Long before the Civil War, steam and machinery had begun to invade American industries and statesmen of the new commercial and industrial order had appeared in Washington. The census of 1860 reported nearly a million and a half wage earners in the United States, and more than a billion dollars invested in manufacturing. By that year over thirty thousand miles of railway had been constructed, including such important lines as the New York Central, the Erie, the Baltimore and Ohio, and the Pennsylvania. Politicians of the type of Stephen A. Douglas, who discussed slavery in public and devoted their less obvious activities to securing grants of public lands and mineral resources to railway and manufacturing corporations, had begun to elbow the more cultivated and respectable leaders like Calhoun, Webster, and Alexander Stephens, who belonged to the old order.

But the spectacular conflict over slavery prevented the political results of the economic transformation from coming to the surface. Those who had occasion to watch the proceedings of Congress during the two decades just before the War discovered the manipulations of railway corporations seeking land grants and privileges from the Federal Government and the operations of the "protected" interests in behalf of increased tariffs. Those were also harvest days for corporations and companies in the state legislatures where special charters and privileges were being bartered away by the wholesale. There was emerging in a number of the larger industrial centers a small, though by no means negligible, labor movement. But the slavery issue overshadowed everything. The annexation of Texas, slavery in the territories, the Compromise of 1850, the Nebraska bill, and Bleeding Kansas kept the mind of the North from the consideration of the more fundamental economic problems connected with the new order. The politicians, to be sure, did not live by the slavery agitation alone, but it afforded the leading topics for public discussion and prevented the critical from inquiring too narrowly into the real staples of politics.

The Civil War sharply shifted the old scenery of politics. It gave a tremendous impetus to industry and railway construction. The tariff measures during the War gave to manufacturers an unwonted protection against foreign competition; the demand for war supplies, iron, and steel, railway materials, textiles, and food supplies, quickened every enterprise in the North; the great fortunes made out of speculations in finances, contracts for government supplies, and land-grants placed an enormous capital in private hands to carry forward business after the War was over.

Within little more than a quarter of a century the advance of industry and commerce had made the United States of Lincoln's day seem small and petty. The census of 1905 showed over twelve billion dollars invested in factories and nearly five and one half million wage earners employed. In that year, the total value of manufactured products was over fourteen billion dollars—fifteen times the amount turned out in 1860. As late as 1882 the United States imported several hundred thousand tons of steel rails annually, but within ten years the import had fallen to 134 tons and no less than 15,000 tons were exported. At the close of the Civil War about 3000 tons of Bessemer steel were produced annually, but within twenty years over two million tons were put out every twelve months.

The building of railways more than kept pace with the growth of the population and the increase in manufacturing. There were 30,000 miles of lines in 1860; 52,000 in 1870; 166,000 in 1890; and 242,000 in 1910. Beginning at first with the construction of lines between strategic centers like Boston and Albany, and Philadelphia and Reading, the leaders in this new enterprise grew more bold. They pushed rapidly into the West where there were no cities of magnitude and no prospect of developing a profitable business within the immediate future. Capital flowed into the railways like water; European investors caught the fever; farmers and merchants along prospective lines bought stocks and bonds, expecting to reap a harvest from increased land values and business, only to find their paper valueless on account of preferred claims for construction; and the whole West was aflame with dreams of a new Eldorado to be created by transportation systems.

The era of feverish construction was shortly followed by the combination of lines and the formation of grand trunk railways and particular "systems." In 1869, Cornelius Vanderbilt united the Hudson River and New York Central lines, linking the metropolis and Buffalo, and four years later he opened the way to Chicago by leasing the Lake Shore Michigan and Southern. About the same time two other eastern companies, the Pennsylvania and Baltimore and Ohio secured western connections which let them into Chicago.

It must not be thought that this rapid railway expansion was due solely to private enterprise, for, as has been the standing custom in American politics, the cost of doubtful or profitless undertakings was thrown as far as possible upon the public treasury. Up to 1872, the Federal Government had granted in aid of railways 155,000,000 acres of land, an area estimated as "almost equal to the New England states, New York, and Pennsylvania combined; nineteen different states had voted sums aggregating two hundred million dollars for the same purpose; and municipalities and individuals had subscribed several hundred million dollars to help railway construction." To the Union Pacific concern alone the Federal Government had granted a free right of way through public lands, twenty sections of land with each mile of railway, and a loan up to fifty million dollars secured by a second mortgage on the company's property. The Northern Pacific obtained lands which a railway official estimated to be worth enough "to build the entire railroad to Puget Sound, to fit out a fleet of sailing vessels and steamers for the China and India trade and leave a surplus that would roll up into the millions." Cities, townships, counties, and states voted bonds to help build railways within their limits or granted rights of way and lands, in addition, with a lavish hand.

The chronicle of all the frauds connected with the manipulation of land grants to railways and the shameless sale of legal privileges cannot be written, because in most instances no tangible records have been left. Perhaps the most notorious of all was the CrÉdit Mobilier scandal connected with the Union Pacific. The leading stockholders in that company determined to secure for themselves a large portion of the profits of construction, which were enormous on account of the prodigal waste; and they organized a sham concern known as the CrÉdit Mobilier in which they had full control and to which the construction profits went. Inasmuch as the Federal Government through its grants and loans was an interested party that might interfere at any time, the concern, through its agent in Congress, Oakes Ames, a representative from Massachusetts, distributed generous blocks of stock to "approachable" Senators and Representatives. News of the transaction leaked out, and a congressional investigation in 1872 showed that a number of men of the highest standing, including Mr. Colfax, the Vice President, were deeply implicated. Nothing was done, however; the leading conspirator, Ames, was merely censured by the House, and the booty, for the most part, remained in the hands of those connected with the scandal. When the road was complete, "it was saddled with interest payments on $27,000,000 first mortgage bonds, $27,000,000 government bonds, $10,000,000 income bonds, $10,000,000 land grant bonds, and if anything were left, dividend payments on $36,000,000 of stock."

It would be easy to multiply figures showing astounding gains in industry, business, foreign trade, and railways; or to multiply stories of scandalous and unfair practices on the part of financiers, but we are not primarily concerned here with the technique of inventions or the history of promotion.[7] The student of social and political evolution is concerned rather with the effect of such material changes upon the structure of society, that is, with the rearrangements of classes and the development of new groups of interests, which are brought about by altered methods of gaining a livelihood and accumulating fortunes. It is this social transformation that changes the relation of the individual to the state and brings new forces to play in the struggle for political power. The social transformation which followed the Civil War embraced the following elements.

In the first place, capital, as contrasted with agriculture, increased enormously in amount and in political influence. Great pecuniary accumulations were thenceforward made largely in business enterprise—including the work of the entrepreneur, financier, speculator, and manipulator under that general term. Inevitably, the most energetic and the keenest minds were attracted by the dominant mode of money-making. Agricultural regions were drained of large numbers of strenuous and efficient men, who would otherwise have been their natural leaders in politics. To these were added the energetic immigrants from the Old World. That forceful, pushing, dominating section of society historically known as the "natural aristocracy" became the agents of capitalism. The scepter of power now passed definitively from the masters of slaves to the masters of "free laborers." The literary and professional dependents of the ruling groups naturally came to the defense of the new order.[8] The old contest between agrarianism and capitalism now took on a new vigor.[9]

On the side of the masses involved in the transition this economic revolution meant an increasing proportion of wage workers as contrasted with agriculturalists, owning and operating their farms, and with handicraftsmen. This increase is shown by the following table, giving the number of wage earners in manufacturing alone:

In terms of social life, this increase in wage workers meant, in the first place, a rapid growth of city populations. In 1860, the vast majority of the people were agriculturists; in 1890, 36.1 per cent of the population lived in towns of over 2500; in 1900, 40.5 per cent; in 1910, 46.3 per cent. In the forty years between the beginning of the Civil War and the close of the century, Chicago had grown from 109,260 to 1,698,575; Greater New York from 1,174,779 to 3,437,202; San Francisco from 56,802 to 342,782.

In the next place, the demand for labor stimulated immigration from Europe. It is true there was a decline during the Civil War, and the panic of 1873 checked the tide when it began to flow, but by 1880 it had nearly touched the half-a-million mark, and by 1883 it reached the astounding figure of 788,992. Almost all of this immigration was from Germany, Ireland, Great Britain, and Scandinavian countries, less than one in twenty of the total number coming from Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Poland in 1880. On the Pacific coast, railway building and industrial enterprise, in the great dearth of labor, resorted to the Orient for large supplies of Chinese coolies.

This industrial development meant the transformation of vast masses of the people into a proletariat, with all the term implies: an immense population housed in tenements and rented dwellings, the organization of the class into trades-unions, labor parties, and other groups; poverty and degradation on a large scale; strikes, lockouts, and social warfare; the employment of large numbers of women and children in factories; the demand for all kinds of legislation mitigating the evils of the capitalist process; and finally attacks upon the very basis of the industrial system itself.

This inevitable concomitant of the mechanical revolution, the industrial proletariat, began to make itself felt as a decided political and economic factor in the decade that followed the War. Between 1860 and 1870, the railway engineers, firemen, conductors, bricklayers, and cigar makers had formed unions. In the campaign of 1872 a party of Labor Reformers appeared; and a few years later the Knights of Labor, a grand consolidated union of all trades and grades of workers, came into existence as an active force, conducting an agitation for labor bureaus, an eight hour day, abolition of contract labor systems, and other reforms, and at the same time engineering strikes.

In 1877 occurred the first of the great labor struggles in that long series of campaigns which have marked the relations of capitalists and workingmen during the past four decades. In that year, trouble began between the management of the Baltimore and Ohio railway and its employees over a threatened reduction in wages—the fourth within a period of seven years. From this starting point the contest spread throughout the East and Middle West, reaching as far as Texas. Inasmuch as there was already considerable unemployment, the strikers saw that only by violence and intimidation could they hope to prevent the companies from moving their trains. Troops were called out by the governors of several states and Federal assistance was invoked. Pittsburgh fell almost completely into the hands of the strikers; railway buildings were burned and property to the value of more than ten million dollars destroyed. Everywhere the raw militia of the states was found to be inefficient for such a serious purpose, and the superior power of the Federal Government's regular troops was demonstrated. Where railways were in the hands of receivers, Federal courts intervened by the use of injunctions and the first blood in the contest between the judiciary and labor was drawn.

The last, but perhaps most significant, result of the industrial revolution above described has been the rise of enormous combinations and corporations in industry as well as in transportation. An increasing proportion of the business of the country has passed steadily into corporate, as contrasted with individual, ownership;[10] and this implies a momentous change in the rights, responsibilities, and economic theories of the owners of capital. Moreover, it involves the creation of a new class of men, not entrepreneurs in the old sense, but organizers of already established concerns into larger units.The industrial revolution had not advanced very far before an intense competition began to force business men to combine to protect themselves against their own weapons. As early as 1879 certain oil interests of Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and other centers had begun to control competition by making agreements through their officers. Three years later, they devised an excellent scheme for a closer organization in the formation of a "trust." They placed all their stocks in the hands of nine trustees, including John D. Rockefeller, who issued in return certificates representing the proportionate share of each holder in the concern, and managed the entire business in the interests of the holders.

The trust proved to be an attractive proposition to large business concerns. Within five years combinations had been formed in cotton oil, linseed oil, lead, sugar, whisky, and cordage, and it was not long before a system of interlocking interests began to consolidate the control of all staple manufactures in the hands of a few financiers. Six years after its formation the Standard Oil Company was paying to a small group of holders about $20,000,000 annually in dividends on a capital of $90,000,000, and the recipients of these large dividends began to invest in other concerns. In 1879, one of them, H. M. Flagler, became a director of the Valley Railroad; in 1882, William Rockefeller appeared as one of the directors of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul; in 1887, John D. Rockefeller was connected with a syndicate which absorbed the Minnesota Iron Company, and about the same time representatives of the Oil Trust began to figure in the Northern Pacific, the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas, and the Ohio River railways. Thus a perfect network of financial connections throughout the country was built up.

But on the whole the decades following the Civil War were characterized by economic anarchy, laissez faire with a vengeance. There were prolonged industrial crises accompanied by widespread unemployment and misery among the working classes. In the matter of railway management the chaos was unparalleled.

Shortly after 1870 a period of ruinous competition set in and was followed by severe financial crises among the railways. Passenger and freight rate "wars" for the "through" traffic brought many roads to the verge of bankruptcy, in spite of their valiant efforts to save themselves by exorbitant charges on subsidiary branches where they had no competition. Crooked financiering, such as the watering of stocks, misappropriation of construction funds by directors, and the purchase of bankrupt lines by directors of larger companies and their resale at great advances, placed a staggering burden of interest charges against practically all of the lines. In 1873 nearly half of the mileage in the country was in the hands of court receivers, and between 1876 and 1879 an average of more than one hundred roads a year were sold under the foreclosure of mortgages. In all this distress the investors at large were the losers while the "inside" operators such as Jay Gould, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Russell Sage doubled their already over-topping fortunes.

A very good example of this "new finance" is afforded by the history of the Erie Railway. In 1868, Vanderbilt determined to secure possession of this line which ran across New York State in competition with the New York Central and Hudson River lines. Jay Gould and a group of operators, who had control of the Erie, proceeded to water the stock and "unload" upon Vanderbilt, whose agents bought it in the hope of obtaining the coveted control. After a steeple chase for a while the two promoters came to terms at the expense of the stockholders and the public. Between July 1 and October 24, 1868, the stock of the Erie was increased from $34,000,000 to $57,000,000, and the price went downward like a burnt rocket. During the short period of Gould's administration of the Erie "the capital stock of the road had been increased $61,425,700 and the construction account had risen from $49,247,700 in 1867 to $108,807,687 in 1872. Stock to the amount of $40,700,000 had been marketed by the firm of Smith, Gould, and Martin, and, incredible as it may seem, its sale had netted the company only $12,803,059."[11]

The anarchy in railway financing, which characterized the two decades after the War, was also accompanied by anarchy in management. A Senate investigating committee in 1885 enumerated the following charges against the railroads: that local rates were unreasonably high as compared with through rates; that all rates were based apparently not on cost of service but "what the traffic would bear"; that discriminations between individuals for the same services were constant; that "the effect of the prevailing policy of railroad management is, by an elaborate system of secret special rates, rebates, drawbacks, and concessions, to foster monopoly, to enrich favorite shippers, to prevent free competition in many lines of trade in which the item of transportation is an important factor;" that secret rate cutting was constantly demoralizing business; that free passes were so extensively issued as to create a privileged class, thus increasing the cost to the passenger who paid; that the capitalization and bonded indebtedness of companies largely exceeded the actual cost of construction; and that railway corporations were engaged in other lines of business and discriminating against competitors by unfair rate manipulations. In a word, the theories about competition written down in the books on political economy were hopelessly at variance with the facts of business management; the country was at the mercy of the sharp practices of transportation promoters.

However, emphasis upon this great industrial revolution should not be allowed to obscure the no less remarkable development in agriculture. The acreage in improved farm lands rose from 113,032,614 in 1850 to 478,451,750 in 1910. In the same period the number of farms increased from 1,449,073 to 6,361,502. Notwithstanding the significant fact that "whereas the total population increased 21 per cent between 1900 and 1910, the urban population increased 34.8 per cent and the rural population 11.2 per cent," the broad basis of the population during the half a century here under consideration has remained agricultural, and in 1913 it was estimated that at the present rate of transformation "it will take a generation before the relative number of industrial wage workers will have reached half of all bread winners."

The Development of the West

When Hayes was inaugurated, a broad wedge of territory separated the organized states of the East from their sister commonwealths in the far West—Oregon, California, and Nevada. Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Dakota, and Indian Territory still remained territories. Their combined population in 1870 was under half a million, less than that of the little state of Connecticut. New Mexico with 91,000 and Utah with 86,000 might, with some show of justification, have claimed a place among the states because Oregon was inhabited by only 90,000 people. The commonwealth of Nevada, with 42,000, was an anomaly; it had been admitted to the Union in 1864 to secure the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery.

This vast and sparsely settled region was then in the second stage of its economic evolution. The trapper, hunter, and explorer had gathered most of their harvest, and the ranchmen and cowboys with their herds of cattle were roaming the great grazing areas, waging war on thieves, land syndicates, and finally going down to defeat in the contest with the small farmer who fenced off the fertile fields and planted his homestead there. So bitter were the contests among the cattle kings, and so extensive was the lawlessness in these regions during the seventies and early eighties that Presidents were more than once compelled to warn the warlike parties and threaten them with the Federal troops.

Of course, the opening of the railways made possible a rapidity in the settlement of the remaining territories which outrivaled that of the older regions. The first Pacific railroad had been completed in 1869; the Southern Pacific connecting New Orleans with the coast was opened in 1881; and two years later the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe was finished, and the last stroke was put on the Northern Pacific, connecting Chicago and Portland, Oregon. Thus four lines of communication were established with the coast, traversing the best agricultural regions of the territories and opening up the mineral-bearing regions of the mountains as well. Lawless promoters fell upon the land and mineral resources with that rapacity which Burke attributed to Hastings.

Utah presented, in the eighties, the elements of an ordered and well-advanced civilization and could with some show of reason ask for admission as a state. The territory had been developed by the Mormons who settled there, after suffering "persecution" for their religious opinions and their plural marriages, in Illinois and Missouri. Notwithstanding an act of Congress passed in 1862 prohibiting polygamy, it continued to flourish. The territorial officers were nearly all Mormons and the remoteness of the Federal authority prevented an enforcement of the law. Consequently, it remained a dead letter until 1882, when Congress enacted the Edmunds law prescribing heavy penalties, including the loss of citizenship, for polygamous practices. Hundreds of prosecutions and convictions followed, but plural marriages were openly celebrated in defiance of the law. At length, in 1887, Congress passed the Edmunds-Tucker act authorizing the Federal Government to seize the property of the Mormon church.

Meanwhile the gentile population increased in the territory; and at length the Mormons, seeing that the country was determined to suppress polygamy and that, while the institution was maintained, statehood could not be secured, decided upon at least an outward acquiescence in the law. After much discussion in Congress, and notwithstanding the repeated contention that the Mormons were not sincere in their promises, Utah was admitted as a state in 1895 under a constitution which, in accordance with the provisions of the enabling act of Congress, forbade polygamous and plural marriages forever. Thus the inhabitants of the new state were bound by a solemn contract with the Union never to restore the marriage practices which had caused them so much trouble and "persecution," as they called it.

Although the Mormons were the original pioneers and homestead makers in that great region, theirs was in fact the last of the middle tier of territories to receive statehood. They had left the advancing frontier line far behind. To the northward that advance was checked by the enormous Sioux reservation in Dakota, but the discovery of gold in the Black Hills marked the doom of the Indian rights. Miners and capitalists demanded that the way should be made clear for their enterprise and the land hungry were clamoring for more farms. Indeed, before Congress could act, pioneers were swarming over the regions around the Indian lands. Farmers from the other northern states, Norwegians, Germans, and Canadians were planting their homesteads amid the fertile Dakota fields; the population of the territory jumped from 14,181 in 1870 to 135,177 in 1880, and before the close of the next decade numbered more than half a million. It was evident that the region was destined to be principally agricultural in character, inhabited by thrifty farmers like those of Iowa and Nebraska. Pretensions to statehood therefore rose with the rising tide of population.

Far over on the western coast, the claims of Washington to statehood were being urged. The population there had increased until it rivaled Oregon and passed the neighboring commonwealth in 1890. In addition to rich agricultural areas, it possessed enormous timber resources which were to afford the chief industry for a long time; and keen-sighted men foresaw a swift development of seaward trade. Between the Dakotas and Washington lay the narrow point of Idaho and the mountainous regions of Montana, now rapidly filling up with miners and capitalists exploiting the gold, silver, coal, copper, and other mineral resources, and rivaling the sheep and cattle kings in their contest for economic supremacy.

After the fashion of enterprising westerners, the citizens of these territories began to boast early of their "enormous" populations and their "abounding" wealth, and to clamor for admission as states. Finding their pleas falling upon unheeding ears, the people of the southern Dakota took matters into their own hands in 1885, called a convention, framed a constitution, and failing to secure the quick and favorable action of Congress threatened to come into the Union unasked. Sober counsels prevailed, however, and the impatient Dakotans were induced to wait awhile. Meantime the territory was divided into two parts in 1887, after a popular vote had been taken on the matter.

As had been the case almost from the beginning of the Republic, the admission of these new states was a subject of political controversy and intrigue at the national capital. During Cleveland's first administration the House was Democratic and the Senate Republican. Believing that Dakota was firmly Republican, the Senate passed the measure admitting the southern region in 1886, but the Democratic House was unable to see eye to eye with the Senate on this matter. In the elections of 1888, the Republicans carried the House, and it was evident that the new Congress would take some action with regard to the clamoring territories. Montana was probably Democratic, and Washington was uncertain. At all events the Democrats thought it wise to come to terms, and accordingly on February 22, 1889, the two Dakotas, Washington, and Montana were admitted simultaneously.

With less claim to statehood than any commonwealths admitted up to that time, except Nevada, the two territories of Idaho and Wyoming were soon enabled, by the assistance of the politicians, to secure admission to the Union. Republican politics and the "silver interests" were responsible for this step. Although neither territory had over 40,000 inhabitants in 1880, extravagant claims were made by the advocates of admission—claims speedily belied by the census of 1890, which gave Idaho 88,000 and Wyoming 62,000. At last in July, 1890, they were admitted to the Union, and the territorial question was settled for a time, although Arizona and New Mexico felt that their claims were unjustly treated. It was not until seventeen years later that another new state, Oklahoma, modeled out of the old Indian Territory, was added to the Union. Finally, in 1912, the last of the continental territories, Arizona and New Mexico, were endowed with statehood.[12]

The Economic Advance of the South

Notwithstanding the prominence given to the negro question during and after Reconstruction, the South had other problems no less grave in character to meet. Industry and agriculture were paralyzed by the devastations of the War. A vast amount of material capital—railways, wharves, bridges, and factories—had been destroyed during the conflict; and fluid capital seeking investment had been almost destroyed as well. The rich with ready money at their command had risked nearly all their store in confederate securities or had lost their money loaned in other ways through the wreck of the currency. Plantations had depreciated in value, partly because of the destruction of equipment, but especially on account of the difficulties of working the system without slave labor. The South had, therefore, to rehabilitate the material equipment of industry and transportation and to put agriculture on another basis than that of slave labor. Surely this was a gigantic task.

The difficulties of carrying forward the plantation system with free negro labor compelled the holders of large estates (many of which were heavily mortgaged) to adopt one of two systems: the leasing or renting of small plots to negroes or poor whites, or the outright sale in small quantities which could be worked by one or two hands. This disintegration of estates went forward with great rapidity. In 1860 the average holding of land in the southern states was 335.4 acres; in 1880 it had fallen to 153.4; and in 1900 it had reached 138.2. The great handicap was the difficulty of securing the capital to develop the small farm, and no satisfactory system for dealing with this problem has yet been adopted.

The very necessities of the South served to bind that section to the North in a new fashion. Fluid capital had to be secured, in part at least, from the North, and northern enterprise found a new outlet in the reconstruction of the old, and the development of the new, industries in the region of the former confederacy. The number of cotton spindles in the South increased from about 300,000 in 1860 to more than 4,000,000 at the close of the century; the number of employees rose from 10,000 to nearly 100,000; and the value of the output leaped from $8,460,337 annually to $95,002,059. This rapid growth was, in part, due to the abundance of water power in the hill regions, the cheap labor of women and children, the low cost of living, and the absence of labor laws interfering with the hours and conditions of work in the factories.

Even in the iron and steel industry, West Virginia and Alabama began to press upon the markets of the North within less than twenty years after the close of the War. In 1880, the latter state stood tenth among the pig-iron producing states; in 1890 it stood third. The southern states alone now produce more coal, iron ore, and pig iron than all of the states combined did in 1870. The census of 1909 reports 5685 manufacturing establishments in Virginia, 4931 in North Carolina, 4792 in Georgia, and 3398 in Alabama.

The social effects which accompany capitalist development inevitably began to appear in the South. The industrial magnate began to contest with the old aristocracy of the soil for supremacy; many former slave owners and their descendants drifted into manufacturing and many poor whites made their way upward into wealth and influence. The census of 1909 reports more than thirty thousand proprietors and firm members in the South Atlantic states, an increase over the preceding report almost equal to that in the New England states. The same census reports in the southern states more than a million wage earners—equal to almost two thirds the entire number in the whole country at the opening of the Civil War. The percentage of increase in the wage earners of the South Atlantic states between 1904 and 1909 was greater than in New England or the Middle Atlantic states.

With this swift economic development, northern capital streamed into the South; northern money was invested in southern public and industrial securities in enormous amounts; and energetic northern business men were to be found in southern market places vying with their no less enterprising southern brethren. The men concerned in creating this new nexus of interest between the two regions naturally deprecated the perpetual agitation of sectional issues by the politicians, and particularly northern interference in the negro question. Business interest began to pour cold water on the hottest embers which the Civil War had left behind.

FOOTNOTES: