slave-trade compromise. (16) Threats of withdrawal by members of the Convention from small states. (17) Franklin in the Convention. (18) James Wilson in the Convention. (19) The Pennsylvania convention. (20) The Massachusetts convention. (21) The Virginia convention. (22) The New York convention. (23) Patrick Henry's objections to the Constitution.

REFERENCES

McLaughlin, Confederation and Constitution.

Geography

Hart, Formation of the Union, §§ 60-68, Actual Government, Secondary § 24; Walker, Making of the Nation, 21-63; Channing, United authorities States, 122-133; McLaughlin, Confederation and Constitution; Fiske, Critical Period, 216-350; Landon, Constitutional History, 77-124, 211-218; Gordy, Political Parties, I. 64-102; Schouler, United States, I. 36-70; McMaster, United States, I. 277-281, 389-391, 416-423, 436-503; Cambridge Modern History, VII. 243-304; Wilson, American People, III. 60-98; Larned, History for Ready Reference, IV. 2644, V. 3296; Curtis, Constitutional History, I. 221-647; Dewey, Financial History, §§ 2732; Sparks, Men who made the Nation, 153-180; Hunt, James Madison, 87-166; Lodge, Alexander Hamilton, 49-82,- George Washington, II. 29-41; Pellew, John Jay, 222-234; Tyler, Patrick Henry, 298-356; Roosevelt, Gouverneur Morris, 108-145. Hart, Source Book, §§ 68–70, Contemporaries, III. §§ 60-75; Sources MacDonald, Select Documents, no. 5; American History Leaflets, no. 8; Old South Leaflets, nos. 1, 12, 70, 99; Hill, Liberty Documents, ch. xvii.; Caldwell, Survey, 74–96; Johnston, American Orations, I. 39-71. See N. Eng. Hist. Teachers' Ass'n, Syllabus, 332-334; Historical Sources, § 79.

G. F. Atherton, The Conqueror (Hamilton); Francis Hopkinson, Illustrative Essays and Occasional Writings.

works

Wilson, American People, III.

Pictures

CHAPTER XIV.

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE FROM 1780 TO 1800

WHAT were the numbers, characteristics, and capacities of the people who made the federal Constitution? The census of 1790 showed a population of 4,000,000, of whom 80,000 were Indians, 60,000 free negroes, and 700,000 In the remaining 3,160,000 the English race was predominant in all of the states; there were, perhaps,

175. Population and distribution

guenot element in South Carolina. Over nine tenths of the people lived in the country: in 1790 the only places having a population greater than 8000 were Philadelphia, with about 42,000 people (including suburbs); New York city, with 33,000; Boston, with 18,000; Charleston, with 16,000; and Baltimore, with 14,000. Only about one twentieth of the whole population lived west of the crest of the Appalachians; and Louisville was the farthest town on the Ohio River.

Nearly all the white men in America worked on farms at

176. The

least part of the year, and most of them on their own farms.
Northern farmers raised vegetables for their own use, hay for
their stock, corn and other grain, in some places hemp and
flax, and salted down pork and beef. The most valuable
crop was wheat, cultivated from New England to Virginia,
and the basis of a large export of grain and flour. In Mary-
land and Virginia tobacco was still abundant, while South
Carolina raised rice and still a little indigo.

For an example of prosperity, take a French traveler's ac-
count of a Quaker family living near Philadelphia. The three
daughters, beautiful, easy in their manners, and decent in their
deportment, helped the mother in the household. The father
was constantly in the fields, where he grew wheat and other
crops.
He had an excellent garden and orchard, ten horses, a
big corn house, a barn full of wheat, oats, and other grain,
a dairy, in which the family made excellent cheese.
"Their sheep give them wool of which the cloth is made
that covers the father and the children. This cloth is spun in
the house, wove and fulled in the neighborhood. All the linen
is made in the house."

farmer

Brissot de Warville, 1. 153, 155

177. Free

and slave

The farmers for the most part had large families, and hence did not have to hire much labor. There was a good demand for handicraftsmen, shoemakers, harness makers, tailors, and the like. Their wages were in purchasing value only about half what wages are to-day, but every wage earner who had the ambition and enterprise and industry could strike out for himself, by taking up land and starting a farm.

Much of the hard labor was done by slaves. From Pennsylvania to North Carolina they were commonly treated with kindness. In Georgia and in South Carolina, where in 1790, out of 330,000 people, 136,000 were negro slaves, the labor was hard, and there were cases of cruel treatment. The cotton crop was small and of little value, because it took so much time to clear the seed out of the fiber, till in 1794 Eli Whitney, a Yankee

labor

and industry

schoolmaster living in Georgia, patented the cotton gin, a simple machine which could do the work of scores of men. His machine caused the production of cotton to rise from a few hundred bales in 1790 to 600,000 in 1820. About 1795, sugar was successfully made in New Orleans.

Manufactures, except shipbuilding, were not much developed in America in 1800. A little iron and some steel were made in the middle states, all of it with charcoal. Carpet weaving and broom making had sprung up, and Philadelphia exported from 200,000 to 350,000 barrels of flour every year; this industry was aided by Oliver Evans's recent invention of the endless band elevator.

The shipping trade again became very prosperous after the war, and new avenues of commerce were opened. In 1784 the 178. Trade ship Empress of China made the first voyage to China and brought home the impressive freight of 300,000 solid silver dollars. A profitable direct trade ensued with China, India, and the east coast of Africa. About 7000 men were engaged in the cod fishery, and several thousand in the whale fishery. The fur trade fell off as civilized settlers pushed westward, but John Jacob Astor, a New York merchant, made what was then considered the enormous fortune of over a million dollars, by developing the business in the far Northwest.

As an example of the rich and influential class of American merchants, let us take John Hancock of Boston. He bought ships, sold ships, and chartered ships to carry his cargoes. He bought and sold country produce, and exported fish, whale oil and whalebone, pot and pearl ashes, naval stores (pitch, tar, and turpentine), lumber, masts, and ship timber. He imported dress goods for men and women, manufactures of all kinds, and coal. The Hancock firm also did a banking business, lent money, held mortgages, and placed them for friends, and issued drafts upon their London correspondents. John Hancock had a stately house in Boston (p. 215), built of stone,

including a ballroom sixty feet in length, with furniture, wall paper, and hangings imported from England. He drove a handsome "chariot," or family carriage. His table on state occasions bore quantities of silver; and he liked to wear crimson velvet suits with white silk embroidered waistcoats.

179. Means of communication

Interior commerce was hampered by the lack of roads and interior waterways. About this time there was introduced into England a new method of road making, by which the highway was prepared with a layer of large stones, a foot or more in depth, on which was laid a crowning of small, angular stones. Under travel these sharp fragments consolidated, making a smooth, hard surface. Many such roads, often called turnpikes or stone pikes, were built in America by individuals or corporations, beginning with the stretch from Philadelphia to Lancaster (1792; map, p. 291); and large streams were bridged. On such roads and bridges the owners were allowed to charge toll.