American products; this was followed by a longer period of
depression; and then came a gradual recovery through acceptance
of the new conditions and adjustment to them.

A similar cycle may be traced in the domestic or internal trade.
In early days intercolonial commerce had been carried on mostly
by water, and when war interfered commerce almost ceased for want
of roads. The loss of ocean highways, however, stimulated road
building and led to what might be regarded as the first
"good-roads movement" of the new nation, except that to our eyes
it would be a misuse of the word to call any of those roads good.
But anything which would improve the means of transportation took
on a patriotic tinge, and the building of roads and the cutting
of canals were agitated until turnpike and canal companies became
a favorite form of investment; and in a few years the interstate
land trade had grown to considerable importance. But in the
meantime, water transportation was the main reliance, and with
the end of the war the coastwise trade had been promptly resumed.
For a time it prospered; but the States, affected by the general
economic conditions and by jealousy, tried to interfere with and
divert the trade of others to their own advantage. This was done
by imposing fees and charges and duties, not merely upon goods
and vessels from abroad but upon those of their fellow States.
James Madison described the situation in the words so often
quoted: "Some of the States, . . . having no convenient ports for
foreign commerce, were subject to be taxed by their neighbors,
thro whose ports, their commerce was carryed on. New Jersey,
placed between Phila. & N. York, was likened to a Cask tapped at
both ends: and N. Carolina between Virga. & S. Carolina to a
patient bleeding at both Arms."*