The Utility of the Union in Respect to the Economy and a Navy

The commercial value of the union is one of the points on which there is the least room for disagreement, and it has won the most general assent of everyone acquainted with the subject. This holds for our trade with foreign countries as much as for our trade with one another.

The adventurous spirit of American commerce has already stirred uneasiness in several of the maritime powers of Europe. They fear our interference in the carrying trade that supports their navigation and underlies their naval strength. Those with colonies in America watch anxiously what this country may become, since neighboring states with the will and means to build a powerful navy would threaten their possessions. Such impressions naturally point them toward fostering divisions among us and denying us, as far as possible, an active commerce in our own ships. That policy would serve three ends: (1) preventing our interference in their navigation; (2) monopolizing the profits of our trade; and (3) clipping the wings by which we might soar to a dangerous greatness. If prudence did not forbid the detail, this policy could be traced, by facts, to the cabinets of ministers.

If we remain united, we can counteract this unfriendly policy in a variety of ways. Prohibitory regulations, extending at once throughout all the states, can force foreign countries to bid against each other for the privileges of our markets. That is no fantasy: a market of three million people, growing fast and devoted mostly to agriculture, matters enormously to any manufacturing nation. And it makes an immense difference to such a nation whether its goods travel to and from America in its own ships or in another country’s. Suppose we had a government able to shut Great Britain, with whom we have no treaty of commerce, out of all our ports. Would that not let us negotiate, with the fairest prospect of success, for the most valuable commercial privileges in her dominions? Some answer that our prohibitions would change nothing, since Britain could trade with us through the Dutch. But would her navigation not be materially injured by losing the advantage of carrying her own trade? Would the Dutch not intercept the principal profits as the price of their agency and risk, and would freight alone not impose a considerable deduction? And would so circuitous a trade not raise the price of British goods in our markets and help other nations compete for this branch of her commerce?

Considered maturely, these questions justify a belief that Britain would relax her present system. Her real disadvantages, the partiality of much of her own nation for the American trade, and the pleas of her West India islands would combine to produce it. That relaxation would admit us to privileges in the markets of those islands and elsewhere, to the great benefit of our trade. Britain could not be expected to yield such a point without an equivalent in exemptions and immunities in our markets; and other nations, unwilling to be supplanted in our trade, would likely make similar concessions.

A federal navy would give us a further means of influencing the conduct of European nations. Under an efficient government, the union could soon build a navy which, though no match for the great maritime powers, would carry respectable weight thrown into the scale of either of two contending parties. This would be especially true in the West Indies, where a few ships of the line, arriving at the right moment to reinforce either side, would often decide the fate of a campaign of the greatest consequence. Our position is a commanding one; add the usefulness of our supplies to armies operating in the West Indies, and we could bargain with great advantage for commercial privileges. A price would be set not only upon our friendship, but upon our neutrality. By steady adherence to the union we may hope, before long, to become the arbiter of Europe in America, able to incline the balance of European competitions in this part of the world as our interest may dictate.

In the reverse of this situation, the rivalries of the parts would check one another and squander the advantages nature has placed within our reach. A state so insignificant would find its commerce the prey of all nations at war; having nothing to fear from us, they would plunder our property to supply their wants whenever it fell in their way. The rights of neutrality are respected only when defended by adequate power, and a nation despicable in its weakness forfeits even the privilege of being neutral.

Under a vigorous national government, the country’s strength and resources, directed to a common interest, would baffle every combination of European jealousy to restrain our growth; success would become so impracticable that the motive would disappear. An active commerce, an extensive navigation, and a flourishing marine would then follow as the offspring of moral and physical necessity, beyond the little arts of little politicians to control.

In disunion those combinations could operate with success: the maritime nations, exploiting our universal weakness, could prescribe the conditions of our political existence. They share an interest in being our carriers, and a stronger one in preventing us from becoming theirs; they would combine to cripple our navigation and confine us to a passive commerce. We would take the first price offered for our commodities and see the profits of our trade snatched away to enrich our enemies and persecutors. That unequaled spirit of enterprise which marks American merchants and sailors, in itself an inexhaustible mine of national wealth, would be stifled and lost. Poverty and disgrace would spread over a country that, with wisdom, might make herself the admiration and envy of the world.

Rights of great moment to American trade belong to the union: the fisheries and the navigation of the Western lakes and the Mississippi. Dissolving the confederacy would open delicate questions about their future, which the interest of more powerful partners would hardly fail to settle to our disadvantage. Spain’s designs on the Mississippi need no comment. France and Britain share the fisheries with us, count them of the utmost moment to their navigation, and know from experience that our mastery of this branch of trade lets us undersell them in their own markets. What could be more natural than that they should wish to shut such dangerous competitors out of the contest?

This branch of trade is no partial benefit: all the navigating states may share in it to advantage, and as mercantile capital extends they likely will. As a nursery of seamen it is, or will become, a universal resource, and to the establishment of a navy it is indispensable. Union contributes to that great national object in several ways, since every institution grows in proportion to the means concentrated on its support. A navy of the United States, embracing the resources of all, is a much nearer prospect than the navy of any single state or partial confederacy, which could draw on only a part. Each part of confederated America brings its own advantage to this establishment. The southern states furnish naval stores in abundance (tar, pitch, and turpentine), and their ship timber is of a more solid and lasting texture, a difference of signal importance for naval strength and economy alike. Some of the southern and middle states yield iron in greater plenty and of better quality, while seamen must chiefly be drawn from the North. That maritime commerce needs naval protection, and that such commerce in turn feeds a navy, requires no particular proof.

Unrestrained trade among the states will advance the trade of each, as they exchange productions to supply wants at home and to export abroad. The veins of commerce in every part will be replenished, gaining fresh motion and vigor from the free circulation of goods. Commercial enterprise will have far greater scope because the states produce different things; when the staple of one fails from a bad harvest, it can call in the staple of another. Variety in exports, no less than their value, keeps foreign commerce active, since trade runs on better terms with many kinds of goods than with few. Particular articles may be in great demand at some periods and unsalable at others; but with a variety of articles, they can scarcely all be unsalable at once, and the merchant faces less obstruction or stagnation. The speculative trader will see the force of this at once and admit that the aggregate commerce of the United States promises a far more favorable balance than thirteen states could show without union, or with partial unions.

Some may reply that the states, united or disunited, would still keep up an intimate trade with one another that answers the same ends. But that intercourse would be fettered, interrupted, and narrowed by the many causes these papers have already detailed at length. A unity of commercial interests, like a unity of political ones, can only come from a unity of government.

Other views of this subject are striking and animating, but they would lead too far into the future for a newspaper discussion. Our situation invites us, and our interests prompt us, to aim at an ascendant in the system of American affairs. The world, politically as well as geographically, divides into four parts, each with distinct interests. Unhappily for the other three, Europe, by force and by fraud, has extended her dominion over Africa, Asia, and America alike. That long superiority has tempted her to plume herself as Mistress of the World and to regard the rest of mankind as created for her benefit. Philosophers admired as profound have asserted outright that Europeans are physically superior and that all animals, the human species among them, degenerate in America. Even dogs, they say, cease to bark after breathing our air awhile. Facts have too long supported these arrogant pretensions; it belongs to us to vindicate the honor of the human race and to teach that assuming brother, moderation. Union will enable us to do it; disunion will add another victim to his triumphs. Let Americans disdain to be the instruments of European greatness! Let the thirteen states, bound in a strict and indissoluble union, concur in erecting one great American system, superior to all transatlantic force, and able to dictate the terms of connection between the old world and the new!