"Lockport on the Erie Canal" Mary Keys, 1832 |
| Many factors influenced the development of the Industrial Revolution in America in the period between 1790 and 1825. What role did the government play during this early period of growth? |
| To justify
and preserve their confidence; to promote the increasing respectability of the American
name; to answer the calls of justice: to restore landed property to its due value; to
furnish new resources, both to agriculture and commerce; to cement more closely the union
of the States; to add to their security against foreign attack; to establish public order
on the basis of an upright and liberal policy;- these are the great and invaluable ends to
be secured by a proper and adequate provision, at the present period, for the support of
public credit... It is a well-known fact, that, in countries in which the national debt is properly funded, and an object of established confidence, it answers most of the purposes of money. Transfers of stock or public debt are there equivalent to payments in specie; or, in other words, stock, in the principal transactions of business, passes current as specie. The same thing would, in all probability, happen here under the like circumstances. The benefits of this are various and obvious:
And from the combination of these effects, additional aids will be furnished to labor, to industry, and to arts of every kind... Alexander Hamilton, Report on the Public Credit, January 9, 1790 |
| 1. As to
the division of labor, It has been greatly observed, that there is scarcely any thing of
greater moment in the economy of a nation than the proper division of labor, 3. An extension of the use of machinery. A man occupied on a single object will have it more in his power, and will be more naturally led to exert his imagination, in devising methods to facilitate and abridge labor, than if he were perplexed by a variety of independent and dissimilar operations... 6. As to the affording a more ample and various field for enterprise The spirit of enterprise, useful and prolific as it is, must necessarily be contracted or expanded, in proportion to the simplicity or variety of the occupations and productions which are to be found in a society. 7. As to the creating, in some instances, a new, and securing, in all, a more certain and steady demand for the surplus produce of the soil This is among the most important of the circumstances which have been indicated. It is a principal means by which the establishment of manufactures contributes to an augmentation of the produce or revenue of a country, and has an immediate and direct relation to the prosperity of agriculture. Alexander Hamilton, Report on the Subject of Manufactures, December 5, 1791 |
| As
Government receives no benefit from this circuitous carrying trade, only as it is
calculated to aggrandize a few individuals engaged in it. I should be for holding fast the
claim to the circuitous carrying trade, and would be willing to operate on our enemies by
adopting countervailing restrictive systems. But, sir, I would not be willing, that the
good of the States, the good of the people, the agriculturists and mechanics, should be
put at hazard to gratify the avarice and cupidity of a small class of men, who in fact may
be called citizens of the world, attached to no particular country; any country is their
country where they can make the most money. But, sir for what is an inherent right, for
what I deem the legitimate, or necessary carrying trade, the liberty of carrying our
productions to foreign markets, and with the return cargo, in which agriculture is
particularly interested, I would fight in defence of. John C. Calhoun Insists on Free Trade, 1811 |
| Sec. 15 And
be it further enacted, That during the continuance of this act, and whenever required by
the Secretary of the Treasury, the said corporation shall give the necessary facilities
for transferring the public funds from place to place, within the United States, or the
territories thereof, and for distributing the same in payment of the public creditors,
Without charging commissions or claiming allowance on account of difference of exchange,
and shall also do and perform the several and respective duties of the commissioners of loans for the several states, or of any one or more of them, whenever required by law. Sec. 17 And be it further enacted, That the said corporation shall not at any time suspend or refuse payment in gold and silver, of any of its notes, bills or obligations; nor of any moneys received upon deposit in said bank, or in any of its offices of discount and deposit... Act for a National Bank, April 10, 1816 |
| They are
said to be repugnant-- 1st. To that clause in the constitution which authorizes Congress to regulate commerce. The subject to be regulated is commerce; and our constitution being, as was aptly said at the bar, one of enumeration, and not definition, to ascertain the extent of power, it becomes necessary to settle the meaning of the word. The counsel for the appellee would limit it to traffic, to buying and selling, or the interchange of commodities, and do not admit that it comprehends navigation... Commerce, undoubtedly, is traffic, but it is something more: it is intercourse. It describes the commercial intercourse between nations, and parts of nations, in all its branches, and is regulated by prescribing rules for carrying on that intercourse. If commerce does not include navigation, the government of the Union has no direct power over that subject, and can make no law prescribing what shall constitute American vessels, or requiring that they shall be navigated by American seamen. Supreme Court Case-Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824 |
| We are
unanimously of opinion, that the law passed by the legislature of Maryland, imposing a tax
on the Bank of the United States is unconstitutional and void. It does not extend to a tax paid by the real property of the bank, in common with the other real property within the state, nor to a tax imposed on the interest which the citizens of Maryland may hold in this institution, in common with other property of the same description throughout the state. But this is a tax on the operations of the bank and is consequently a tax on the operation of an instrument employed by the government of the Union to carry its powers into execution such a tax is unconstitutional. Supreme Court Case McCullough v. Maryland, 1819 |
| The
obligation then, which were created by the charter to Dartmouth College were the same in
the new that they had been in the old government The power of the government was also the
same. A repeal of this charter at any time prior to the adoption of the present
Constitution of the United States would have been an extraordinary and unprecedented act
of power, but one which could have been contested only by the restrictions upon the
legislature to be found in the constitution of the state. But the constitution of the
United Stated has imposed this additional limitation, that the legislature, of a state
shall pass no act impairing the obligation of contracts. Supreme Court Case Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 1819 |
"Lockport on the Erie Canal" Mary Keys, 1832 |
