ECONOMIC BASIS OF OHIO POLITICS,
1820-1840
By HAROLD E. DAVIS
The Geographic Basis.
Ohio was destined by her geographic
characteristics to be
the scene of conflicting economic
interests, and hence of conflict-
ing political interests. The land has in
some respects a natural
unity but in many respects that unity is
lacking. By far the
greater part of the area of the state
lies in the valley of the Ohio
River, so that geographically,
economically and politically she
should be considered a part of that
valley. Her primary interests
should have been found in the
development of the Ohio River
and its tributaries as means of
communication and arteries of
commerce. Ohio's river towns,
Steubenville, Marietta, and Cin-
cinnati, although they were possible
rivals of Pittsburgh and the
other river towns, both above and below
them, should have had
much in common (as they did).
Northern Ohio, on the other hand, lies
outside the Ohio
Valley, a fact which gives rise to the
basic sectional division of
the state. The interests of the Ohio
River area conflict with
those of the northern part of the state
which looks naturally to
Lake Erie, and hence either by way of
the Hudson-Mohawk
valleys to New York, or by way of Lake
Ontario and the St.
Lawrence to the Atlantic.
A third, and less distinct though not
less real area, is found
in the eastern part of the state, which,
from the beginning, looked
for its commerce and communication with
the outer world to
Pittsburgh. This area has had much in
common, economically
and politically with western
Pennsylvania. Both have faced the
same basic problem: Should their eyes
look eastward to Phila-
delphia and Baltimore, or south and west
to the Ohio, the Mis-
sissippi, St. Louis, and New Orleans?
Identical natural resources
such as coal and iron, also tended to
tie eastern Ohio to western
288
ECONOMIC BASIS OF OHIO POLITICS 289
Pennsylvania, by giving the two regions
the same kind of indus-
trial development.
The interior of the state, although
lying in the Ohio Valley,
because of its interlacing network of
rivers, easy portages, and
almost total lack of serious physical
obstacles to communication,
became a prize for the contention of the
other three areas. The
interior was a rich agricultural region
almost all of it fitted for
cultivation,1 and the contest
of the other regions for the privilege
of tapping its surplus basins of
agricultural products, financing
its development, and supplying its need
for manufactured goods
furnishes the key to a great deal of the
state's economic history.
The contest was one not easily nor
quickly settled, and it was one
factor which tended to prevent Ohio
politics from dividing on a
sectional basis during the period under
discussion (1820-1840).
A further factor which tended to lessen
the significance of
both geographic and economic divisions
in the politics of the state
was the character and origin of the
streams of immigration which
provided Ohio's population. When a
population area coincided
with a natural geographic area, as in
the case of the Pennsylvania
migration into the counties of eastern
Ohio, a regional basis to
Ohio politics began to appear. For the
most part, however, this
coincidence did not occur and it is
impossible to discern any clear-
cut sectional division.2
Economic Development prior to 1820.
Commerce in Ohio before 1820 was
primitive. Money,
capital and credit all were lacking.3
The greatest problem was
the almost insuperable one of finding
some means of profitable
exchange for the surplus agricultural
products, especially those
of the interior of the state, where the
cost of transportation to
market was frequently more than the
value of the product at the
market. Without this exchange neither an
adequate money supply
nor any accumulation of a capital
surplus was possible. Agricul-
1 Benjamin Drake and E. D. Mansfield,
eds., Cincinnati in 1826 (Cincinnati,
1827), 10.
2 The best study of the early
population of Ohio is found in R. E. Chaddock,
Ohio before 1850, Columbia University, Studies in History, Economics and
Public
Law, XXXI, no. 2 (New York, 1908).
3 Randolph C. Downes, "Trade in
Frontier Ohio," Mississippi Valley Historical
Review (Cedar Rapids, Iowa), XVI (1932), 467-94.
290
OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
tural improvements, canals, roads,
manufacturing, and banking
were alike impossible. W. C. Howells, the father of William
Dean Howells, has left an interesting
and pathetic picture of the
Ohio farmer who spent four days making a
journey of thirty-five
miles to the river, where he could
exchange his thirty-five to
forty bushels of wheat, at the nominal
rate of thirty cents a
bushel, for glass, nails or salt.4 As
a matter of fact the exchange
value of his wheat in terms of what it
would buy, was only about
half the nominal amount he received, for
manufactured goods
generally sold in the Ohio River towns
for double the cost of the
same goods in Philadelphia.
The pathetic part of it was that most
Ohio settlers depended
upon the sale of their surplus crops for
the money to make pay-
ments on their lands which were usually
purchased on credit,
either directly from the National
Government under the Act of
1800, or from the land speculators. When
the market collapsed
as it did after the panic of 1819, the
Ohio farmer's plight was
indeed serious. Jacob Burnet wrote in
those trying times that
"nine tenths of those debtors would
lose their lands and improve-
ments . . . unless relief should be
obtained from Congress ....
Money was not to be had because it was
not in the country."5
In the interior of the state the problem
of disposing of the
agricultural surplus was particularly
noticeable. Flour which sold
(in 1817) for $15.00 a barrel in
Sandusky, sold, in Columbus,
Chillicothe, and Circleville, at $6.00
to $6.50.6 In these interior
cities, with only a local demand to
supply, the market was usually
glutted. The report of the Ohio Canal
Commissioners in 1833
stated that during the early 'twenties
corn and other produce fre-
quently rotted in farmers' yards for
want of a market.7
Lack of proper transportation facilities
showed itself chiefly
in the accumulation of large
agricultural surpluses. Caleb Pitkin
estimated in 1835 that the surplus
products of the Mississippi
4 Life in Ohio (Cincinnati, 1902), 138.
5 Jacob Burnet, Notes on the Early
Settlement of the Northwestern Territory
(Cincinnati, 1847). Quoted in Downes,
"Trade," 492. See Dictionary of American
Biography (New York), III (1929), 294-5.
6 Niles' Weekly Register (Baltimore, etc.), April 26, 1817, p.
144. Cited in
E. L. Bogart, Internal Improvements
in Ohio (New York, 1924), 83-4.
7 Ohio General Assembly, House, Journal,
1833, p. 329.
ECONOMIC BASIS OF OHIO POLITICS 291
Valley were worth thirty million
dollars, to which Ohio contributed
a greater share than either Tennessee,
Kentucky, Pittsburgh or
Indiana, the other sources of the
surplus.8 Niles stated in 1831
that 25,000 barrels of flour were
collected at one point on the
Miami Canal, waiting for navigation to
open.9
With freight from Philadelphia to
Cincinnati costing $15.00
to $16.00 a hundred-weight, with
insurance rates so high as to
be prohibitive, and with the money
issued by Ohio banks (even
the best of them) constantly at a
discount in the East, the cost
of doing business was almost
prohibitive. The only possible way
for Ohio to maintain any external trade
at all was to create credit
balances in the East by shipping the
agricultural surplus down
the river to New Orleans. Only
manufactured products of highly
concentrated value could support the
cost of transportation across
the mountains.10
The arrival of the steamboat in the Ohio
River, and the
organization of such companies as the
Miami Exporting Company
of Cincinnati, facilitated this trade
with New Orleans. But it
was a far from satisfactory arrangement.
It is said that most
of the provisions shipped from
Cincinnati during the years 1822
and 1823 resulted in loss to the
shipper.11
During the decade of the 'twenties the
production of tobacco
was frequently urged, in Ohio, to
provide a staple product capable
of standing the high cost of
transportation to market. Some be-
ginnings were made in tobacco
production.12 The production
of
silk was also urged, though its most
significant development came
in the next decade.13 The
raising of sheep, which had very early
beginnings in Ohio, received increased
attention with the importa-
8 Caleb Pitkin, Statistical View of
Commerce (1835), cited in R. B. Way,
"Mississippi Valley and Internal
Improvements," Mississippi Valley Historical Asso-
ciation, Proceedings (Cedar
Rapids, Iowa), IV (1912), 161.
9 Niles' Register, March 19, 1831, p. 52, quoting the Cincinnati American.
10 See discussion of this problem in
Frank P. Goodwin, "Rise of Manufac-
tures in the Miami Country," American
Historical Review (New York), XII
(1907), 761-75.
11 Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Gazette, May 16, 1824, cited by Eugene H. Rose-
boom in "Ohio in the Presidential
Election of 1824," Ohio Archaeological and His-
torical Quarterly (Columbus), XXVI (1917), 153-4.
12 Drake and Mansfield, Cincinnati in
1826, 10, fn.; Niles' Register, December
1, 1827.
13 See Ravenna Ohio Star, December
27, 1838, January 10, 1839, June 10, 1839,
and Columbus Ohio State Journal, frequent
references during the years 1838-39. See
also Samuel Vinton's speech in Congress,
May 23, 1832, in Congressional Debates,
22 Cong., 1 Sess., VIII, pt. 3, p. 3093-94.
292
OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
tion of merino sheep after the war of
1812.14 The production
of wool and the manufacture of woolens
became an economic
interest of great political
significance, as will be seen later. But
Ohio's major problem, and an unsolved
one before the 'twenties,
and during most of that decade, until
the canals were in opera-
tion, was the lack of money and capital,
due to inability to find
a satisfactory market for the surplus of
such typical staple
products as wheat, corn, and their
derivatives, and dairy products.
Manufacturing and Mining Interests.
The high price of manufactured goods,
iron tools, nails, glass,
salt, and textiles, due to lack of
adequate transportation facilities,
is the key to the development of
manufacturing in Ohio prior to
1820-25. High prices combined with the
presence of such natural
resources as salt, iron and coal to
create a protected area in which
household and small shop manufacturing,
for the supply of
local demands, flourished.
When the cost of transporting iron over
the mountains to
Ohio was $200 a ton,15 it was
natural that attention should be
diverted to exploiting native iron
deposits. By 1826 Benjamin
Drake and E. D. Mansfield noted the
exploitation of common red
hematite in Muskingum, Adams, Licking,
Geauga and Columbiana
counties.16 Chillicothe, in
Ross County, furnishes a typical ex-
ample of what happened. In 1829 Niles'
Register observed that
iron was selling for six and one-fourth
cents per pound. "Twenty
years before, brought from distant
places to Chillicothe, iron cost
18 and nails cost 25 cents per
lb."17
In Marietta flouring and shipbuilding
were early industries.18
In Steubenville there were tanneries,
flour mills, and sawmills
before 1814.19 The War of 1812
stimulated such industries as
paper manufacturing, woolen and cotton
mills, a steam dye works,
14 Goodwin, "Rise of
Manufactures," 763; Joseph B. Doyle, 20th Century His-
tory of Steubenville and Jefferson
County, Ohio (Chicago, 1910), 276-304;
see Western
Herald and Steubenville Gazette, July 20, 1831, for notice of B. Well's flock of
merino sheep.
15 Bogart, Internal Improvements, 4-5.
16 Drake and Mansfield, Cincinnati in
1826, 11.
17 Niles' Register, August 11, 1832, p. 421, quoting Dayton Journal,
July 31, 1832.
18 Louis Pelzer, "Economic Factors in the Acquisition of
Louisiana," Mississippi
Valley Historical Association, Proceedings,
VI (1913), 124.
19 Doyle, History of Steubenville,
276-304.
ECONOMIC BASIS OF OHIO
POLITICS 293
soap factory, coinage factory, a
chemical works, potteries, nail
factories and foundries.20 Warren
had a carding mill and fullers'
and weavers' establishments by
1812.21 Iron manufacturing had
begun in at least two places near Warren
(Niles and Youngstown)
prior to 1812.22
Cincinnati was the principal center of
manufacturing. As early
as 1815 she could boast of four cotton
spinning plants, each hav-
ing 1200 spindles; a factory making
cotton gins, and carding,
twisting and spinning machinery; a
woolen manufactory in the
process of building, to produce sixty
yards of broadcloth per day;
two rope walks; two breweries, which
produced quantities for
export down the river; the Cincinnati
Manufacturing Company,
with varied products; their famous
"steam mill" which made flour,
woolen and cotton goods, flaxseed oil
and other things; and a
steam sawmill, with a capacity of 800
board feet per hour. The
next year saw the addition of a sugar
refinery by Messrs. Burnet,
Baum and Company, a fulling mill, a
glass works, and an ex-
tensive soap and candle factory.23
The region north of Cincinnati,
extending up the Miami Val-
ley, was a center of activity in manufacturing.
This is the de-
velopment which Goodwin studied in the
article to which refer-
ence has been made above. Using figures
taken from the 1820
Census, which classified gainful
occupations as agriculture, com-
merce, and manufacturing, he computed the
percentage of the
population engaged in manufacturing in
the various counties of
the region. In Butler County he found
twenty-five per cent of
the adult male population engaged in
manufacturing. In Warren
County, twenty per cent; Hamilton and
Clermont counties, twenty
per cent each; Darke County fifteen per
cent; Greene and Cham-
paign counties fourteen per cent; and
Preble County eleven per
cent.24 These figures take on
added significance if compared with
20 Ibid.
21 Warren Trump of Fame, June
24, 1812.
22 Wilber Stout, "Early Forges in Ohio," Ohio
Archaeological and Historical
Quarterly, XLVI (1937), 25-41; Harriet Taylor Upton, History of
the Western Re-
serve (Chicago,
1916), I, 617.
23 Goodwin, "Rise of Manufactures," 772-3:
Daniel Drake, Natural and Statistical
View; or, Picture of Cincinnati (Cincinnati, 1815), 147, cities John Palmer, Journal
of Travels in the United States . . . in the Year 1817 (London, 1818), 72, and Liberty
Hall, July 10, 1815.
24 Goodwin,
"Rise of Manufactures," 774.
294 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND
HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
the average for all the counties of the
state which was slightly
under twelve per cent.25
According to the Census of 1820 Hamilton
County led the
counties of the state with a total
capital investment in manufac-
turing of $570,215. Of this amount,
$164,940 was classified un-
der the heading of "Flour, meal,
lumber, etc." Forty-two men
were employed in these industries.
Especially significant was the
relatively large development of the
industries grouped under
"Steam and fire engines, mill
machinery, brass and copper cast-
ings." The industries so listed
employed one hundred men and
$80,000 in capital. The value of the
products of this latter group
of industries was $130,000.26 In 1826
Drake and Mansfield esti-
mated the total value of Cincinnati
manufactures at $1,850,000.27
The making of iron showed considerable
development in
some places by 1820. The census
showed seven counties with a
total of $492,000 invested in the making
of cast iron, pig iron and
bar iron. Of the seven counties,
Muskingum County led with an
investment of $270,000. Adams County
came next with $75,000,
then Licking County with $60,000, and
Columbiana County with
$50,000. The other three counties
(Portage, Stark and Trum-
bull) ranged from $5000 to $20,000.28 A
recent investigator lists
nine "iron" forges in
existence by 1820 for refining the crude
product of blast furnaces. By 1840 this
number had increased to
twenty.29 Three other
counties, in addition to the seven men-
tioned, were listed in the Census of
1820 as having steam engine
and machinery industries. Hamilton
County was mentioned in
the preceding paragraph. Jefferson
County had $11,000 invested
in making engines and machinery, and
Montgomery County had
$6700 so invested.30
Woolen manufacturing was widespread in
Ohio in 1820. Out
of fifty-five counties, only twenty were
not listed by the Census
as having woolen goods or woolen cloth
industries. Jefferson
County (Steubenville) had the largest
woolen industry, with an
25 Drake and Mansfield, Cincinnati in 1826, 19.
26 Fourth Census of the United
States, 1820, II, 28.
27 Drake and Mansfield, Cincinnati in
1826, 65-6.
28 Census, 1820,
II, 27 ff.
29 Stout, "Early Forges," 25-41.
30 Census, 1820, II, 27 ff.
ECONOMIC BASIS OF OHIO POLITICS 295
investment of $66,323. Muskingum County came next with
$11,100. The other
counties averaged between $5,000 and $10,-
000.31 The widespread character of the
woolen industry, and the
close identification with sheep raising
which it indicated, was of
the greatest importance in Ohio
politics.
The outstanding characteristics of this
early industrial devel-
opment prior to 1820 were its wide
distribution and the small
scale upon which it was conducted. Local
manufacturing was
thriving because of the very lack of
transportation which worked
such great hardship on the producers of
agricultural products.
The next two decades which cover the
period of the formation
of political parties in Ohio, brought
many dislocations and ad-
justments in this development. Local
self-sufficiency was quickly
undermined by the rapid changes in
transportation represented
by roads, canals and railroads. For
cheap transportation not only
opened up eastern markets for Ohio
produce but opened up Ohio
markets for eastern manufactured goods.
There was a continued
growth of manufacturing, but it tended
to center more and more
in a few places where it could be
organized for efficient compe-
tition with outside products. More and
more keenly aware of
the dangers of outside competition, it
developed a conscious de-
mand for protection. Throughout the
state the local dissatisfac-
tion resulting from the destruction of
local industry contributed
to the ground swell of protectionist
agitation.
By 1840, the eight counties leading in
manufacturing, accord-
ing to the amount of capital invested,
were: Hamilton, Summit,
Montgomery, Franklin; Muskingum,
Columbiana, Licking, and
Stark in the order named. Each of these
counties had over
$300,000 capital invested in
manufacturing. Hamilton County was
far and away ahead of the rest, with
some eight millions of in-
vested capital. Summit, next highest,
had only a little over half
a million. Cincinnati was clearly the
center of manufacturing in
the state, having nearly half the total
of $16,905,257 capital which,
the census showed, was invested in
manufacturing in Ohio.32 The
Cincinnati manufacturing area extended
across the river into Ken-
31 Ibid.
32 Compendium of the Sixth Census, 1840, p. 277, 285.
296 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL
AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
tucky. Between 1830 and 1832 four iron
furnaces and three
forges were built in the Covington
region.33
Cincinnati was becoming an important
center of manufac-
turing for export to the South and West.
Steam engines and
sugar mills for export amounted to
$150,000 in 1832.34 James
Hall, in 1836, spoke of steamboats and
steam engines, steam mills
for grinding wheat, for preparing cotton
and for sugar, which
were made in Cincinnati and used
throughout the West. Heavy
articles made from iron, wagons, carts,
plows, harness, farming
implements generally, chairs and cabinet
work, tinware, printing
presses and type, saddlery, shoes and
hats, and books, completed
the list of important products
manufactured for export.35
Charles Cist placed the amount of
manufacturing in Cincin-
nati in 1841 at eleven million dollars,
or roughly the equivalent
of that in Pittsburgh. He pointed out,
however, that manufac-
turing in Cincinnati consisted more
largely of skilled crafts and
household manufacturing. Cincinnati, he
said, supplied Ohio and
the Mississippi Valley with bells.36
In Dayton, at this time, there were
fifty-two gristmills, grind-
ing 613,000 bushels of grain annually,
fifty-six sawmills, and seven
oil mills. Twelve fulling mills, the
same number of wool carding
mills and five cotton factories, the
largest with 1,000 spindles, a
woolen factory, a flax spinning machine,
and a silk mill, made the
beginnings of a textile industry. Thirty
tanneries and seventy-two
distilleries, using 358,000 bushels of
grain every year, completed
the list of Dayton manufactures.37
Steubenville was another active center.
The Western Herald
and Steubenville Gazette contains many notices of local foundries,
boat yards, wool carding, spinning and
weaving, and finishing
mills, plow manufacturing plants, and
plants for making woolen
machines.38 But the
Steubenville woolen manufactory had gone
bankrupt, and was idle by June, 1831. On
that date "A Citizen"
33 Ibid.
34 Public
letter of W. H. Harrison to J. C. Calhoun, reprinted from Cincinnati
Gazette in Columbus Ohio State Journal, February 4,
1832.
35 James Hall, Statistics of the West (Cincinnati,
1836), 265-6.
36 Charles Cist, Cincinnati in 1841 (Cincinnati,
1841), 236-41.
37 Niles' Register, August 11, 1832, p. 421, quoting Dayton Journal, July 31, 1832.
38 Western Herald and Steubenville
Gazette, for 1830, 1831 and 1832, passim.
ECONOMIC BASIS OF OHIO POLITICS 297
pleaded with the loyal citizens of
Steubenville to subscribe $20,000
in stock to re-open the old plant.
"Our views need not, therefore,
be confined to woolens ...," he
said. "Other establishments such
as Glass, Iron, Nails, etc., are much
wanted, and would afford us
not only the profit of manufactures,
which is now sent abroad,
but the means of keeping our money at
home."39 By 1833 Steu-
benville could boast of a long list of
infant industries, including a
paper mill "superior to any in the
Western Country," two woolen
factories, three carpet factories (one
on a large scale), two cotton
factories with a thousand spindles each,
three iron foundries, two
steam engine factories, a boatyard, a
brass foundry, machine shops,
flouring mills, sawmills, breweries,
tanneries, factories for making
coperas, a rope walk, a comb factory and
a chemical factory.
Fourteen of these factories used steam
power. Steubenville's pop-
ulation was 3,000.40
Scattered over the state were many
places of industrial ac-
tivity: Portsmouth, where iron forges
were early established,
Marietta, Columbiana County, the
Mahoning Valley, and Akron.
In Ashtabula County the firm of
Wilkinson and Seeley were "do-
ing a large business in the manufacture
of iron."41
Coal mining was developing rapidly in
the Mahoning and
Hocking valleys and along the Ohio
River. The Hocking Valley
development came with the construction
of a Hocking Valley
branch of the Ohio Canal. Thomas Ewing was
one of the pioneer
operators here. The mines at Chauncey
and Nelsonville (the Nel-
sonville vein) were among the richest in
the state. Ewing was
associated in the business with Samuel
F. Vinton, member of
Congress and Whig candidate for governor
in 1850,
Nicholas
Biddle, financier, and Elihu Chauncey.42
In the Mahoning Valley,
another important center of coal mining,
another prominent Whig,
David Tod of Youngstown (Briar Hill),
later to be governor
of the state, was a pioneer.
39 Ibid., June 8, 1831.
40 Niles' Register, November 30, 1833, p. 210.
41 Elisha Whittlesey to Lewis Cass, June
14, 1832, Elisha Whittlesey MSS.
(in Western Reserve Historical Society Library). At the request of William
Seeley,
Whittlesey asked for permission to erect
a warehouse at the new wharf at Cunning-
ham Creek.
42 E. O. Randall and D. J.
Ryan, History of Ohio (New York, 1912), III,
446; IV, 142.
298
OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Along the Ohio River were to be found
the most important
coal mining operations. As early as 1818
Samuel Wyllis Pomeroy,
owner of large coal interests at
Pomeroy, inquired of a Cincinnati
merchant the amount of coal used between
Pomeroy and the Falls
of the Ohio. The estimate made by this
merchant was 116,000
bushels of which nearly half was used in
Cincinnati. Most of the
coal used in Ohio during the 'twenties
and 'thirties was produced
in this Ohio River area.43
In 1838 Caleb Atwater estimated Ohio
iron production at
from seven to ten million dollars
annually.44
There is no clear evidence in the Ohio
press of any strong
protectionist sentiment before 1820.45
The local and small scale
character of Ohio industry accounts in
part for tariff interest de-
veloping more slowly in Ohio than in
Pittsburgh. In 1826 Drake
and Mansfield noticed that Cincinnatians
were complaining of the
influx
of foreign manufactured goods. This complaint
was
joined with a criticism of the Bank of
the United States which
mobilized eastern credit to encourage
the sale of eastern manu-
factures in the West.46
Facts of geography and the lines taken
by the canal develop-
ment soon showed results in a union of
Ohio interests with those
of Pittsburgh and the West. This union
of interests was espe-
cially noticeable in the agitation for
increased protection for
woolens during 1827 and 1828. The bill
carrying increased duties
on imported woolen goods passed through
the House of Repre-
sentatives in April, 1827, with
practically unanimous support from
the Ohio delegation. Only one Ohio
representative, James Find-
lay, voted against it.47 Its
defeat in the Senate by the single vote
43 Andrew Roy, "Mines and
Mining Resources of Ohio," Henry Howe, His-
torical Collections of Ohio (Cincinnati, 1908), I, 110-18.
44 Caleb Atwater, A History of the
State of Ohio, Natural and Civil (Cincin-
nati, 1838), 19.
45 Cf. Homer C. Hockett, Western Influences on Political
Parties, to 1825 (Co-
lumbus, 1917), 90. Relying on John Bach
McMaster (History of the People of the
United States. New York, 1904-13), and the speech of the Pittsburgh
representative,
Henry Baldwin, in Congress in 1820 (Annals
of Congress, 16 Cong., 1 Sess., II, p.
1916), Hockett places the
crystallization on protectionist sympathy in Ohio somewhat
earlier, during the years 1816-1820.
46 Drake and Mansfield, Cincinnati in
1826, 67-71; Cist, Cincinnati in 1841, 236-40,
found at that date that Cincinnati manufacturing,
though rivaling that of Pittsburgh
in amount, differed significantly from
that of Pittsburgh in that it was still largely
handicraft manufacturing.
47 Niles' Register, January 12, 1828, p. 317.
ECONOMIC BASIS OF OHIO POLITICS 299
of the vice president (Calhoun) caused
much excitement in Ohio.48
When a call was issued by the
Pennsylvania Society for the
Promotion of Manufactures, for a
convention to meet in Harris-
burg in the summer of 1827, the
disaffected woolen interests of
Ohio were readily aroused, and Ohio was
one of the thirteen states
to respond.49 The Ohio
delegation included Thomas Ewing,
David Begges, John McIlvain, Bezaleel
Wells, William R. Dick-
inson, James Wilson, John C. Wright, and
Jeremiah Morrow, all
of them soon to emerge as National
Republican leaders, and, later,
as Whigs. Ewing was placed on the
committee to prepare a me-
morial to Congress. The Ohio delegation
took some part in the
proceedings of the convention, but
generally seemed content to
leave matters in the hands of the
delegates from Pennsylvania,
New York and Massachusetts. The Ohio
delegates all signed the
memorial to Congress which demanded
increased duties on wool,
woolen manufactures, flax, hemp, iron
and distilled spirits.50
A resolution of the Ohio legislature in
favor of increased pro-
tective duties was transmitted to
Congress in February 1828, and
was made a part of the report of the
hearings of the Committee
on Manufactures. It called upon Congress
to grant increased
protection for the "manufacture and
production of woolen goods,
wool, iron, hemp and spirits distilled
from domestic materials."51
One of the principal witnesses who
testified before the Committee
on Manufactures in 1828 was William R.
Dickinson, of Steuben-
ville.52
In the debate on the tariff bill of
1828, wool and woolen
goods was one of the chief objects of
attention. New York, Penn-
sylvania, and Massachusetts took the
lead in the debate in the
House of Representatives, defending the
provisions of the bill,
which were virtually the provisions
asked for by the Harrisburg
convention of the previous summer. Ohio
took some part in the
debate, however, and the speech of John
C. Wright on April 2,
attracted considerable attention. Wright
took the extreme ground
48 Ibid., April 14, 1827, p. 119.
49
Arthur H. Cole, American Wool Manufacture (Cambridge, 1926), I, 168.
50 Proceedings of the convention, in Niles'
Register, August 11, 1827, p. 388-96.
51 American State Papers (Washington, 1832-61), Finance, V, 884-7.
52 Ibid., 800-2, 822-3.
300 OHIO
ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
of demanding a duty which would have excluded all raw
wool
and most woolen manufactures.53 When the
bill came to a vote,
practically the entire Ohio delegation voted for it,
irrespective of
party lines.54
Interest in manufacturing and the tariff seems to have
been
reflected in the Ohio vote in presidential elections.
The table
which follows shows the result in these elections in
the eight coun-
ties of the state which led in volume of manufactures.
They
all show a strong following for the Clay-Adams-National
Repub-
ican-Whig line of party development, which stood for
the protec-
tion of manufactures. In Montgomery and Hamilton
counties the
interest was strong enough to build a very strong
minority vote
in a region where the rural vote, because of its
geographic origin
(the population came principally from Virginia and
Kentucky)
was likely to be pro-Jackson. The tariff issue was
obscured of
course, in the elections of 1824, 1828, and 1832, by
Jackson's
straddling (1824, 1828), and by the question of South
Carolina's
opposition to the Tariff of 1832. But both counties
gave increas-
ingly strong support to the party advocating
protectionism in the
elections of 1836 and 1840.
WHIG VOTE IN LEADING MANUFACTURING COUNTIES,
1824-184055
Per Cent
Capital of
Total Vote
County
Invested 1824 1832 1836 1840
Hamilton .......... $7,792,312 Jackson .42 .45 Whig
Summit56
.......... 543,019 Clay .62 .55 Whig
Montgomery ....... 423,160 Jackson .51 .53 Whig
Franklin ........... 391,770 Clay .56 .61 Whig
Muskingum ........ 388,898 Clay .52 .62 Whig
Columbiana ........ 346,737 Jackson .42 .47 Whig
Licking............ 319,565 Clay .45 .45 Dem.
Stark
.............. 314,099 Clay .44 .45 Dem.
Roads and Canals.
Twenty years after the admission of Ohio into the Union
there was still such a total lack of roads and of all
other means
53 Cong.
Debates, 20 Cong., 1 Sess., IV, p. 1729-95, p. 1835-1907, p. 1923-43.
54 Ibid., 2471.
55 Compendium
of Sixth Census, 1840; Whig Almanacs, 1836-56 (New York,
1836-56).
56 Until 1840 Summit County was part of Portage.
Election results, accord-
ingly, are for Portage County during these years.
ECONOMIC BASIS OF OHIO POLITICS 301
of communication as is scarcely
believable. There was only one
turnpike completed in the state by 1826,
the one from Ashtabula
to Warren. Others were projected from
Cleveland to Wooster,
and from Cleveland to the Ohio River,
through Ravenna. The
National Road was constructed thirty
miles west of Wheeling.
Twenty-eight miles more were under
contract.57
The completion of the Erie Canal, and
Governor DeWitt
Clinton's visit to Ohio aroused enthusiasm
for the construction
of canals. Clay's American System held
out the hope of national
aid for internal improvements in the
West. Somewhat later, his
proposal to distribute the proceeds from
the sale of western lands
held out much the same hope. In 1824 and
1828 Jackson was
thought also to favor internal
improvements. John Quincy Adams'
silence on the question cost him many
votes, though he, too, was
thought to be more favorable than
otherwise.58
From the point of view of Ohio in
national politics there was
no other question fraught with as much
significance as that of
the direction in which routes of
transportation out of the state
should be developed. If the
transportation system were to be
developed along the natural route of the
Ohio-Mississippi, Ohio's
political interest would probably join
with the South. If trans-
portation were to develop chiefly along
east and west lines, the
inevitable result would be a political
alliance with the East.
The three main natural avenues of
approach to Ohio were:
the Ohio-Mississippi system, the Great
Lakes, with an eastern out-
let through the Erie Canal, and the
routes from Philadelphia and
Baltimore, which converged on
Pittsburgh, or led to the Ohio
River towns farther south. Ohio's close
balance between national
and sectional interests is probably due
to the fact that she devel-
oped, to some extent at least, each of
the three lines of trans-
portation.
The fact that the divides between the
three natural routes are
often so inconspicuous as fairly to
invite artificial connections
assisted in giving a national turn to
Ohio's political character dur-
57 Drake and Mansfield, Cincinnati in 1826, 12-13.
58 See
author's discussion of this question in unpublished doctoral disserta-
tion, Economic and Social Basis of the
Whig Party in Ohio, Western Reserve Uni-
versity, 1933; cf. also Roseboom,
"Ohio in the Election of 1824," 205-14.
302
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
ing the period of the formation of the
Whig party. It continued
to represent a balance between eastern,
southern and western in-
terests, until the steam railroad
definitely swung the balance toward
the East after 1850. The way in which
this equilibrium of eco-
nomic interests worked out may be seen
more specifically by look-
ing at the transportation needs and
desires of several sections of
the state.59
In the Western Reserve, interest in
internal improvements
centered around the harbors on Lake
Erie, the Ohio Canal from
Cleveland to Portsmouth, and the
Pennsylvania-Ohio Canal from
Akron to Pittsburgh.
A letter from Elisha Whittlesey, member
of Congress from
Canfield, Ohio, to the firm of Hubbard
and Fields, shows the in-
terest that Whittlesey had taken, as a
representative of this section
in Congress, in getting appropriations
for harbors at the mouths
of the Grand River and the Huron River.60
He was besieged
with constant requests for federal aid
to improve the harbor at
Cunningham Creek (Madison).61 Whittlesey
interested himself
in having the appropriations for
lighthouses and harbors go from
the Secretary of War directly to the
Committee on Ways and
Means, rather than to the Committee on
Commerce or the Com-
mittee on Roads and Canals, because in
either of the latter they
might expect to meet with "sturdy
opposition."62
Prior to October I, 1832, the
Federal Government had spent
upon harbor improvements and lighthouses
on Lake Erie the sum
of $363,453. This was distributed
between Erie, Madison, Con-
neaut, Ashtabula, Grand River,
Cleveland, and Huron River.
Large expenditures continued to be made
after 1832.63 The effect
of these improvements is seen in imports
and exports at Ashta-
bula, where the exports consisting of
flour, window glass, whis-
59 On this question see Way, "Mississippi Valley and Internal
Improvements";
Ellen C. Semple, American History and
Its Geographic Conditions (New York and
Boston, 1903), Chap. I.
60 Whittlesey to Hubbard and Fields,
September 28, 1831, Whittlesey MSS.
61 See especially Q. F. Atkins to Whittlesey, January 21, 1835, ibid.
62 Whittlesey
to Cass, September 3, 1833, ibid. See also Niles' Register, April
7,
1832, p. 93, where Whittlesey's work in
obtaining Congressional appropriations for
Lake harbors is commented upon.
63 Niles' Register, August 10, 1833, p. 394.
ECONOMIC BASIS OF OHIO POLITICS 303
key, cheese, butter, ashes, beef and
pork, amounted to $69,854 in
1831; imports were $132,000.64
The Western Reserve was vitally
interested in the Ohio Canal.
By 1827 the first canal boats were
running from Akron to Cleve-
land.65 Between July and
December of that year canal boats
brought to Cleveland flour to the extent
of 6059 barrels, 619
barrels of whiskey, 102 tons of tobacco, fifty tons of butter,
twenty-eight tons of cheese, and other
produce to total 992 tons.
Shipments south from Cleveland during
the same period were:
3,536 barrels of salt, 393 barrels of
fish, and 233 tons of merchan-
dise.66 The canal areas had a
rapid influx of population. Within
two weeks in 1829, 600 people arrived in
Cleveland to settle in
adjacent counties.67
By 1831 this commerce had made still
more remarkable gains.
Prior to May 15 of that year, 13,034
bushels of wheat and 15,223
barrels of flour arrived in Cleveland
from the interior of the
state.68 During June over
eight million pounds of goods arrived
by canal, and more than two million
pounds left Cleveland for the
interior.69 The total number
of vessels arriving at Cleveland in-
creased from 75 in 1825 to 1070
in 1832. The exports increased
from $50,166 in 1825 to over $2,000,000 in 1833,
and the im-
ports from $132,645 to over $4,700,000.70
This growing com-
merce constantly occupied Whittlesey's
attention, and he was as-
siduous in impressing upon officials at
Washington the consequent
need for improved harbor facilities in
Cleveland. Needless to say,
he was an enthusiastic advocate of the
canal program.71
The Western Reserve also had its own
particular interest in
the Pennsylvania-Ohio Canal, connecting
the Ohio Canal at Akron,
with the Beaver River and Pittsburgh.
James Shriver made a
64 Ibid., April
7, 1832, p. 93.
65 On Ohio canals see especially C. C.
Huntington and C. P. McClelland,
Ohio Canals, Their Construction,
Cost, Use and Partial Abandonment (Columbus,
1905); and Bogart, Internal
Improvements.
66 George White Dial, "Construction
of Ohio Canals," Ohio Archaeological and
Historical Quarterly, XIII (1904), 460-81.
67 Cleveland Herald, quoted in Niles' Register, January 19,
1828, p. 332.
68 Ibid., June
18, July 16, 1831, p. 281, 344.
69 Ibid., August
6, 1831, p. 405.
70 Ohio State Journal, September 28, 1833; see also Whittlesey's report to
House
of Representatives, where additional but
similar figures are shown, in Niles' Register,
August 9, 1834, p. 396. Data is taken
from reports of the collector of the port at
Cleveland.
71 Whittlesey to Louis McLane, April
13, 1833, Whittlesey MSS.
304
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
preliminary survey of the region in 1823
for the Chesapeake and
Ohio Canal.72 As plans for
the Ohio Canal went forward, a con-
necting link, to join the canal with
Pittsburgh, was urged as a
means of giving Pittsburgh cheap access
to the copper deposits
of the Lake Superior region, as well as
access to Cleveland and
the interior of Ohio. It was claimed
that the interior of the state
could be reached, by such a canal, six
weeks earlier in the year
than the opening of navigation on Lake
Erie.73 Whittlesey
thought it would revolutionize trade in
the West. Merchants at
Green Bay and Chicago would have their
goods on the shelves
before a vessel could leave Buffalo.74
In 1825 and 1826 popular
meetings were held in many places
in the Western Reserve to urge the
building of the canal.75 The
state legislature authorized a survey
and later subscribed to a third
of the stock.76 The Canal
Commissioners of Pennsylvania agreed
to co-operate,77 and the Ohio
General Assembly petitioned Con-
gress for a land grant to aid in
construction. Whittlesey pre-
sented the petition, but the request
apparently was never granted.78
Capital to construct the canal was
finally borrowed, for the most
part, in Philadelphia.79
The Scioto River district was interested
in a comprehensive
system of transportation for eastern
Ohio, of which the Ohio
Canal should be the basis. Increase in
the price of wheat in Cen-
tral Ohio from twenty or thirty cents in
1823 to
fifty or seventy-
five cents in 1832, was explained as due
entirely to the canal, and
the increase in the price of corn from
ten or twelve and a half
cents in 1823, to thirty-seven cents in 1832, likewise.80 Imported
72 James Shriver, An Account of
Surveys and Examinations (Baltimore, 1824).
See also the author's Pennsylvania-Ohio
Canal, Hiram Historical Society, Publications
(Hiram, Ohio, 1929).
73 See Ravenna Western Courier, May
20, 1826.
74 Whittlesey to Hon. J. B. Sutherland,
December 7, 1835, Whittlesey MSS.
75 Western Courier, May 20, September 10, 17, 1825, February 25,
March 11,
April 1, November 3, December 23,
1826, and passim.
76 See resolution in John Kilbourne, Public
Documents concerning Ohio Canals
(Columbus, 1832); Ohio Board of Canal
Commissioners, Special Report, February 6,
1839. See also Ohio State Journal, December
16, 1829.
77 Western Courier, July 3, 1829.
78 Ohio State Journal, March 8,
April 5, 1834. In this connection the Congres-
sional grant of 500,000 acres of land to
Ohio for general purposes in 1828 should be
noted. See T. C. Donaldson, Public
Domain (Washington, 1884), 258.
79 Canton (Ohio) Repository, quoted ibid., June 6, 1835; see
also Whittlesey
to John Sargent, September 19, 1833,
Whittlesey MSS.
80 Ohio Board of Canal Commissioners, Report,
1833; Ohio General Assembly,
House, Journal, 1883, p. 329,
cited in Bogart, Internal Improvements, 84.
ECONOMIC BASIS OF OHIO POLITICS 305
articles like salt decreased
correspondingly in price. The Scioto
Gazette claimed the Ohio Canal had reduced the price of salt
from
eighty-seven to fifty cents per
bushel.81
The Scioto Valley was also interested in
the branch lines
running east and west to connect the
Ohio Canal with the National
Road and with the Pennsylvania system,
leading to Philadelphia.
Their interest also ran to the
construction of turnpikes, such as
the Columbus-Portsmouth road launched in
1839.82
What Steubenville wanted was roads,
bridges, and (later)
railroads. The Steubenville Herald pointed
out in 1837 that eight
million dollars had been spent by the
state for internal improve-
ments, of which the counties of
Jefferson, Columbiana, Carroll
and Harrison were contributing about one
million, in taxes and
in their share of the surplus. And yet,
said the Herald, "not one
of the counties is touched or reached by
any improvement yet
authorized."83 Bridges and roads would facilitate the mail, and
open up the country to the railroads
approaching Wheeling and
Wellsville (1837). Steubenville had a
grievance.
Marietta, too, found her interests
running counter to those
of the rest of the state. She hoped, at
first, for a connection
with the Ohio Canal by way of the
Muskingum River, but her
hope was not realized. Her interest in
the canal program de-
clined accordingly, and during the
'thirties this decline of interest
can be followed in a growing coldness manifested
by the American
Friend and Marietta Gazette ward the canal program, although
the paper continued to support first the
National Republican, and
later the Whig party. But Marietta was
clearly interested in the
Ohio River and its development, and was
attached economically to
the river towns and especially
Pittsburgh.84
The Miami Valley had its own peculiar
interests centering in
the Ohio River, the Miami Canal, and in
north and south high-
ways. Cincinnati, as a great center of
manufacturing, was in-
81 Chillicothe Scioto Gazette, quoted
in Niles' Register, December 10, 1831, p. 266.
82 Way, "Mississippi Valley and Internal
Improvements," 159; Scioto Gazette,
May 16, 1839; for interest in Killbuck
River (Coshocton) extension see Whittlesey
to C. C. Cambrelling, December 26, 1835,
Whittlesey MSS.
83 Steubenville Herald, January 4, 1837; reprinted in Ohio State
Journal, Jan-
uary 27, 1837.
84 American Friend and Marietta
Gazette, June 23, 1832, and passim.
306 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND
HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
terested in measures to promote her sale
of machinery, tools, and
other goods, to the regions south and
southwest. She was be-
coming an important center of commerce,
the largest city west
of Pittsburgh, and the center of the
meat-packing industry of
the country. The trade in pork alone
amounted to over $600,000
in one year, with prices doubling and
tripling between 1824
and 1831.85
During the period of canal construction
Cincinnati continued
to be vitally interested in the Ohio
River trade. In 1831 Niles'
Register reported sixteen steamboats in the port at Cincinnati
on
March 1. Thirteen had arrived and
seven departed during the
four preceding days. Eight large boats
arrived from New Orleans
in one day. A dozen boats stopped there
daily.86 Charles Cist
reported thirty-three boats, totaling
5361 tons, were built in Cin-
cinnati during the year 1840.87
The chief obstacle to navigation of the
Ohio River was the
falls near Louisville, and Cincinnati
was vitally interested in the
plan to eliminate this obstacle with a
canal around the falls--
the Louisville-Portland Canal. The rich
bluegrass region around
Lexington was naturally part of the
Cincinnati hinterland, and
she was vitally concerned with such
proposals as the Maysville-
Lexington turnpike. To the north of
Cincinnati was a vast hinter-
land, much of it undeveloped. This area
Cincinnati hoped to
open up by means of the Miami Canal.88
The effect of the Miami Canal on
Cincinnati's trade was
electric. In the first year (1829)
between March 5 and May 26,
goods valued at $778,342 passed through
the terminal at Cin-
cinnati.89 The economic
effect is shown further by the increase
of exports from around one million
dollars in 1826 to four mil-
lions in 1832 and to six millions in
1835. Cincinnati's growth in
population was just as striking:
85 Public letter, Harrison to Calhoun.
See also article in Niles' Register, July
30, 1836, p. 363.
86 Ibid., March 19, 1831, p. 52.
87 Cist, Cincinnati in 1841, 255.
88 D. Wade, open letter to constituents (first electoral district),
Cincinnati,
July, 1830, in Niles' Register, August
14, 1830, p. 439-41; Dial, "Construction of
Ohio Canals," 473.
89 Niles'
Register, August 6, 1831, p. 405.
ECONOMIC BASIS
OF OHIO POLITICS 307
1810 ................................... 2,320
1819 ................................... 10,000
1824 ................................... 12,016
1826
................................... 16,230
1835
................................... 31,000
1840
................................... 46,38290
The political
significance of this program of internal im-
provements for
the state as a whole appears in many ways. Real
estate in the
canal counties doubled in value in less than ten
years,91
giving to the owners of this property a vested interest in
the canal
program. They became vitally concerned in its success-
ful operation
and maintenance. The population of the canal cities
increased from
five to twenty times during the period 1820
to
1840,92 giving
them, too, a vital interest in the canal program.
Cincinnati
real estate was increasing in value at an enormous
rate.93 All along the canal in centers like
Akron, Massillon, New
Philadelphia,
Columbus (with its feeder canal), Coshocton,
Newark,
Chillicothe, and Portsmouth, young industries sprang
up, destined
to meet with serious competition from the cheap
manufactured
goods which the canals brought in.94
Ohio's credit,
to the extent of five million dollars in 1833,
was pledged
for the construction of canals,95 while the total
amount of
fluid capital in the state (merchants' and brokers'
capital, and
money at interest), according to the state auditor,
was only $7,296,122.96 Most of the capital for the construction
of the canals
was borrowed in the East, especially in Philadelphia.
The effect was
to give eastern capital a direct influence on the
economic
development of the state, and to establish many eco-
nomic ties
between eastern capitalists and the leaders of the Ohio
90 Ibid., July 30, 1836, p. 363; Ohio State
Journal, March 1, 1836; Cist, Cincin-
nati in 1841, 35-9.
91 Huntington and McClelland, Ohio Canals, 122-3;
Bogart, Internal Improve-
ments, 82.
92 Ibid., 81.
93 See Niles' Register, July 16, 1831, July 20,
1833, and passim.
94 Cf. Dial, "Construction of Ohio
Canals"; Bogart, Internal Improvements,
passim. The Portage Canal and Manufacturing Company at Portage
near Akron,
and the
Franklin Silk and Manufacturing Co., at Franklin Mills, now Kent, Ohio,
both chartered
in 1837, are typical examples of mushroom industries along the
Pennsylvania-Ohio
Canal. See also Christian Cackler, Recollections
of an Old
Settler (Kent, 1904), and the Charter of the Portage Canal
and Manufacturing Com-
pany (New York, 1837), in the Western Reserve Historical
Society Library.
95 Ashtabula Sentinel,
April 20. 1833. The total amount including later expendi-
tures was
$14,340,572.59; Dial, "Construction of Ohio Canals," 478.
96 Niles' Register, February 9, 1833.
308 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND
HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
canal program. This situation produced
two definite results. It
brought Ohio and the East together
economically and politically,
and it brought home to those people and
those districts having
vested interests in the canals, the fact
that the leaders in the canal
program, the men upon whom they depended
for access to eastern
capital, such as Alfred Kelley, Simon
Perkins, and Elisha Whit-
tlesey, were largely leaders of the
National Republican party, and,
later, of the Whig party in the state.
It was not surprising that the New York
and Ohio line
should have advertised on September 2,
1840,
that they "will
transport, free of charge, all persons
who may wish to attend
the celebration at Chillicothe [Whig
Convention] on the 17th and
18th of this month."97 Nor is it
surprising that the first boats
to reach Ravenna over the
Pennsylvania-Ohio Canal (completed
in 1840) should have carried delegates
to a Whig convention.98
Financial Problems.
Attention was called earlier to the
notable lack of currency
in early Ohio, and to its effect in
directing trade into those chan-
nels which tended to bring currency into
the state. The lack of
currency was paralleled by a lack of
capital, likewise characteristic
of a frontier community. Efforts to
repair these two defects by
artificial means fill the early
legislative history of the state.
Futility is the outstanding
characteristic of the efforts, for the
defects were such as demanded chiefly
time and the accumulation
of the fruits of industry for their
remedy. There was, however,
all of the time, a party, usually small,
which recognized that legis-
lation could do little to affect this
economic situation, except
through providing for sound banking, and
a sound currency.
These men were to be found, for the most
part, in the National
Republican ranks, and later in the Whig
party. They were, in-
evitably, a minority in either party,
but managed, often, to wield
an influence out of proportion to their
numbers.
During the years immediately following
1820 and
up to about
1825,
Ohio and the western country in general
were passing
97 Scioto Gazette, September 10,
1840.
98 Ohio Star, April 9, 1840.
ECONOMIC BASIS OF OHIO POLITICS 309
through a period of credit contraction
and depression after the
expansion and inflation in the years 1815-1819. Immigration fell
off in a marked fashion. Prices,
especially those of staple products,
declined rapidly. Wheat in Dayton fell
from one dollar a bushel
in 1817 to twenty cents in 1822.99
The change in prices, and the
general economic distress, bore heavily
upon the farmers who had
recently moved into Ohio and were
engaged in paying for their
lands out of the profits of their
industry. A large portion of the
population of the state found itself in
this debtor relationship.
The problem became so acute that the
services of Jacob Burnet,
prominent political leader of
Cincinnati, were enlisted to work
out a plan of relief.100
The distress was blamed on the newly
created branch of the
Bank of the United States, located at
Cincinnati, for the policies
of deflation and contraction of credit
inaugurated in 1818 under
orders from the parent bank. These
policies did have, undeniably,
the effect of draining off large amounts
of specie from the state
($800,000 between June, 1818 and June,
1819).101 The chaos
resulting may be judged from the fact
that the total specie re-
serves of state banks in Ohio on January
1, 1819, as reported to
a legislative committee, was only
$459,528.102
The fears of business and financial
leaders are perhaps well
represented by a letter from Gorham A.
Worth, cashier of the
Cincinnati branch of the Bank of the
United States, written in
1820 to a business friend:
All things are changed, the rich have
become poor, and the poor dis-
trust, one universal state of
embarrasment [sic] exists; ['] tis want, and
fear and prosecution and suspicion and
terror and dismay and bankruptcy
and pauperism on all sides and on all
hands.
The wealthiest are considered as ruined,
and security by mortgage or
judgment required from men who would
have spurned the proposal and the
proposer with disdain and contempt 2 years ago.103
99 History of Montgomery County, Ohio
(Chicago, 1882), 343, cited in C. C. Hunt-
ington, "History of Banking and
Currency in Ohio before the Civil War," Ohio
Archaeological and Historical
Quarterly, XXIV (1915), 298.
100 Cf. ibid., 299-300; Biographical
Encyclopedia of Ohio (Cincinnati, 1876), 420-3;
Sketches of Eminent Americans, 265-73 (an unidentified and seemingly anonymous
reprint in Western Reserve Historical
Society Library); Dictionary of American
Biography, III, 294.
101 Niles'
Register, June 26, 1819.
102 Huntington, "History of Banking and
Currency," 290-2, 297, 303.
103 Gorham A. Worth to Thomas Sloo, Jr.,
August 2, 1820, in I. J. Cox, ed.,
"Selections from the Torrence
Papers," Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio,
Quarterly Publications (Cincinnati, 1906-), VI (1911), 32-4.
310 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND
HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
This situation inevitably made the Bank
an issue in the elec-
tion of 1819. William Henry
Harrison, candidate for state
senator from Cincinnati joined in the hue and cry,104 and Ohio
embarked on a campaign to kill the Bank,
first by taxation, and
later, by the Act of 1821, declaring the
Bank outside the protec-
tion of Ohio laws. The Kentucky and
Virginia Resolutions of
1789 were revived and endorsed.105 Ohio
acquiesced in the ad-
verse decision by the Supreme Court in
1824, but the feeling
against the Bank did not die easily. It
was later to be a source
of powerful support for the Jackson
party in Ohio, and it un-
doubtedly weakened the prestige of Clay
and Webster in the
state, because of their defense of the
Bank in the case of Osborn
v. United States Bank.106
The number of chartered banks in Ohio
fell from twenty-
one in 1817 to eleven in 1830.
Capitalization fell off fifty per cent:
from slightly under three millions in
1816 to less than a million
and a half dollars in 1830.107 In
Cincinnati the situation became
markedly acute. Three chartered banks
and one large private
(unchartered) banking house (Piatt's
Bank) in Cincinnati went
down in the general disaster. In 1826
Cincinnati had no bank
but the branch of the United States
Bank.108 Money was in great
demand with interest rates ranging from
ten per cent to thirty-
six per cent.109 Even as late
as the summer of 1832 recovery
was far from complete. By that time one
additional bank had
been established, with the rather small
capitalization of $500,000.
Interest on first mortgages ranged from
twelve to fifteen per cent
and brokers got one-quarter per cent per
day. A Cincinnati dis-
patch to the New York Courier and
Enquirer, copied in Niles'
Register,110 concluded: "God only knows what will become of
104 Niles'
Register, October 30, 1819.
105 See Salmon P. Chase, Revised Statutes of Ohio (Cincinnati,
1833-35), II,
p. 1185.
106 See Randall and Ryan, History of
Ohio, III, 311-31; IV, 493-4. An act
passed March 14, 1836, which prohibited
within the state "any branch, office, or
agency of the United States Bank,"
indicates how far this feeling against the
Bank still existed, and its
potentialities for exploitation by the leaders of Jacksonism.
107 Huntington, "History of Banking and Currency," 350.
108 Ibid., 342, 346.
109 Cist, Cincinnati in 1826, quoted
ibid., 342-3.
110 Niles' Register, August 18, 1832, p. 436.
ECONOMIC BASIS OF OHIO POLITICS 311
those who have extended their business
on the presumed stability
of our currency."
One notable factor which contributed to
easing the situation
in Ohio after 1825 was the floating,
largely in New York City,
of the issues of state securities for
the canals. These issues, most
of which were sold in the East, brought
a considerable supply of
good money into Ohio. Most of the money
was spent for labor
within the state, and this increased,
directly, the amount of money
in circulation. Although it did not
directly increase the fluid
capital available for financial,
commercial, and industrial trans-
actions, it worked indirectly in that
direction in two ways. (1)
The increase in the money supply eased
the pressure on banks
and made it possible for them to follow
a less restrictive policy,
for the money represented by these state
loans was disbursed
through the state banks. (2) The good reputation of the state
loans, and the generally sound character
of the administration of
the financial matters connected with
canal building in Ohio en-
couraged investment by eastern
capitalists in Ohio industries, and
in Ohio land.111
The handicaps under which Ohio labored
to secure a satis-
factory financial structure for the
state appeared most clearly
in the long effort to establish a state
bank. It was an effort
backed by a minority party, and met with
no success during the
period of this study. No state bank was
established in Ohio
until after 1840. But the
movement was a strong, persistent and
notable one, including, as it did,
several proposals which throw
much light on financial as well as
political conditions of the times.
Under the bonus law of 1815 the state
became a partner in
all banking enterprises chartered in the
state. In 1817 the Ohio
legislature was discussing the
advisability of merging all the
chartered banks into one state bank. No
favorable action was
taken.112 The depression of
1819 and the early 'twenties, and
the general breakdown of the banking
system of the state, caused
111 Huntington and McClelland, "Ohio Canals," 69. The total loans
from 1825
to 1839 to the state of Ohio were
$9,446,123, on which premiums netted $581,013.25;
Bogart, Internal Improvements, 22,
31, 34. (Loans to 1832 totaled $4,500,000); Davis
R. Dewey, Financial History of the
United States (New York, 1931), 244-5.
112 Huntington, "History of Banking and Currency," 284.
312 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND
HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
renewed attention to be given to the
question. In 1829 a legislative
committee recommended a state bank, but
no action was taken.113
In 1832
Jackson's veto of the bill re-chartering
the Bank
of the United States started a long
argument about banking
throughout the Nation. The Jacksonian
governor of Ohio, Robert
Lucas, elected in 1832, in his
inaugural address urged a state
bank. "I am led," he said,
"to the conclusion that this is a time
peculiarly suitable for the
establishment of a State Bank. I have
always thought our present banking
system objectionable."114
The senate committee of which Thomas
Morris (Jacksonian) was
chairman soon reported out a bill to
establish a state bank.115
This committee reported that the actual
banking capital employed
by local banks in the state was two
million dollars, whereas the
amount actually needed was from eight to
ten millions.
The plan proposed a state bank to merge
all the local
chartered banks. Subscriptions to stock
were to be secured by
mortgages on real estate, and only
residents of Ohio, owning real
property in the state, might become
stockholders. The state was
to finance the bank by selling
$1,000,000 of its bonds (presumably
in the eastern money markets), secured
by the mortgages given
for stock subscriptions. The state was
to receive one-sixth of
the profits.116
The proposal illustrates clearly the
crux of the problem. Ohio
was no exception to the strong western
pressure for inflation.
Lax banking laws permitted the operation
of many private banks
not authorized by the state, and
permitted banks operating under
state charters to issue paper against
their general assets, without
any provision for adequate reserves. Yet
even with this lax
regulation, expansion of issues could
not proceed very far with-
out a corresponding increase of
available banking capital. And
that capital had to come from outside
the state, for most of the
state's wealth consisted of land and
improvements.117 It was
113 Ibid., 344.
114 Ohio State Journal, December 8, 1832.
115 Ibid., December 29, 1832.
116 Ibid., February 6, December
29, 1832. Cf. Huntington,
"History of Bank-
ing and Currency," 365.
117 Appraised at slightly over
$47,000,000 in 1827, and at $49,423,985 in 1829.
Ohio State Journal, January 2, 1828, December 19, 1829. Merchant's capital
was
appraised at $3,334,878 in 1827 and at
$3,940,156 in 1839. Capital invested in manu-
ECONOMIC BASIS OF OHIO POLITICS 313
estimated in 1833 that out of $4,730,000
banking capital employed
in Ohio, only $1,380,000 represented capital investments by Ohio
citizens.118 If the truth were known, probably only
a part of
this latter amount really represented
fluid capital owned by Ohio
citizens. A large part of it undoubtedly
represented real estate
mortgages or personal notes of the
shareholders. Most of the
capital subscribed to the Ohio Life
Insurance and Trust Com-
pany of Cincinnati the next year (1834)
came from the East.119
The history of the bank question during
the years 1820-1840,
too long and involved for any thorough
consideration here, shows
the constant presence of a group,
probably representing mer-
chants, land agents, manufacturers,
prosperous farmers and
professional men, who realized the
necessity of eastern capital to
develop the financial system of the
state. They saw that a neces-
sary prerequisite was a satisfactory
legal basis for banking, so
that capital might move with some
security into the state. Mes-
sages of governors, National Republican,
Democratic, and Whig
alike, steadily urged this need upon the
legislature.120
Those citizens of the state who took the
lead in working out
the state's financial problems tended to
become its political leaders
as well. It was no accident that Alfred
Kelley, the commissioner
of the Canal Fund who was most active in
administering the
finances of the canals, should have
been, also, the author of the
bank bill of 1845, which formed the
basis of Ohio's banking
system for twenty years. Nor was it a
simple coincidence that
Kelley, who had been president of the
Commercial Bank of Lake
Erie in Cleveland when it failed in the
crisis of 1818-19,121 should
have become one of the most prominent
and influential Ohio
Whigs. Nor that Elisha Whittlesey, a
prominent Whig leader in
the Western Reserve, should have been
attorney for the Western
Reserve Bank, and closely associated
with Kelley, and with Simon
facturing was not taxed. The 1840 Census
estimated something over sixteen million
dollars invested in manufacturing. (See
above.) In 1827-29 it must have been con-
siderably less than half that amount.
118 Columbus Ohio Monitor, December
12, 19, 1833, quoted in Huntington,
"History of Banking and
Currency," 366.
119 Whittlesey to John Wakeman, August
14, 1834, Whittlesey MSS.; id. to id.,
June 11, 1835, ibid. Whittlesey
estimated that $1,500,000 of the stock went to eastern
capitalists and $500,000 to Ohio
investors.
120 Ohio State Journal, December
7, 1832, December 4, 1833, and passim.
121 Huntington, "History of
Banking and Currency," 275-362.
314
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Perkins, who was the representative of
huge land-owning interests
in the state, a banker of more than
local importance, and a leader
with Kelley in the financing of the
canals. Men like Kelley,
Perkins, and Whittlesey were the natural
leaders, particularly of
those classes whose business interests
gave them a feeling of con-
cern for the financial life of the
state.122
This is the background of the banking
question as it relates
to politics in Ohio. When Jackson's
attack on the Bank of the
United States came, it met with an
enthusiastic response in many
places in the state, for Ohio's fight
against the branch bank was
still fresh in everyone's mind. It was a
rather general opinion
that the Bank of the United States had
helped to bring on the
crash of 1818-19. The report of the
congressional investigating
committee in 1832, that over twenty-two
million dollars in specie
had been drawn from southern and western
offices of the Bank to
the parent bank, between 1820 and 1832,
whereas less than a
million had moved in the opposite
direction, was well calculated
to appeal to Ohio feeling, and to that
of Cincinnati in particular.123
In general, the Jacksonian argument was
demagogic, appeal-
ing to a suspicion of all large
financial organizations. In Ohio
this feeling was strong enough that even
the substitute for the
Bank of the United States, proposed by
Jackson in his first
message to Congress,124 met
with little enthusiasm in Ohio.125
The state legislature, as already
observed, turned down the pro-
posal of the Jacksonian governor, Robert
Lucas, for a state bank.
Ohio's own large bank, the Ohio Life
Insurance and Trust Com-
pany, chartered in 1834, largely to take
over the business of the
Bank of the United States in Ohio, soon
came in for the same
criticism, that of being a dangerous
monopoly. At the end of
two years this bank had outstanding
loans on real estate mortgages
to the extent of $4,338,114, an amount
which represented from
a tenth to a twelfth of the appraised
value of real estate in the
122 Atkins to Whittlesey, July 21, 1834,
Whittlesey MSS. The Whittlesey
papers and the Simon Perkins papers,
both in the Western Reserve Historical Society
library, furnish abundant evidence on
this point.
123 Cincinnati Chronicle, article reprinted in Ohio State Journal
May 19, 1832.
124 J. D. Richardson. comp., A
Compilation of the Messages and Letters of the
Presidents (Washington, 1901-02), 11, 462.
125 Western Herald and Steubenville
Gazette, January 12, 1831; Dewey, Financial
History, 200-3; Huntington, "History of Banking and
Currency."
ECONOMIC BASIS OF OHIO POLITICS 315
state.l26 The Columbus Ohio
Monitor was alarmed because most
of the stock was owned by the "Wall
Street gentry of New
York."127
The bank was attacked bitterly by
Benjamin Tappan, United
States Senator (Jacksonian) from
Steubenville, in 1835. His
principal objection was that the Ohio
Life Insurance and Trust
Company numbered among its trustees such
prominent Ohio
Whigs as Alfred Kelley, Jacob Burnet,
Simon Perkins, Elisha
Whittlesey, and Edward King.128 It
is interesting to note, how-
ever, that when a bill to repeal the
charter of the company came
to a vote, action was postponed
indefinitely, in a Jacksonian legis-
lature by a vote of forty to
twenty-seven, although the bill was
supported by most of the Jacksonian
papers in the state.l29 It
is probable that Ohio was not as much
opposed to banking
monopolies as to the banks which brought
on hard times. It is
probable, also, that the Jacksonian
leaders, while ready to exploit
anti-bank feeling in the state, were not
willing to allow mass feel-
ing to dictate financial legislation.
The political significance of this
anti-bank feeling in Ohio
appeared more clearly in the election of
1832. An anti-Jackson
state legislature refused to pass a
resolution to support the Bank
of the United States, although the
leadership of the National Re-
publican party had committed themselves
to the fight for recharter-
ing the Bank.l30 Moreover,
the Bank question was a serious
factor in Clay's defeat in Ohio.
Land Speculation.
One further economic element of
considerable political sig-
nificance in Ohio remains to be
mentioned. That is the speculation
in land. During the 'twenties and
'thirties public lands in Ohio,
126 Scioto Gazette, January 20, 1836. Cf. Ohio State Journal, passing
references
in 1836. See also Micajah T. Williams to
Whittlesey, February 15, 1838, Whit-
tlesey MSS.
127 Ohio
Monitor, March 14, 1836.
128 Whittlesey to Simon G. Perkins, October 8, 1834, Whittlesey MSS.; id.
to Williams, August 3, 1835, ibid. At
least one prominent Ohio Jacksonian, David
T. Disney, was on the board of trustees,
with the expressed approval of the Whig
members. Williams to Whittlesey, January
5, 1835, Whittlesey MSS. Williams, him-
self, was a renegade Jacksonian.
129 Huntington, "History of Banking
and Currency," 371. The Ohio State
Journal too was rather critical of the bank at this time. See Ohio
State Journal
for 1836, passim.
130 Ibid., January
18, February 2, 18, May 19, 26, 1832.
316 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
especially in the northwestern part of
the state, were being sold
rapidly. The population of the state
nearly doubled during the
decade 1820 to 1830, in spite
of the relative slowing down in the
rate of increase from the
"boom" years of 1818-19.
Land sales proceeded slowly during the 1820's, in spite of
the reduction of the price to $1.25 under the Act
of 1820.131 Land
sold in the Western Reserve as low as
forty cents, and ninety
cents to a dollar was a common price
throughout the state.132
During the 'thirties, however, the mania
for land speculation re-
curred and developed to an unprecedented
degree. The market
price of land was frequently high above
the price at which govern-
ment land was sold. Even so conservative
a man as Whittlesey
was carried away by the speculative
fever in 1835 and 1836. Al-
though he speculated for the most part
with the money of his
friend, John M. Clayton, member of
Congress from Dover,
Delaware, he was nevertheless finally
involved almost beyond his
ability to extricate himself, and was
nearly ruined in the crash
of 1837. The lands in which Whittlesey
was interested, and in
which numerous other Western Reserve
Whigs, including Edward
Wade, Benjamin F. Wade, and Joshua R.
Giddings were in-
terested, were in and near Toledo.133 Simon Perkins of Warren,
leading banker of the Western Reserve,
was reputed to have paid
taxes on one-seventh of all the lands in
Ohio, either as agent or
owner, in 1815. He was known throughout the state for his
financial impeccability, and was known
to be acting as the chan-
nel for eastern capital seeking
investment in Ohio lands.134
These men were typical of hundreds over
the state, men of
all parties and of all walks of life.
When the crash in land values
and the collapse in credit came in 1837,
even many good Jack-
sonians were willing to blame their
personal losses from specula-
tion on a disastrous fiscal policy of
the Government. All were
131 Donaldson, Public Domain, 201, 205.
132 Huntington, "History of Banking and Currency," 332;
Chillicothe Supporter
and Scioto Gazette, November 29, December 13, 1823.
l33 Whittlesey to John M Clayton, November 16, 1836, Whittlesey MSS.;
id.
to Williams, December 5, 1832, ibid.;
id. to Edward Wade, May 25, 1837, ibid.; id.
to J. R. Giddings, May 25, 1837, ibid.;
id. to Horace Wilder, May 25, 1837, ibid.; id.
to E. Newton, December 14, 1835, ibid.;
id. to Mr. Lawrence, March 5, 1836, and
numerous other letters from id. to
Wade and Newton, ibid.
l34 Id. to Wakeman, August 17, 1835; Walter W. Spooner,
"Simon Perkins,
1771-1844," Ohio Archaeological
and Historical Quarterly, XXIII (1914), 284-90.
ECONOMIC BASIS OF OHIO POLITICS 317
glad to accept the slight advantage
given them by the specie cir-
cular in removing government lands from
competition with
their sales.
The policy of the Jackson
administration, both in removing
the public funds to local "pet
banks," and in distributing the
surplus among the states, in addition to
encouraging internal im-
provements, encouraged speculation in
land. Bank notes bor-
rowed from the banks would be paid over
to the land receiver,
deposited by him, probably, in the same
bank, and perhaps loaned
again to the same speculator for further
purchases. There was
no limit to this process except the
self-restraint of the banks.
Paying off the national debt in 1835
also encouraged speculation,
by making available for speculation in
western land capital for-
merly employed by the National
Government.135
Conclusions.
The geographical location of Ohio, and
her geographical
characteristics determined the
fundamental lines, economic and
political, of her development. The
state's transportation system
grew out of her topography, and was
closely linked with the de-
velopment of mining and manufacturing.
In the final analysis,
it was her commerce and industry, based
as it was on this system
of transportation, which began, during
the period 1828 to 1840
to tie Ohio to the East and to commit
her to the mild economic
nationalism represented by the Whig
party. Where population
areas coincided with geographical areas,
as in the Western Re-
serve, or in the Pennsylvania area south
of the Reserve, the be-
ginnings of real sectionalism were
evident.
Ohio was generally committed to a state
system of internal
improvements after 1824, and to a
national system of protective
tariffs, at least after 1828. Both the
Democratic party and the
Whig party in the state supported these
policies. They did not,
consequently, enter very much into the
political argument of the
time, except so far as the national
policies of the Democratic
party aroused dissatisfaction within the
party ranks, causing
135 Dewey, Financial
History, 225-6; Huntington, "History of Banking and Cur-
rency," 357-8.
318 OHIO
ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
wholesale disaffection in certain
regions like Cincinnati. Whig
leadership was largely responsible for
the construction of the
canals, and the Whigs, this way, were a
little more closely identi-
fied with the program of internal
improvements in the state than
the followers of Jackson and Van Buren
were.
The economic background of Ohio politics
is of course com-
pletely significant only in the light of
a careful examination of
the political developments of the
period. Limitations of space
have made it impossible to make that
examination here. Perhaps
enough has been written, however, to
show some of the reasons
for the strategical importance of Ohio
in the national politics of
the 'twenties and 'thirties. Perhaps,
also, the careful student will
see in the conditions pictured some
evidence of a growing con-
sciousness of national politics within
the state.
Politics during these two decades was in
a fluid and rapidly
changing state, comparable to the
fluidity and lack of crystalliza-
tion in the economic life just pictured.
Local interests and local
leaders played a much more important
part in politics than is
the rule today.
Party distinctions on a national basis
were forming but
slowly. The economic facts presented in
this article, taken alone,
do not justify the assertion that Ohio
economic and political de-
velopments operated in a significant way
to produce a strengthen-
ing of national party lines, and to
further the development of
nationalism. But it is the author's
judgment that, studied in
conjunction with the political events of
the period, they do show
a marked tendency in that direction.