by the interior furnished an opportunity for
combinations. This was a fundamental feature of Calhoun's policy when he
urged the seaboard South to complete a railroad system to tap the
Northwest. As Washington had hoped to make western trade seek its outlet
in Virginia and build up the industrial power of the Old Dominion by
enriching intercourse with the Mississippi Valley, as Monroe wished to
bind the West to Virginia's political interests; and as De Witt Clinton
wished to attach it to New York, so Calhoun and Hayne would make
"Georgia and Carolina the commercial center of the Union, and the two
most powerful and influential members of the confederacy," by draining
the Mississippi Valley to their ports. "I believe," said Calhoun, "that
the success of a connection of the West is of the last importance to us
politically and commercially. . . . I do verily believe that Charleston
has more advantages in her position for the Western trade, than any city
on the Atlantic, but to develop them we ought to look to the Tennessee
instead of the Ohio, and much farther to the West than Cincinnati or
Lexington."

This was the secret of Calhoun's advocacy in 1836 and 1837 both of the
distribution of the surplus revenue and of the cession of the public
lands to the States in which they lay, as an inducement to the West to
ally itself with Southern policies; and it is the key to the readiness
of Calhoun, even after he lost his nationalism, to promote internal
improvements which would foster the southward current of trade on the
Mississippi.

Without going into details, I may simply call your attention to the fact
that Clay's whole system of internal improvements and tariff was based
upon the place of the Mississippi Valley in American life. It was the
upper part of the Valley, and especially the Ohio Valley, that furnished
the votes which carried the tariffs of 1816, 1824, and 1828. Its
interests profoundly influenced the details of those tariffs and its
need of internal improvement constituted a basis for sectional
bargaining in all the constructive legislation after the War of 1812.
New England, the Middle Region, and the South each sought alliance with
the growing section beyond the mountains. American legislation bears the
enduring evidence of these alliances. Even the National Bank found in
this Valley the main sphere of its business. The nation had turned its
energies to internal exploitation, and sections contended for the
econ