Tariffs: Industrializing America's West

John Quincy Adams travelled to Cincinnati, OH in early November, 1843 to dedicate and to lay the cornerstone of the astronomical observatory on what would be named Mt Adams, the “Birthplace of American Astronomy.” It was one of the most important moments in the 76 years of the life of America’s 6^th President and the U.S. Representative from Massachusetts. On his departure, he would traverse the Ohio River to Pittsburgh, PA, a manufacturing and shipping hub, arriving there on November 16, 1843.

At every stop on his month-long journey from Quincy, MA, to Cincinnati, OH, to Washington, D.C., Adams was greeted by cheering throngs, serenaded by military bands and firemen bands, and toasted at ceremonial dinners. For his principled defense of the right of petition, his equally principled opposition to the then-threatened annexation of Texas to the U.S. as a slave state, and his unstinting support for the industrial and agricultural interests of the country, the citizens of these towns turned out in droves. Pittsburgh was no different.

His invitation to the city was nonpartisan, so it is fitting that the welcoming address was delivered by Wilson McCandless, a locally prominent lawyer and Democrat who would become a federal judge. Almost immediately MCandless would mark Adams’s close association with George Washington and painted the mid-Eighteenth Century scene of the three-river valley:

“Here, standing on the portals of the Mississippi valley, his prophetic eye reaching far into futurity, (Washington) saw the materials for that great empire, with its teeming millions, that now revere and venerate his name.”

“Here it was that in the wigwams, and partaking of the hospitality of King Shingiss and Queen Allaquippa, his heart imbibed that warm and active benevolence for the sons of the forest, that was so conspicuous in his subsequent administration of government.”

“And here, Sir, he has a monument in the affection of his countrymen more durable than brass or marble, and which will remain steadfast, as long as the rippling current of the Ohio flows to the bosom of the Father of waters.”

McCandless describes the 1798 construction of the first armed vessel ever floated on the western waters. Constructed in Pittsburgh under the direction of a Revolutionary War officer, it was a row-galley with a solitary gun, meant to protect the trade in the newly opening West.

“Look at the contrast now! Instead of the barge, and the row-galley, our skilful mechanics in 1843 completed, on the very bastions of old Fort Duquesne, an iron ship of war that is to carry on the Northern Lakes the stars and stripes of our beloved country—and a frigate is now in progress of construction, which with her ‘iron sides,’ is destined to defend the honor of the American name…”

On what was once a barren and unproductive forest,

” from a thousand chimneys are emitted the living evidences of her prosperity. The flaming fire, the busy hammer, the revolving roller, all give daily, hourly proof of her rapid advancement. Here the rough misshapen elements of nature are formed and moulded to suit the purposes of man. Here machines to mitigate the toil of the laborer, and to facilitate intercourse between the States, are made with a skill unsurpassed even by the old world. Here the anchor is forged to give security and protection to the weather-beaten mariner. Here to shovel and the mattock, the plough and the harrow, go forth to ease the labors of the husbandman. And here the naked are clothed and the hungry fed, by the evolution of machinery ‘and the potent agency of steam.’

“To what are we indebted for all these blessings? Since the war of the Revolution, to that wise TARIFF policy by which you (Adams) were regulated when at the head of the government, and as chairman of the Committee on Manufactures in the Congress of the United States. No base subserviency to Foreign Powers dictated your course, but a manly and determined support of the true interests of the country, by the protection of its industry, and by a proper reciprocity of countervailing restrictions.