This growth had come chiefly by natural increase, but also by immigration, conquest, and annexation.

Settlement had reached the Pacific Ocean, though there were great stretches of almost uninhabited territory between the settlements on the Pacific and those just beyond the Mississippi.
The cotton gin had turned the whole South toward the cultivation of cotton, though some States were better fitted for mixed farming, and their devotion to cotton meant loss in the end as subsequent events have proved.

The South was not manufacturing any considerable proportion of the cotton it grew, but the textile industry was flourishing in New England.

A whole series of machines similar to those used in Great Britain, but not identical, had been invented in America.

American mills paid higher wages than British and in quantity production were far ahead of the British mills, in proportion to hands employed, which meant being ahead of the rest of the world.
Wages in America, measured by the world standard, were high, though as expressed in money, they seem low now.