Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/725

 -i84i] Difficulties of the West. 693 temporary Act of 1830 and the permanent Preemption Act of 1841 were merely legal declarations of a right that had been generally granted. Though there was some justification of the fiscal policy at the time of its adoption, a more far-sighted statesmanship would have perceived that ultimately even the financial position of the government would be more strengthened through the permanent settlement of the domain by tax-paying farmers than through its sale to speculative companies. Such were the natural conditions and the lines of public policy determining the course of national development in the quarter of a century following the war of 1812. Much criticism has been directed against some features of the policy adopted ; but it must be judged as a whole. When we recognise the nature of the problem the difficulties which obstructed the development of an economic system capable of exploiting the resources of a vast territory, and the fact that the very vastness of the country, combined with insufficient transport, was a temporary source of weakness, as tending to produce an isolated develop- ment of separate sections we must admit that, however futile or extravagant the support of internal improvements may in some cases have been, however unreasonable and one-sided some of the Tariff Acts, the general line of national policy was broadly and wisely conceived. Despite the growing prosperity, there were nevertheless elements of weakness which made the development of a strong national life still doubtful. The country was now divided into three sections. The New England and Middle States east of the Alleghany mountains, rapidly developing on industrial and commercial lines, were far removed in character and sympathy from the Cotton States, with their expanding plantation and slave system, and were not yet commercially joined with the new West. Even the extension of canals to the West, although it brought the products of western New York and the shores of Lake Erie to the Hudson, did not overcome the dependence of the great valley of the Ohio on the southern market by way of the Mississippi and New Orleans. The East sold to the West but did not buy from it; and, though there was a natural division of labour among the three sections, there was not such a system of mutual exchange as would most closely bind them together. The West, which should naturally have been in the closest interdependence with the East, was being bound more and more closely by commercial interest to the South ; and the continuance of this process would have been inevitable had conditions remained the same while Iowa and the Missouri valley were being colonised. Had the great struggle of the Civil War arisen in such circumstances, the Middle-west might possibly have sided with the South. The great event which was to change this geographical situation and determine entirely anew the lines of economic development was the introduction of the railroad. It is not necessary to enlarge upon the CH. XXII.