COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOUTH. 



BY CHARLES M. HARVEY. 



[Charles M. Harvey, editor; born Boston, Mass., 1848; has done editorial work for 

 New York, Chicago and St. Louis papers and since 1886 has been associate editor 

 and chief political writer for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. He is a frequent con- 

 tributor to magazines and reviews, writing chiefly on political and sociological topics; 

 author of History of the Republican Party, Handbook of American Politics, etc.] 



When, on April 9, 1865, Lee's army surrendered and the 

 confederacy collapsed, there were 33,000,000 people in the 

 United States, as compared with 83,000,000 in 1905; there 

 were thirty six states, counting the eleven in the confederacy, 

 as against forty five now; and $20,000,000,000 of wealth, as 

 compared with $110,000,000,000 to-day. Immigration fell 

 off sharply in the first half of the war, and then began slowly 

 to increase, and expand markedly after the war ended. Hun- 

 dreds of thousands of lives were lost and billions of dollars of 

 property was destroyed during the four years ending with 

 Appomattox, including the $1,500,000,000 which represented 

 the slaves of the United States, which were counted in the ag- 

 gregate of the country's wealth in 1860 and previously. In 

 every slave state, except Delaware, Maryland, and Missouri, 

 none of which seceded, the value of property decreased in the 

 decade ending with 1870. In all those states, and in many 

 of the free states, the value of the property shrunk between 

 1860 and 1865. In the north and west expansion came quick- 

 ly after war closed. Thus Appomattox becomes an important 

 starting point in American progress. 



It was in 1865 that the first real work of construction of 

 the Union and Central Pacific railways began, which brought 

 rail connection between the Atlantic and Pacific in 1869. 

 Those roads were a direct result of the war. During the latter 

 part of Polk's days, in 1848, a bill was first introduced in con- 

 gress looking to the construction of a transcontinental railway. 

 At that time there were only eight thousand miles of railroad 

 track, counting main lines, in the United States, Prac- 



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