28 G. S. CALLENDER 



struction of the Illinois Central to connect the Illinois and 

 Michigan canal at La Salle with Cairo on the Ohio river, with 

 numerous branch lines to the east and west, reaching all parts 

 of the state. There was one line each in Indiana and Ken- 

 tucky, from Madison on the Ohio to La Fayette on the Wabash 

 canal in the one case, and from Louisville to Frankfort in the 

 other. In Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee great numbers of 

 turnpike roads were projected. Capital was required also for 

 the expanding internal trade of the country and to assist in a 

 more rapid development of western agriculture. This showed 

 itself in the establishment of numerous large banks in all the 

 new states, to which reference was made at the beginning. 

 It is clear from this that the twenty years following 1815 

 was marked by an enormous increase in the demand for capi- 

 tal. All these enterprises were not mere visionary projects, 

 to be talked about and then abandoned; but capital was in- 

 vested in every one of them, and the larger part of them 

 were actually carried through. If we compare them with 

 the small number and size of the enterprises carried on dur- 

 ing the twenty years before 1815, we are struck at once by 

 the contrast. They evidently mark the beginning of what 

 we may call the capitalist era in American industry. With 

 the exception of banks, whose capital is in fact not invested 

 in a single industry, but divided up in loans among a great 

 number of different industries, there had never been an indus- 

 trial undertaking in the country that called for as much as 

 a million dollars capital. Moreover, the fixed capital accumu- 

 lated in this country was up to that time insignificant. The 

 people knew nothing of large enterprises in which great 

 amounts of capital had to be sunk, and profits awaited for a 

 long period of years. The canal and railway projects to con- 

 nect the eastern cities with the west, and the lakes with the 

 Ohio and Mississippi, required from two or three to ten millions 

 dollars; and years must elapse for the country to settle and 

 trade to develop before they would yield their maximum re- 

 turn. The new demand for capital was not only vastly greater 

 than anything hitherto known, but it was for large masses of 

 capital to be sunk, and therefore all risked in a single enter- 

 prise. 



