’ sectional largesse unduly punished their region. It exacerbated similar rifts emerging between the North, West, and South.

A National Program for Public Works

The American System’s internal improvement plank was highly sectional: Clay enlisted the West to vote for the North’s protective tariffs by using tariff revenue for public works, thereby further alienating the South. In fact, because the American System also relied on revenue from high land prices, it actually injured the South and the West. The National Republicans’ major federal victory, the General Survey Act of 1824, laid the groundwork for future projects. However, even though President Adams strove to build upon the law with a profligate program, he failed to convince the anti-debt Jacksonians.

At the beginning of the Monroe administration, National Republicans advocated expensive transportation projects. Unfortunately for them, strict constructionism stood in the way. In 1818, the House debated whether the Constitution allowed for such investment. Barbour, fueled by Ritchie and Roane’s recent worries after Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee (1816), launched a scathing attack on federal works, getting the House to narrowly vote against their constitutionality. In the inauguration of Clay’s North-West alliance, the Mid-Atlantic and the West strongly supported federal aid. On the other hand, the lower South split (Calhoun’s National Republicans favored) and New England and the Upper South dissented. Federalist New England voted along sectional lines because it did not want to lose commerce to other regions. Virginia and North Carolina, under the sway of the Old Republicans, ideologically opposed the measures.

But the National Republicans bounced back. The House Committee on Roads and Canals directed Calhoun to draft a report outlining national defense improvements. Broad constructionism and the threat of war, the twin battering rams of the statists, once again broke down the gates. The secretary of war, who had already ordered his corrupt department to embark upon lavish coastal fortifications, military academies, bureaucratic positions, and frontier explorations, agreed with relish. Calhoun’s report, released in January 1819, advocated a vast military survey for federally constructed roads and canals as well as purchasing stock in various undertakings.

However, the panic created a major problem. From 1815 to 1819, resuming foreign trade and imposing protective tariffs caused tax receipts to increase 56 percent. At the same time, government spending declined 34 percent, and the public debt likewise fell from $127 million to $91 million (28 percent). But from 1819 to 1821, revenue collapsed 41 percent, threatening to explode the national debt. The frugal Treasurer William Crawford called for spending cuts. Radicals concentrated their reforms on Calhoun’s War Department, where spending still remained three times above prewar levels. Their investigations revealed the department’s cronyism, justifying reforms in military expenditures and related bureaucracy. Congress axed Calhoun’s appropriations, cutting government spending by 26 percent. Furthermore, to the horror of civil service proponents, Radicals enacted the Tenure of the Office Act, which instituted a four-year term (eligible for renewal) for presidential-class officials. This highly significant legislation embodied the principle of rotation in office.

To add insult to injury, the Radicals’ elevation of Barbour to the speakership put the lid on internal improvements for the remainder of the early 1820s. Until Clay could reassume House leadership, the National Republicans would retreat to the state level and embarked upon local projects. Unsurprisingly, the states created losing ventures.

In the South, Federalists in Virginia created a Board of Public Works. But Republicans resisted higher taxes and the Board dispensed relatively small amounts. In North Carolina, the Federalist Archibald Douglas Murphey, a heavy investor in transportation companies, adamantly supported improvements. At the behest of Nathaniel Macon, the state blocked Murphey’s proposals. The Old Republican frequently corresponded with state Senate Speaker Bartlett Yancey, an ardent National Republican who desired federal aid. In 1818, Macon wrote to Yancey, explaining that North Carolinians did not want the legislature spending their money. As for federal aid, Macon utilized Randolph’s slavery scare tactic, warning, “[I]f Congress can make canals they can with more propriety emancipate.” Macon succeeded and the state continued to block funding. In striking contrast, South Carolina ambitiously spent $2 million on transportation. Notably, in 1827, the state chartered the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company. It received a thirty-six-year monopoly, eminent domain rights, a $100,000 state loan, generous price regulations, and federal engineers for construction. Despite the lavish disbursement of taxpayer dollars, South Carolina’s projects suffered losses and only benefited wealthy planters.

In the North, New York developed the most prominent program, thanks to its steamboat monopoly and famous Erie Canal. Before the war, inventor Robert Fulton and politician Robert Livingston lobbied for an egregious thirty-year steamboat monopoly with the rights to use the legal system to seize competitors’ boats. However, the company continually co-opted new competitors. This, along with recurring illegal competition, gradually weakened the monopoly. But, in 1824, the Marshall Court sped up the process in Gibbons v. Ogden on the grounds that it violated the Constitution’s interstate commerce clause. While the ruling beneficially struck down a government restriction, Marshall once again fixated on transferring power from the states to the federal government. In particular, he provided legal precedent for further federal interventions justifiable by a broad construction of Congress’ right to regulate interstate trade. Marshall’s aggrandizement of federal power continually worried opponents of the Court.

The Erie Canal was undoubtedly the state’s shining star. New York had tried to secure federal funding for a canal that linked Lake Erie to the Hudson River. After Madison vetoed the Bonus Bill, the state legislature, at the behest of National Republican DeWitt Clinton, narrowly passed a law to build a state canal. The rival Van Buren and his Regency opposed the canal, but right before the 1817 gubernatorial election (which Clinton won) the Radical leader gave his support. From 1817 to 1825, the state constructed the 364-mile canal at the mammoth cost of $8.4 million, and over the next ten years the investment purportedly earned a lucrative 8 percent rate of return. The state accrued other sizable public benefits. For example, the cost of shipping a ton of wheat or flour from Buffalo to New York City plummeted from $100 to $10. Consequently, historians wax eloquently about how governments can successfully build public works.

The Erie Canal did earn revenue greater than its construction costs. However, taking into consideration operating and maintenance expenses along with the opportunity cost of invested funds, the canal only covered its economic costs—hardly a monumental achievement. Furthermore, the state got greedy. In 1825, the legislature authorized surveys for seventeen proposed canals and constructed five canals over the next decade, despite predictions of excessive costs and inefficiency by the Regency politicians Silas Wright and Samuel Young. Lo and behold, the newer canals suffered losses. Soon enough, the Erie and subsidiary canals supported onerous regulations on competing railroads to stay afloat, much to the enmity of the libertarian Bryant at the Evening Post.

Northern states that tried to mimic New York spectacularly failed, most notably Pennsylvania. In November 1824, along with Nicholas Biddle, Carey created the Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of Internal Improvements, heartily backed by wealthy Philadelphia merchants. The American System advocate pushed for a state canal instead of the more feasible railroad. Despite political opposition from northern Pennsylvanians, who recognized such a canal benefitted only the southern environs, in February 1826 the legislature agreed to the Main Line Canal from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. But unlike New York’s flat landscape that was favorable to canal building, Pennsylvania terrain provided tough sledding: the hilly landscape required a canal high above sea level and a tunnel. While the Erie only needed eighty-four locks, the Main Line required 174. Politicians unnecessarily added to the cost, rushing construction and mandating feeder lines for their districts. Pennsylvania’s wise government investors finished the Philadelphian elites’ project in 1834 at a cost of a hefty $14.6 million. Its annual rate of return remained less than 2 percent, well below the opportunity cost of alternative investments. On the other hand, the privately funded canals that connected to coal interests in eastern Pennsylvania secured profitable returns for their investors.

It is clear that despite herculean efforts, state assistance in the 1820s led to an inefficient allocation of resources. The reason is crystal clear: governments cannot operate on a business basis, because they require tax revenue and lack the crucial test of profit and loss. Slowly but surely state officials recognized this.

Once Clay reassumed the speakership in 1823, the National Republicans renewed their assault, devising a bill that authorized the president to institute surveys for a federal system of roads and canals. Clay shepherded the bill alongside the Tariff of 1824, aiming to bind the North and West together by blowing revenue from protectionist tariffs on internal improvements. This portended poorly for the South and debt extinguishment. Congressmen Randolph and Barbour, along with Senator Van Buren, fought Clay’s machinations. Randolph invoked “the last words of Patrick Henry,” declaring that the proposed law would lead to terrible extremes: interstate commerce regulation, federal control of rivers and lakes, federal labor standards, corruption, and excessive government spending. Of course, hoping to rally the South and “every man who has the misfortune . . . to be born a slaveholder,” Randolph warned the legislation contained the potential to “emancipate every slave in the United States.” But, as usual, Randolph’s efforts failed and Congress passed the bill. True to Clay’s plans, the Mid-Atlantic (save New York) and the West provided the margin of victory.

The law appropriated $30,000 for surveys and a Board of Engineers within the War Department, instructing engineers to devise a national program. While funding no projects, it clearly laid the necessary groundwork. Indeed, Calhoun enthusiastically dispatched army engineers before the presidential election. In December, Calhoun and the Board issued a report. The National Republican envisioned an expensive network of national transportation projects, including an interregional waterway in the Mid-Atlantic and Upper South, an extension of the National Road, a southern national road to New Orleans, and coastal canals in the East. Such imperial transportation appeared on the rise in March 1825, when Congress spent $150,000 to extend the National Road into Ohio and purchase $300,000 of Chesapeake and Delaware Canal Company stock.

The new President Adams heavily supported the General Survey Act, especially with Clay as his secretary of state. His first message to Congress in December 1825 advocated an elaborate program of public works, including new roads and canals, a national university, an astronomical observatory, and a new department of the interior. He offered no cost estimates for his “unfailing streams of improvement from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.” Adams’ supporters even made Hamiltonian arguments that a national debt benefitted the public. In particular, Congressman Edward Everett of Massachusetts, a former Harvard professor who married into the wealthy family of Boston Associate Peter C. Brooks, pontificated on the benefits. In an April 1826 speech, Everett declared that wise government investment would increase economic growth and pay off the public borrowing. He failed to help his case when a month later, as chair of the House Committee on Public Buildings, he reported a bill for $25,000 in White House repairs and furnishings, including a billiard table.

However, after Adams’ election, the coalescing Jacksonians proved too strong. First, Jackson, an adherent of Old Republicanism, declared that public debt leads to “a moneyed aristocracy dangerous to the liberties of the country.” Even Vice President Calhoun, pressured by his state’s Radicals, rejected Adams’ program. Second, no Harrisburg Convention replica existed to corrupt Jacksonians into supporting public works. Third, the West started to sour on internal improvements, thanks to Senator Benton. After the panic, Congress eliminated the credit system, reduced the minimum land price from $2.00 to $1.25 per acre, shrank the minimum tract size from 160 to 80 acres, and cut settlers’ land debts by half. Benton desired to make land even more affordable, but easterners wanted high land prices to increase revenue and stop western migration. The Missourian soon discovered the American System’s true sectionalism: the tariff that subsidized northern industry hurt the South, and high land prices that helped fund public works stunted the West. Benton planned to forge a South-West alliance by getting westerners to support free trade and oppose federal transportation projects if the South voted for lower land prices. Since the Senate only narrowly defeated Benton’s bill to cut prices in 1828, a South-West alliance to eliminate northern privileges looked very possible.

In the face of these Jacksonian roadblocks, Congress mustered only $2 million on the National Road, $2 million in stock subscription, and 2.5 million acres in land grants. This was hardly the expansive system of public transportation the National Republicans envisioned. Consequently, from 1821 to 1828, government expenditures increased by less than 4 percent and the public debt declined from $93 million to $58 million (38 percent).

It would only be a matter of time before the National Republicans could surmount sectionalism and dispense special-interest legislation unchecked. But the Panic of 1819 also caused an immense political uproar regarding plans to consolidate and expand the empire’s domain, potentially jeopardizing the National Republicans’ machinations.

______________

Douglas A. Irwin, Clashing over Commerce (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2017), p. 137; Daniel Peart, Lobbyists and the Making of US Tariff Policy (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018), pp. 28, 32–34, 44, 229; Norman Risjord, The Old Republicans (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965), pp. 207–08; Murray N. Rothbard, The Panic of 1819 (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2007), pp. 209–16.

Peart, Making of US Tariff Policy, p. 46.

William Belko, Philip Pendleton Barbour in Jacksonian America (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2016), pp. 58-64; Irwin, Clashing over Commerce, pp. 138-39; Peart, Making of US Tariff Policy, pp. 34-51; Rothbard, Panic of 1819, pp. 216, 222-33.

Joseph Dorfman, The Economic Mind in American Civilization, vol. 1 (New York: Viking Press, 1946), p. 389.

Ibid., p. 390.

Belko, Philip Pendleton Barbour, pp. 64-65, 107-09, 113-15; Peart, Making of US Tariff Policy, p. 52.

Maurice Baxter, Henry Clay and the American System (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1995), pp. 30–31; Michael Bordo and William Phillips, “Faithful Index to the Ambitions and Fortunes of the State,” in Economists and Higher Learning in the Nineteenth Century, ed. William Barber (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1993), pp. 50–52, 56; Saul Cornell, The Other Founders (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999), pp. 291–95; George Dangerfield, The Awakening of American Nationalism (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), pp. 206–07; Lacy Ford, Origins of Southern Radicalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 114–18; Peart, Making of US Tariff Policy, pp. 51–60; Robert Remini, Andrew Jackson, vol. 2 (New York: History Book Club, 1998), p. 68; Risjord, The Old Republicans, pp. 245–48.

Jeremy Atack and Peter Passell, A New Economic View of American History (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1994), pp. 137–38; Donald Cole, Martin Van Buren and the American Political System (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 109–12; Historical Statistics of the United States, Historical Statistics of the United States, vol. 3, ed. Richard Sutch and Susan Carter (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 510; Irwin, Clashing over Commerce, pp. 145–47; Peart, Making of US Tariff Policy, pp. 58–59, 67–68; Carl Prince and Seth Taylor, “Daniel Webster, the Boston Associates, and the U.S. Government’s Role in the Industrializing Process,” Journal of the Early Republic (Autumn 1982): 288–90; Edward Spann, Ideals and Politics (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1972), p. 13.

Dangerfield, Awakening of American Nationalism, pp. 205–06; Daniel Feller, The Public Lands in Jacksonian Politics (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1984), p. 64; Ford, Origins of Southern Radicalism, pp. 114–18; Historical Statistical, 3, p. 188; Peart, Making of US Tariff Policy, p. 68; Risjord, The Old Republicans, p. 247.

Lawrence Peskin, Manufacturing Revolution (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), p. 217.

Bordo and Phillips, “Faithful Index,” p. 56.

Belko, Philip Pendleton Barbour, p. 131; William Freehling, Prelude to Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), pp. 130–32; Peart, Making of US Tariff Policy, pp. 66–75; Prince and Taylor, “Daniel Webster,” pp. 290–91; Robert Remini, Martin Van Buren and the Making of the Democratic Party (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959), pp. 144–45; Spann, Ideals and Politics, pp. 21–22, 42–43.

Peart, Making of US Tariff Policy, p. 79.

Joseph Dorfman, The Economic Mind in American Civilization, vol. 2 (New York: Viking Press, 1946), p. 581.

American Political Leaders (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2000), pp. 318; William Barber, “Political Economy and the Academic Setting before 1900,” in Economists and Higher Learning in the Nineteenth Century, ed. William Barber (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1993), p. 9; Donald Cole, Vindicating Andrew Jackson (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009), pp. 68–70; Dorfman, Economic Mind, 2, pp. 513–14, 582; Irwin, Clashing over Commerce, p. 147; Peart, Making of US Tariff Policy, pp. 75–81.

Peart, Making of US Tariff Policy, p. 89.

Irwin, Clashing over Commerce, p. 50.

Philip Burch, Elites in American History, vol. 1 (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1981), p. 218.

Prince and Taylor, “Daniel Webster,” p. 290.

Peart, Making of US Tariff Policy, pp. 94–95.

Remini, “Martin Van Buren and the Tariff of Abominations,” American Historical Review (July 1958): 903–17.

Spann, Ideals and Politics, p. 44.

American Political Leaders, p. 290; Historical Statistics of the United States, vol. 5, ed. Richard Sutch and Susan Carter (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 510; Irwin, Clashing over Commerce, pp. 147–59; Peart, Making of US Tariff Policy, pp. 81–98.

Belko, Philip Pendleton Barbour, pp. 68–71; John Larson, Internal Improvement (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001), pp. 110–29; Robert Remini, Andrew Jackson, vol. 2 (New York: History Book Club, 1998), pp. 13–21, 397–99.

Belko, Philip Pendleton Barbour, pp. 71–72; Historical Statistics, V, pp. 80, 91; Remini, Andrew Jackson, 2, pp. 19–21; Risjord, The Old Republicans, pp. 193–96; Murray N. Rothbard, “Bureaucracy and the Civil Service in the United States,” Journal of Libertarian Studies (Summer 1995): 32–34.

Larson, Internal Improvement, p. 105.

American Political Leaders, p. 330; James Broussard, The Southern Federalists (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978), pp. 353–56; Dorfman, Economic Mind, I, pp. 376–77, 382; Ford, Origins of Southern Radicalism, pp. 15–19; Carter Goodrich, Government Promotion of American Canals and Railroads (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), pp. 87–88, 102–04; Larson, Internal Improvement, pp. 95–105.

Burton Folsom and Anna Folsom, Uncle Sam Can’t Count (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2014), pp. 35–36; Brian Murphy, Building the Empire State (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), pp. 110–58.

Cole, Martin Van Buren, pp. 50, 109; Albert Fishlow, “Internal Transportation in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries,” in The Cambridge Economic History of the United States, vol. 2, ed. Stanley Engerman and Robert Gallman (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 554; Folsom and Folsom, Uncle Sam Can’t Count, pp. 57–61; Goodrich, American Canals and Railroads, p. 55.

Cole, Martin Van Buren, p. 142; Dorfman, Economic Mind, 2, pp. 522–26; Stanley Engerman and Kenneth Sokoloff, “Digging the Dirt at Public Expense,” in Corruption and Reform, ed. Edward Glaeser and Claudia Goldin (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 103–06; Folsom and Folsom, Uncle Sam Can’t Count, p. 72; John Garraty, Silas Wright (New York: Columbia University Press, 1949), pp. 47–49; Spann, Ideals, pp. 126–27; Clifford Thies, “The American Railroad Network during the Early 19th Century,” Cato Journal (Fall 2002): 236–37.

Fishlow, “Internal Transportation,” pp. 555–60; Folsom and Folsom, Uncle Sam Can’t Count, pp. 59, 68–73; Thomas Govan, Nicholas Biddle (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1959), pp. 101–03; Larson, Internal Improvement, pp. 80–87; George Taylor, The Transportation Revolution (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1951), pp. 38–45; Thies, “American Railroad Network,” pp. 238–43.

David Johnson, John Randolph of Roanoke (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2012), p. 197.

Larson, Internal Improvement, p. 143.

Feller, Public Lands, pp. 64–66; Goodrich, American Canals and Railroads, p. 41; Johnson, John Randolph, pp. 195–98; Carl Lane, A Nation Wholly Free (Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2014), p. 41; Larson, Internal Improvement, pp. 138–66; Risjord, The Old Republicans, pp. 237–43.

Lane, Nation Wholly Free, p. 50.

Burch, Elites in American History, 1, p. 186; Lane, Nation Wholly Free, pp. 47–51, 59–61; Lindsay Schakenbach, “From Discontented Bostonians to Patriotic Industrialists,” The New England Quarterly (September 2011): 388.

Remini, Andrew Jackson, 2, p. 33.

Atack and Passell, New Economic View of American History, pp. 257–60; Feller, Public Lands, pp. 22–38, 66–70, 74–79, 89, 93–97; Larson, Internal Improvement, pp. 174–79; Remini, Andrew Jackson, 2, pp. 32–33, 400–01.

Goodrich, American Canals and Railroads, p. 41; Historical Statistics, 5, p. 80.