USA > New York > New York in the nineteenth century. A discourse delivered before the New York Historical Society, on its sixty-second anniversary, November 20, 1866 > Part 2
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9
-
1
20
NEW YORK
this city its empire, and brought the imperial arts and sciences in its train.
There is reason to believe that soon after the Revolution, men of thought in New York saw the rising destiny of their City and State, and one reason of their reluctance to come into the constitutional union, was the fear of making over too much of their local power to the central Government ; espe- cially their great share of revenue from imports, and their commanding position between New England and the South and West. Very early the interest of the Colonies seemed to centralize here, and the Colonial Congress of 1765, and the Provincial Con- gress of 1776, and the inauguration of Washington in 1789, were all hints of the empire that was to be.
A gentleman who was here in 1787, when the whole State had a smaller population than North Carolina, wrote to his friends that the city was ruined by the war; but its future greatness was unquestionable. Truth must be told, even if it mortifies our ambition ; and the development of the power of the State and City was not to be under the leadership of the great masters of its legislation. Hamilton fell sadly by an impious hand, and Jay retired from public life, and Gouverneur Morris too soon followed him. The masters of the future were men of business, and probably to Robert Fulton and De Witt Clinton, with their industrial friends and helpers, New York owes her imperial position in the nation and the world, more than to men of science or letters, scholars or statesmen. Even her great statesmen had much of business point and sagacity
1
1
A
21
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
in their composition ; and, surely, Hamilton was as much of a financier and soldier as a jurist, and per- haps was compelled to yield to the Virginia plan of the Constitution, because it came from Madison's more American mind, and embodied more of the instincts and traditions of the nation, than his more military and perhaps more European scheme of con- solidation. Chancellor Livingston claims as much honor by his encouragement to Fulton as by his law and statesmanship, and deserves with him a high name among the organizers of liberty. Who shall say what steam navigation has done to eman- cipate mankind from drudgery, and construct society upon the basis of liberty ? It is science turned liber- ator; and the saucy philosophy of the eighteenth cen- tury became the mighty and merciful helper of the nineteenth century. To us, individually and gener- ally, how marvellous has been the gift ! Wherever that piston-rod rises and falls, and those paddles turn, man has a giant for his porter and defender, and the liberty of the nation has been organized under its protection; and the great States of the Mississippi valley and the Pacific coast are brought within one loyal affinity, and build their new liber- ties upon the good old pattern of our fathers. Clinton and Fulton, the one identified with the rise of steam navigation, the other with the Erie Canal, are names that belong to universal history, as having given America its business unity, and brought its united wealth to bear upon the industry and commerce of the world.
We are somewhat surprised, in studying the old
22
NEW YORK
New York mind, at seeing so little trace of specula- tive thinking, and it is not easy to say to what school of philosophy its intellectual leaders belonged. Here we must make an important distinction, and see the cause of the absence of the speculative, sub- jective habit of mind so common in New England. New York was more dynamic than ideal, or more busy with active forces than theoretic principles. New York itself was a historic force, and not a theo- logical or philosophical school. It was a community that kept most of its historical continuity through three revolutions, and had no decided break in its evolution. Its people were never come-outers or radicals of the extreme type; but carried the old national life forward with them into new conditions. The Dutch colonists were Dutchmen still, and in the old church and nation; the English were English still, with all the old loyalty to church and state ; and when the Dutch-English community crowned the old protest against Rome by the new protest against British despotism, they carried with them much of their old institutional habit. They did not go out and build anew under the open heavens from radical ideas; but kept as far as they could within the old walls. Their spirit was free, but their method was cautious and conservative, and they leaned much upon the leaders who walked in the old historical paths. Thus the Constitution of 1777 is a marvel of conservative caution, and shows the power of Jay and his associates over the mass, who were far more radical than he, and who consented to restricted suffrage and the aristocratic Councils of
1
1
23
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Appointment and Revision as keeping them within the safe old paths, whilst they rejoiced in the un- trammeled religious liberty given. Quite remarka- ble it is that the Convention of 1801 did little more than decide that the four Senators on the Council of Appointment should have concurrent voices with the Governor in making appointments to office. The people seemed to feel that they were a civic fact, a historic force, an actual institution, and it was a great thing to keep the life that came to them from their fathers.
In their own way, their historical life expanded into new enterprises and institutions, and the year 1804, that saw our Historical Society founded, the City Hall rising from its foundation, and the Public School Society virtually resolved upon, was a mem- orable date in the annals of the city. It was marked also by dark signs ; for it brought the terrible fire of December, with its loss of $2,000,000 and forty stores and dwellings, and the death of Hamilton, and the loss of his brilliant gifts and guiding intellect.
In religion and theology there was much of the same spirit. The New York Churches were strong; but the clergy were little given to speculative think. ing, and no commanding thinker appeared among them, such as abounded in New England. They kept the old creeds and usages with a strength that awed down dissent, and with a benign temper that conciliated favor. Latitudinarian tendencies were either suppressed, or driven into open hostility with the popular creeds under deistical or atheistical teachers. In all, the congregations numbered, 30, and
.
24
NEW YORK
the Jews had one synagogue. Even the most radical congregation in the city, the Universalist, held main- ly the old theological views, and had only one point of peculiar doctrine, and even with this single excep- tion, and with all the orthodox habits, they had only a lay organization in 1801, and were without a regu- lar minister till 1803.
The Dutch Reformed, Episcopalians, Presbyte- rians, and Methodists, numbered each five congre- gations ; the Baptists three; the Friends two; the Lutherans two; the Roman Catholics, Huguenots, Moravians, and Universalists, one each. Some writers erroneously assign seven churches, instead of five, to the Episcopalians in 1801; by claiming for them the Huguenot Church Du Saint Esprit, which was established in 1704, and acceded to the Episcopal Church in 1804, and Zion Church, which was estab- lished by Lutherans in 1801, and joined the Epis- copal communion in 1810.
As far as we can judge, the Presbyterian clergy had most of the new American culture of the severer kind, and Drs. Samuel Miller and John M. Mason were the intellectual leaders of the New York pulpit. The only man to be named with them in popular influence was John Henry Hobart, who was or- dained in 1801, consecrated bishop in 1811, and who, in spite of his extreme views of Episcopal pre- rogative, is to be named among the fathers of the American Church, and a good specimen of what old Trinity Church has done to unite patriotism with religion.
The Episcopal Church had much accomplishment
25
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
in its clergy, and Bishop Prevoost, who received ordination in England, was a man of extensive knowledge, and Dr. Livingston of the Dutch Church was a good match for him in learning and dignity. It is said that when these clerical magnates met on Sundays and exchanged salutations, they took up the entire street, and reminded beholders of two frigates under full sail, exchanging salutes with each other.
Yet none of the New York clergy were patterns of the peculiar thinking of the nineteenth century, and the leaders steered clear of all traces of the rising rationalism. Dr. Miller touches upon the philosophy of the eighteenth century in his retro- spect, and promises to deal with theology in a separate work, but did not fulfil the promise ; and only indicates his own leanings and limited cul- ture by praising Locke and Reid in the same chap- ter, and, in almost the same breath, accepting Jona- than Edwards and ridiculing Emanuel Kant. Very clearly New York religion was not speculative or philosophical, yet it was none the less a positive institution, a living force, and it made up by its kindly spirit and its historical life for the absence of the critical knowledge that sometimes is found apart from piety and charity-the knowledge that puijeth up. We are to look for the connections of the old New York religion with the new age in its powerful organizing spirit; and the great move- ments of piety and charity in America have come from the union of the institutional stability, order, and method of New York with the more subjective
1
26
NEW YORK
thought and culture of New England. Religious liberty has had its grandest organizations from this city, as a centre, and we have seen only the begin ning of its mighty and benign work.
We may regard old New York as culminating in the year 1825, with the completion of the Erie Canal; and that great jubilee that married this city to the mighty west, began a new era of triumph and responsibility, that soon proved that the bride's festi- val is followed by the wife's cares and the mother's anxieties. New York had become the national city, and was so for a quarter of a century more, and then she became cosmopolitan, European as well as American, and obviously one of the few Jeading cities of the world-the third city of Christendom. We may fix this change upon the middle of the century as well as upon any date, and call the time from 1850 till now, her cosmopolitan era. The change, of course, was gradual, and the great increase of the city dates from the close of the Revolutionary war, and the evacuation of the city by the British troops. The population doubled nearly in the ten years after 1790, and went from 33,000 to 60,000. In 1825 it reached 166,086, and in 1850 rose to 515,515. All this increase could not but bring a new sense of power, and throughout all the bewilder- ing maze of the old New York politics we can see traces of the desire of the people and their leaders to dispute the palm of empire with Virginia and its old dominion. The efforts seemed vain that were made to put New Yorkers into the presidential chair. Before 1825, the State had tried three times
1
27
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
to elect a President, and three times had raised one of its sons to the Vice-Presidency. What could not be done directly, was done indirectly, and it seems to have been De Witt Clinton, before any leading Northern man, who led the way to the nomination of Andrew Jackson to the Presidency; and before Van Buren had taken the same stand, he began the movement that ended in breaking the old Virginia line of power by reaching over into Tennessee and bringing a successful soldier into the field of politics. The line once broken, New York made way for its own ambition, and twice has had the Presidency in its hands ; and had more reasons than state ambi- tion for desiring to continue in power, when proba- bly the ablest and purest of her new statesmen, Silas Wright, lost his political prospects because he would not strike hands with the propagandists of slavery; carried forward democracy in the spirit of its anti- slaver, champion, Daniel D. Tompkins, who moved the Liberty Bill of 1817; and the new age began which has committed the Empire State to the do- minion of freedom, and put her practically at the head of the movement which identifies the democratic idea in America with emancipation in the nineteenth century.
The Constitutional Convention of 1821, with its moderate liberalism, and the amendment of 1826, re- moving restrictions on white suffrage, and the Con- stitution of 1846, with its extreme radicalism, con- nect this city with general history, especially by their bearing on universal suffrage, and the extension of the elective powers of the people, and the decen-
28
NEW YORK
tralizing of the State, to give more sway to local liberty, especially as to local magistrates and even judges. It is clear that the spirit of the nineteenth century was at work among the people; and, in some respects, has gone so far as to raise the ques- tion, whether liberty has not been disorganized under the hands of its dissectors, who have taken the body politic to pieces, with the promise of putting it to- gether with complete equality among the members, without setting the intelligent voters, who should be the head, above the sots and dunces, who should be its foot ; and without denying suffrage to a drunken ignoramus on account of his color, yet refusing it to an intelligent and sober patriot for having another skin.
It was in the period that we have called national, that the Constitutional Convention of 1846 was held, and entailed upon us, by its indiscriminate aboli- tion of the old central safeguards, some of the mis- chiefs that stand in such contrast with the majestic triumphs of the city in wealth and culture during that period, and which called for some remedy, and found it, in part, in the new plan of centralized power, which, since 1849, has given the State at large a hand in our home affairs. How grand in other respects was the development of the city in that twenty-five years, 1825 to 1850, and what a new and marvellous world of wealth and splendor rose before the eyes of our people !
In 1830 the State, which in 1800 threw the same number of electoral votes as North Carolina, had risen from 586,756, to 1,918,608, and the city had gone from 60,489 to 202,589.
1
2!
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
The introduction of gas and of the Croton water were grand illustrations of the power of organized in- dustry, and mighty aids in throwing light, health, and purity into the lives of the people; and the rise of the great popular daily journals that almost created the national press of America, made an era in the free fellowship of public thought. The city pushed its triumphal march forward during that period, from Bleecker Street to Madison Square, and vainly tried to halt its forces at Washington and Union Squares, or to pause long anywhere on the way of empire. The whole period would make an important history of itself, and our task now is with the New York of to-day, as it has risen into cosmopolitan rank since 1850-the year which gave us a line of European steamers of our own, and opened the Golden Gate of California to our packets.
Look at our city now in its extent, population, wealth, institutions, and connections, and consider how far it is doing its great work, under God's provi- dence, as the most conspicuous representative of the liberty of the nineteenth century in its hopes and fears. You are too familiar with the figures and facts that show the largeness ce the city, to need any minute or extended summary or recapitulation. That we are not far from a million of people on this island, that began the century with 60,000; that the valuation of property, real and personal, has risen since 1805 from $25,000,000, to $736,988,058; that the real value of property here is about $1,000,000,- 000, or a thirtieth part of the entire property of Great Britain ; that our taxes within that time have
30
NEW YORK
risen from $127,000 to $16,950,767, over four and a half millions more than our whole national expendi- ture in 1801 ; that our banking capital is over $90,- 000,000, and the transactions of our Clearing Houses, for the year ending October 1, 1866, were over $29,- 000,000,000 ; that our Savings Banks have 300,000 depositors, and $77,000,000 of deposits; that our 108 Fire Insurance Companies and 38 Fire Agencies have a capital of $47,560,000, and our 18 Life In- surance Companies a capital of $2,938,000, whose pre- miums last year were nearly $9,000,000 ; that, by the census of 1865, the number of dwellings was 49,841, and the value of them was $423,096,918; that this city, by the census of 1860, returned a larger manu- facturing product than any other city in the Union, and more than any State, except New York, Massa- chusetts, and Pennsylvania-the sum total of 8159,. 107,369, from raw material worth $96,177,038 in 4,375 establishments, with 90,204 operatives, and $61,212,- 757 capital, and manufactured nearly one-eleventh of the sum total of the United States " manufactures in
* In justice to Philadelphia we quote the statistics of her manufactories from the census of 1860, which show a larger number of bands employed, and a larger capital invested, with less value, however, in raw material, and in the value of the product. Philadelphia had, ir 1860, 6,298 manufacturing estab- lishments, with a capital invested of $78,818,885; with the cost of raw material, 869,562,206; with 98,983 operatives, and with an annual product of value 8135,979,677. It must be remembered, however, that Philadelphia, since 1551, is made to include the whole county of one hundred and twenty square miles -- nearly six times the area of New York city-which is very much like anuesing Brooklyn and Jersey City and the whole neighborhood that really contains New York people, business, and capital to the city itself, and setting their financial returns down under one head. It is to be desired that New York would make as good provision for mechanics and persons of moderate means, as Philadelphia makes by her many snug and cheap houses, and her light expenses and simpler habits.
4
1 ?
3
31
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
1860, which was $1,885,861,676; that in twenty years we exported, from September 1, 1846, to Sep- tember 1, 1866, to Europe, over 27,000,000 barrels of flour, over 164,000,000 bushels of wheat, 127,- 000,000 bushels of corn, nearly 5,000,000 bushels of rye; that the receipts for customs in this port for 1865 were $101,772,905; that this city is the great gold market of the world, and in 1865 received $61,201,108, and exported over $30,000,000 abroad, and received in twelve years, 1854 to 1866, from San Francisco $375,558,659 in gold; that our shipping, registered and enrolled in 1865, amounted in tonnage to 1,223,264 tons, and the number of arrivals of vessels in this port in 1865 was 12,634, of these 2,078 being steamers ; that our exports for the year 1865 were $208,630,282, and our imports were $224,742,419 ; that, on an average, 35 tons of mail- matter are received here for our citizens, and 55 tons are sent out daily ; that the average number of mail- bag's received is 385, and the average number sent out is 713; that within three years and a half the mail correspondence of our citizens has doubled ; that the number of letters and newspapers collected by the carriers for the quarter ending December 31, 1865, was crer 3,000,000, and the number delivered by them was over 3,600,000, and the deliveries from Post-Office boxes for the same quarter were over 5,000,000; that the increase of letters is so marvellous that New York may soon rival London, which, in 1862, received by mail 151,619,000 letters; -- these and the like plain statistics are sufficient to prove the imperial wealth and power of New York,
32
NEW YORK
and to startle us with the problem of its prospective growth, when we remember that 4-6 75 per cent. in- crease, which has been generally the actual rate of increase, will give us a population of some 4,000,000 at the close of the century.
Now, what are we to say of the city in its higher, intellectual, and moral relations to our nation and age ? What features of cosmopolitan greatness is it manifesting ? It is surely no small thing, that so many people live here in tolerable peace and com- ' fort ; yet, of course, mere numbers do not constitute greatness, else Pekin would excel us two to one, and Yeddo might throw Paris and London into the shade. Greatness is in quality, not quantity, and a rational man of five feet eight inches is greater than rude giant of eight feet, or a whale of ninety feet, or a comet with a tail fifteen millions of miles long. Take the test of quality, and New York need not hide her head among the great cities of the world, nor shrink from comparing her best citizens with the best citizens of any other city, nor from asking for her daily work an honorable position in the history of human capital, labor, and skill. Every day the nation and the world are richer for what is done on this island, and the great army of workers here with the hand or head, presents a marvellous spectacle to the mind capable of putting their various sections together, and seeing at one view our New York at its daily work.
Let us pass in review the industrial army of the city, which General Barlow, Secretary of State, al. lows me to copy from the unpublished census of
33
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
1865, and let us imagine it divided into regiments, thus, of about a thousand persons each :
Blacksmiths, over two and one-half. .regiments or . 2,621
Bookbinders, over one
66
....
1,134
Boiler Makers, nearly one.
.... 910
Boot and Shoe Makers, over six
....
6.307
Butchers, four .
....
3.998
Brokers, one and one-third
66
....
1,348
Barbers, one
....
1,054
Cabinet Makers and Dealers, two and one-half.
....
9,575
Carpenters, over six.
....
6,352
Cartmen and Draymen, four and one-half.
....
4,675
Clerks, seventeen and one-half
=
....
17,620
Clergy, nearly one-half.
¥
429
Confectioners, nearly one.
....
756
Cooks, one.
....
906
Coopers, one and one-half.
....
1,401
Dressmakers, etc., nine and one-half.
....
9,501
Drivers, nearly two
....
1,805
Engineers, over one.
....
1,196
Grocers, one ..
....
937
Hat and Cap Makers, one and one-half.
....
1,438
Jewelers, one ..
925
Laborers, twenty-one and one-quarter.
...
21,231
Laundresses, three and one-half.
....
3,590
Lawyers, one and one-fourth
. .. .
1,232
Merchants, six.
....
5,978
Machinists, three
....
3,10S
Masons, three.
....
2,757
Milliners, one and one-third
....
. . . .
803
Painters and Glaziers, four
....
3,801
Peddlers, tv-
....
1,938
Physicians, one and one-fourth
....
1,209
Piano Makers, nearly one
....
66
....
1,10S
Police, ono and one-half
....
1,546
Porters, nearly three.
....
2,729
Printers, two ..
... .
2,186
Saddlers and Harness Makers, one
....
915
Sailors and Marines, over three
3,258
66
. . .
1,331
Musicians, nearly one.
Plumbers, one.
....
",
3
34
NEW YORK
Servants, thirty-three. regiments or .. . 33,252
School-Children, one hundred
100,000
Ship Carpenters, one.
66
.... 1,156
Stone Cutters, one and one-third
. ... 1,312
Tailors, ten .
.... 9,731
Teachers, over one and one-half.
.... 1,608
Tinsmiths, one
.... 931
These occupations and others that I might pre- sent from the voluminous pages of the Census, reckon about 150,000 of the people, and with school-child. ren a quarter of a million.
The measure of a man's dignity depends upon the degree in which he rises above his private wants and lives in universal principles, motives, and ob- jects. Now, how far is the work of our city made to bear upon the business and welfare of the nation and the world, and how does a cosmopolitan spirit mark the temper of our people ? Much, surely, and probably far more than we are apt to think. The truth is coming out, more and more, that we are working with the country and the race, and giving and receiving good of all kinds, by a perpetual and magnificent exchange of thought and incentive, as well as of merchandise. Our best merchants are obliged to hold the markets of the globe in their minds, and our commerce is the practical fellowship of the business of the world, and this city has much of the enterprise and wealth of the whole nation in its charge. I do not say that business is done wholly or mainly for disinterested aims, or that Wall Street and South Street are zealots for uni- versal philanthropy or missionary sacrifice ; but I do believe that they, in their best merchants, have a
1 1
35
1753304
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
large sense of the grandeur of their work and a ris- ing conviction of its relation to the nation and the world. Our best merchants and bankers do not neg- lect character as an essential attendant of capital, and commercial honor means as much here as any- where in America or Europe. The city that is next to London in financial importance, and lately saved the credit of the Bank of England by her gold, is not behind London in the worth of a true busi- ness man's word. Business here in its best form is done with careful method as well as large enterprise, and the leading firms assure me that one per cent. in sales will cover the amount of their average losses in trade. Of course, wealth is no measure of great- ness, and we all know how utterly contemptible a millionnaire may make himself by his utter treachery to the noblest principles ; but it is the man that is mean, not the spirit of business, nor the nature of capital. The money is often nobler than the man, and capital, under the influence of the immense en- terprise and world-wide relations of this city, has a certain grandeur in its tone, and cannot be sluggish, nor wholly mean, if it will follow bravely the lead of the age, and make its investments with the best promise of honest return. Surely, our New York capital is in marvellous relations with the industry of the nation and the globe, and the purse here is the sinew of peace, as it has been the sinew of war. Day by day it keeps its vast army and navy of industry on the land and sea, and no man can enter intelligently into the study of the relations of capital and labor here, without saying that the subject rises
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.