The last convention in 1836 went far beyond preceding conventions in its plans for solidifying the workingmen of the country.  First and foremost, a “national fund” was provided for, to be made up of a levy of two cents per month on each of the members of the trades’ unions and local societies represented.  The policies of the National Trades’ Union instead of merely advisory were henceforth to be binding.  But before the new policies could be tried, as we know, the entire trade union movement was wiped out by the panic.

The city “trades’ union” of the thirties accorded with a situation where the effects of the extension of the market were noticeable in the labor market, and little as yet in the commodity market; when the competitive menace to labor was the low paid out-of-town mechanic coming to the city, not the out-of-town product made under lower labor costs selling in the same market as the products of unionized labor.  Under these conditions the local trade society, reenforced by the city federation of trades, sufficed.  The “trades’ union,” moreover, served also as a source of reserve strength.

Twenty years later the whole situation was changed.  The fifties were a decade of extensive construction of railways.  Before 1850 there was more traffic by water than by rail.  After 1860 the relative importance of land and water transportation was reversed.  Furthermore, the most important railway building during the ten years preceding 1860 was the construction of East and West trunk lines; and the sixties were marked by the establishment of through lines for freight and the consolidation of connecting lines.  The through freight lines greatly hastened freight traffic and by the consolidations through transportation became doubly efficient.

Arteries of traffic had thus extended from the Eastern coast to the Mississippi Valley.  Local markets had widened to embrace half a continent.  Competitive menaces had become more serious and threatened from a distance.  Local unionism no longer sufficed.  Consequently, as we saw, in the labor movement of the sixties the national trade union was supreme.

There were four distinct sets of causes which operated during the sixties to bring about nationalization; two grew out of the changes in transportation, already alluded to, and two were largely independent of such changes.

The first and most far-reaching cause, as illustrated by the stove molders, was the competition of the products of different localities side by side in the same market.  Stoves manufactured in Albany, New York, were now displayed in St. Louis by the side of stoves made in Detroit.  No longer could the molder in Albany be indifferent to the fate of his fellow craftsman in Louisville.  With the molders the nationalization of the organization was destined to proceed to its utmost length.  In order that union conditions should be maintained even in the best organized centers, it became necessary to equalize competitive conditions