energy and thrift of the East, and its spirit of freedom and emancipation for all individuals, laying the foundation of those great States which, in later years, untrammeled by the commercial conservatism of the East, were so outspoken and sturdy in their expressions against slavery. The first census, taken in 1790, showed a population of 3,929,827, classed and divided between the North and South as follows:

These figures are interesting because of the political effect that the population of the two sections had upon the representation in the House.

The South was still devoting herself to the raising of tobacco, rice, indigo, and several lesser staples, but since the close of the Revolution, owing to the dying out of the indigo plant, a new staple had received considerable attention. Cotton had been cultivated in Virginia by the early settlers, but little attention had been paid to it, and only enough was produced for domestic use; but after the close of the Revolution it gradually came to be cultivated in all the Southern States, and it was quickly discovered that being an indigenous plant it grew very rapidly, and the climate, soil and the great number of slaves at hand were favorable toward making it, with some attention, a most promising and valuable product.

The development of cotton manufacture had been grad

ual but certain to this period, which saw the triumph and use of the mechanical inventions of Hargreave, Arkwright, Crompton and Cartwright. The steam engine was introduced to supply motive power, and only one thing stood in the way of an enormous production of the new staple. The separation of the seed from the cotton fibre was a tedious and time-consuming task; one negro could only remove the seeds from about two pounds of cotton a day, and consequently only a small amount could be sent to market.

It

In 1790 not a pound of cotton was exported from the United States. In 1793, Eli Whitney, of Massachusetts, who was temporarily in Georgia, invented his Cotton Gin, one of the earliest and most remarkable of the many great inventions of Americans. This invention was productive of most important and far-reaching consequences. caused an industrial revolution in the South by making cotton the great staple. The production increased by leaps and bounds, bringing great wealth and increasing social and political power to the South. With the earlier form of the new invention the seeds could be removed from about one hundred pounds of cotton a day. In 1792, 192,000 pounds were exported to Europe; in 1795, after Whitney's invention, nearly six million pounds were exported. The value of the export in 1800 was $5,700,000; in 1820, it was $20,000,000. These figures represented enormous wealth in those days.

Whatever sentiment in the South against slavery had survived the Constitutional period now disappeared completely. Cotton brought about a new view, and from being

an evil to be eradicated in some way in the course of time, it was now regarded as absolutely necessary to the social and political welfare of the South. The strongest of human passions, avarice, ambition and worldly interest now bound the South closer than ever to slavery. The slaves produced cotton-which was wealth-and wealth brought independence and social distinction; besides the slave was a political advantage of great importance, because five of them, without any voice in the matter themselves, counted as three white persons. Under these auspices grew the Slave Power, soon to be a bold, threatening and overbearing faction in the nation.

While the South and the Slave Power were thus being prepared for great wealth and political standing, circum stances were working in the North to counteract and bal ance, in a way, this development. New England was be ginning to feel the first impulses of a great industrial de velopment; interest in commerce and manufacturing was awakening, and inventive genius, called into action by economical necessity, was at work, and the use of machinery and mechanical inventions was increasing. New England was shortly to be covered with cotton and other factories.

The war between France and England opened to the United States almost a monopoly on the West Indies trade in 1793, and it was the North that received the greatest benefit from this trade. Congress in 1791 had established the United States Bank at Philadelphia, with branches in all of the important cities, and this aided the North more than the South. In short, the North was developing that

capital, energy, ingenuity and thrift and use of mechanical inventions, the lack of which was the greatest weakness of the South. The settlement of the Northwest Territory by pioneers from the northern States is also to be kept in mind.

This great manufacturing and commercial development, and the movement of the population westward, also awakened in the North a lively interest in internal improvements, and the steamboat, railroad and telegraph were soon to add their tremendous influences and advantages to this section of the country. The various pursuits and the development of the North increased and attracted population, and the balance between the North and the South, which was so nearly even in 1790, grew steadily in favor of the North, until at the opening of the Civil War the North had nineteen million free people against eight and onequarter million in the. South, the South at that time having four million slaves.

CHAPTER V.

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE.

"The Missouri question marked a distinct era in the political thought of the country........suddenly and without warning the North and the South, the free States and the slave States, found themselves arrayed against each other in violent and absorbing conflict."

James G. Blaine.

Shall there be Slave States other than Louisiana west of the Mississippi River? This question coming suddenly before the people in 1818, laying bare the inherent antagonisms of the North and South, aroused the entire country to a white heat of excitement; and only after a most bitter and alarming struggle resulted in the third great Compromise on the slavery question.

From the time of Whitney's invention to the Missouri Compromise, three important events happened in the history of slavery: The first Fugitive Slave Law passed in January, 1793; the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory in 1803, and the abolition of the slave trade in 1807.

The call for legislation to enforce the Fugitive Slave provision in the Constitution came, strangely enough, from the North. A free negro had been kidnapped in Pennsylvania in 1791 and taken to Virginia. The Governor of Virginia refused to surrender the kidnappers, claiming