ABSTRACT
Philadelphia and Boston were less single minded in their enterprise. Yet the most vigorous men in each of these metropolises were absorbed in other enterprises. Several supported protective tariffs as well as internal improvements and helped to give direction to the emerging free enterprise system. Most of the 6,216,518 urbanites of 1860 were native born, but the mounting stream of newcomers from abroad, which brought almost 5 million to America between 1835 and 1860, contributed at least half of these migrants to the cities. Over 50,000 newcomers settled there in the thirties, most of them Irish who, by the close of the decade, outnumbered Negroes in the Mississippi River port. New York's leadership acquired some of the attributes of domination, in the eyes of many of its competitors, but enterprise was the key factor in the newly evolving American system, and any city that displayed it had a chance to share in the nation's increasing bounty.
