The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (121 page)

50
EP
, March 28, 1822; James P. Allaire to TG, January 11, 1822, Petition of the Ship-Builders of the City of New-York, February 1, 1822, Statement of Isaac Brown, June 21, 1822, Instructions to Mr. Parkman, August 6, 1822, TG to AO, March 22, 30, 1822, GP. On the state of New York–Philadelphia trade during this time, see
Trenton Federalist
, August 26, 1822.

51
Countryman, “From Revolution,” 369–75; Wood, 268–70, 287–305; Donald B. Cole,
Martin Van Buren and the American Political System
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 88–98; Cynthia A. Kierner, “Patrician Womanhood in the Early Republic: The ‘Reminiscences’ of Janet Livingston Montgomery,”
NYHis
73, no. 4 (October 1992): 389–407; see especially Fischer.

52
R. M. Livingston to TG, June 14, 25, 27, August 31, 1822, WG to TG, September 8, 1822, GP.

53
EP
, August 26, 31, November 5, 1822; Memorandum of TG, September 18, 1822, William B. Jaques to TG, September 12, 1822, WG to TG, September 8, 1822, Memorandum of TG, November 27, 1822, GP.

54
CV to TG, November 4, 1822, GP; Countryman, “From Statehood,” 369; Gunn, 26–8; Wood, 325–47; Andrew Burstein,
America's Jubilee
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001), esp. 34–5. See also Burstein's
Sentimental Democracy: The Evolution of America's Romantic Self-Image
(New York: Hill & Wang, 1999), which examines “the Americanization of sensibility,” and
Confidence Men
, 56–60, 94. Bruegel is also very illuminating on the penetration of the market into the private sphere. A reference to CV as an “economic man” appears in Edward J. Renehan Jr.,
Commodore: The Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt
(New York: Basic Books, 2007), but I wrote this passage in 2003, several years before Renehan began work on his book.

55
CV to TG, March 1, November 4, 1822, Robert Arnold to TG, May 23, 1822, GP.

56
TG also claimed that CV had plotted to cheat a Griswold, probably a stage operator or boatman, by running directly to South Amboy; TG to WG, December 12, 1822, GP; Lane, 40;
Den D. Trumbull et al. v. Gibbons
, April 10, 1849, 22 NJ L 117. Regarding CVs partnership with Allaire in the
Fanny
, see Conference abt. Fanny, undated memorandum, GP;
EP
, March 31, April 1, 1822;
NYS
, November 13, 1877. Though CV would later be renowned for his harness racing, the horses discussed by TG almost certainly were Thoroughbreds, as harness racing remained an informal sport with inexpensive horses; see Melvin L. Adelman, “The First Modern Sport in America: Harness Racing in New York City, 1825–1870,”
Journal of Sport History
8, no. 1 (spring 1981): 5–32.

57
CV to TG, April 1, 1823, TG to WG, April 4, 1823, GP;
New York Daily Advertiser
, March 31, 1823.

58
CV to WG, March 25, 1823, GP.

59
JRL v. CV
, December 28, 1822, file L J-1822-V-18, Supreme Court Judgments, NYCC.

60
Lane, 34–5, 40–1; TG to WG, May 2, 4, 5, 17, 1823, GP.

61
James Day and Jacob Vanderbilt appear in the November 1823 receipts in GP-R. Regarding the New Brunswick dock maneuver, see CV to TG, April 11, 1823, GP. The two CV letters quoted (cited in Lane, 34–5, 40–1) no longer appear in the GP, and appear to have been lost, misfiled, or stolen. As will be deduced, CVs parents had had a second son named Jacob.

62
Baxter, 37–9; King, 270; for a marvelous portrait of the now-forgotten Wirt, see Burstein,
America's Jubilee
, 34–58.

63
Wood, 287–305; Donald B. Cole,
Martin Van Buren and the American Political System
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 88–98; Cynthia A. Kierner, “Patrician Womanhood in the Early Republic: The ‘Reminiscences’ of Janet Livingston Montgomery,
” NYHis
73, no. 4 (October 1992): 389–407; Baxter, 23–31; TG to WG, January 23, 1823, CV to TG, January 22, 1823, William Talmage to TG, January 20, 1823,
In the Supreme Court of the United States, Between Cornelius Vanderbilt and John R. Livingston
(New York: Edwin B. Clanton, 1823), GP; JRL to Robert L. Livingston, December 15, 1823, LFP.

64
Statement of Interview between Walter Livingston and WG, January 27, 1824, GP.

65
Baxter, 40; Remini, 8–9.

66
See especially Horwitz, 110–34, and Appleby
Inheriting the Revolution
, 56–8, 88–9. Appleby powerfully argues that economic and political liberalization were linked, though I would stress that the link between government intervention and elite politics was most marked at the state level in the case of New York; see Miller, 10–19. Some of Hamilton's federal policies democratized the economy in ways that he did not intend, as women and artisans bought shares and took loans; see Robert E. Wright, “Bank Ownership and Lending Patterns in New York and Pennsylvania, 1781–1831,”
BHR
73, no. 1 (spring 1999): 40–60.

67
Baxter, 40–57, 70–1, 80; Remini, 202–8; King, 270–91; 9 Wheaton U.S. 1;
EP
, March 5, 1822; see also
NR
, March 27, 1824.

Three
A Tricky God

1
Receipt of Thomas Richards from Capt. Vanderbilt for Steamboat
Thistle
, March 31, 1824, Receipt of Blossom, Smith, & Demon to Steamboat
Thistle
, April 14, 1824, GP-R; Enrollment Number 16,
Thistle
, April 3, 1824, Perth Amboy Custom House, Certificates of Enrollment, 1824–26, vol. 2196, Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation, RG 41, NA;
EP
, April 23, 1824; Wheaton J. Lane,
From Indian Trail to Iron Horse: Travel and Transportation in New Jersey, 1620–1860
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1939), 203.

2
EP
, March 13, 1823, March 5, 16, 18, 26, 1824;
NBF
, March 11, 1824;
NR
, March 27, 1824;
New York Daily Advertiser
, March 6, 8, 1824; Maurice G. Baxter,
The Steamboat Monopoly: Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972), 70–1, 80.

3
Leonard W. Levy,
Seasoned Judgments: The American Constitution, Rights, and History
(New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1995), 439; R. Kent Newmeyer,
John Marshall and the Heroic Age of the Supreme Court
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001), 269–71, 302–15; Jean Edward Smith,
John Marshall: Definer of a Nation
(New York: Henry Holt, 1996), 481. On the erosion of state franchises and “exclusionary privileges of first entrants” in American law, see Morton J. Horwitz,
The Transformation of American Law, 1780–1860
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977), 34, 110–39. On the popular enthusiasm for laissez-faire, see the works of Joyce Appleby, such as “The Vexed Story of Capitalism Told by American Historians,”
JER
21, no. 1 (spring 2001): 1–18. In
Capitalism and the New Social Order: The Republican Vision of the 1790s
(New York: New York University Press, 1984), Appleby explicitly argues that the free market came to be seen as a natural force. For a contemporary discussion along these lines of
Gibbons v. Ogden
and monopolies, see
Workingman's Advocate
, August 16, 1834.

4
Baxter, 61–133, discusses the evaluations of the decision and its many legal consequences, and includes the Beveridge quote. See also Albert J. Beveridge,
Life of John Marshall
, vol. 4 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1947, orig. pub. 1919), 445–8; Charles Warren,
The Supreme Court in United States History
, vol. 2 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1922), 58–86, John Randolph quoted on 71. See also G. Edward White,
The Marshall Court and Cultural Change: 1815–35
(New York: Macmillan, 1988). To understand Marshall's decision in the larger legal context of the era, one must consult Horwitz's discussion of the emerging acceptance of competition and the declining primacy of state franchises, 109–39.

5
John Lauritz Larson,
Internal Improvement: National Public Works and the Promise of Popular Government in the Early United States
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 80, notes that the Erie Canal so solidified New York's position that the city captured railroads, instead of having railroads divert trade elsewhere.

6
The registration figures compare 1825 with typical prior years (the 1825 number reflects the number of vessels built in 1824, after
Gibbons v. Ogden)
. See Bureau of Navigation,
Merchant Steam Vessels of the United States, 1807 to 1856
(Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Commerce, 1931), 5–7.
NR
cited in Smith, 481.

7
Baxter, 62–8, 70; Paul G. E. Clemens, “Aaron Ogden,”
ANB
. For an inside look at the rising tensions between JRL and his nephews, see the correspondence between Charles H. Rhind and Robert L. Livingston, April 26, July 16, 31, September 4, 1824, LFP On the transformation of the old patricians, see David Hackett Fischer,
The Revolution of American Conservatism: The Federalist Party in the Era of Jeffersonian Democracy
(New York: Harper & Row, 1965), and Wood, 325–47.

8
Bill of Jacob Wyckoff to TG, March 1, 1824, TG in Account with CV, September 1, 1824, Statement of the Union Line Way-Bills on the Noon Line, 1826 and 1827, GP-R.

9
EP
, April 29, May 17, 19, 1824; CV to TG, April 30, 1824, GP; Anne Royall,
Sketches of History, Life, and Manners in the United States
(New Haven: n.p., 1826), 239; Harlan I. Halsey “The Choice Between High-Pressure and Low-Pressure Steam Power in America in the Early Nineteenth Century,”
JEH
41, no. 4 (December 1981): 723–44. In slightly more than a decade, on March 14, 1836, Philip Hone was able to write in his diary: “The loss of life from steamboat explosions, railroad accidents, falling walls, etc. has gotten to be a matter of every-day occurence, and no longer occasions surprise or excites sympathy” And yet his frequent comments on deadly steam disasters shows how troubling they were to Americans; Hone, 203, 261.

10
William Benedict,
New Brunswick in History
(New Brunswick, N.J.: n.p., 1925), 178; CV to TG, April 27, 1824, GP;
EP
, May 27, 1824. On the New Brunswick investors behind the ferry business, see the NP. CV's insight is all the more remarkable because corporations at this time were thought of as a kind of partnership in which ownership and management were one and the same. See, for example, Gregory A. Mark, “The Personification of the Business Corporation in American Law,”
University of Chicago Law Review
54, no. 4 (autumn 1987): 1441–83; Naomi R. Lamoreaux, “Partnerships, Corporations, and the Limits on Contractual Freedom in U.S. History: An Essay in Economics, Law, and Culture,” in Kenneth Lipartito and David B. Scilia, eds.,
Constructing Corporate America: History, Politics, Culture
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 29–65.