After the excitement of peace was past, as the summer drew toward a close, economical interests dwarfed the old political distinctions and gave a new character to parties. A flood of wealth poured into the Union at a steady rate of six or seven million dollars a month, and the distribution of so large a sum could not fail to show interesting results. The returns soon proved that the larger portion belonged to the Southern States. Cotton, at a valuation of twenty cents a pound, brought seventeen and a half millions to the planters; tobacco brought eight and a quarter millions; rice produced nearly two million eight hundred thousand dollars. Of fifty millions received from abroad in payment for domestic produce within seven or eight months after the peace, the slave States probably took nearly two thirds, though the white population of the States south of the Potomac was less than half the white population of the Union. The stimulus thus given to the slave system was violent, and was most plainly shown in the cotton States, where at least twenty million dollars were distributed in the year 1815 among a white population hardly exceeding half a million in all, while the larger portion fell to the share of a few slave-owners.[110] Had the Northern States shared equally in the effects of this stimulus, the situation would have remained relatively as before; but the prosperity of the North was only moderate. The chief export of the Northern States was wheat and Indian corn. Even of these staples, Maryland and Virginia furnished a share; yet the total value of the wheat and corn exported from the Union was but eight million three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, while that of tobacco alone was eight and a quarter millions. While flour sold at nine or ten dollars a barrel, and Napoleon’s armies were vying with the Russians and Austrians in creating an artificial demand, the Middle States made a fair profit from their crops, although much less than was made by the tobacco and cotton planters; but New England produced little for export, and there the peace brought only ruin. Ordinarily shipping was the source of New England’s profits. For twenty-five years the wars in Europe had given to New England shipping advantages which ceased with the return of peace. At first the change of condition was not felt, for every ship was promptly employed; but the reappearance of foreign vessels in American harbors showed that competition must soon begin, and that the old rates of profit were at an end.