In 1794, Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin and transformed the American South into the world's first agricultural power house and according to many historians started the industrial revolution. The cotton gin used a brush-like instrument to separate out the seeds and cotton. Whitney's cotton gin was capable of cleaning 50 pounds of lint per day. Cotton became a tremendously profitable business for the South and cities like New Orleans, Mobil, Charleston and Galveston became major shipping ports. By 1860, the Southern states provided two-thirds of the world's cotton.
Just a few years earlier, Samuel Slater an early English-American industrialist brought British textile technology to the United States. Working with Rhode Island industrialists, Slater created the first successful water-powered roller spinning textile mill in America. Then in 1794, using the patented cotton gin of Eli Whitney, Slater opened a new 72-spindle mill for the sole purpose of textile manufacture. The new cotton mill allowed for the cultivation of short-staple cotton which could be grown in the interior uplands. This dramatically expanded the cultivation of the cotton throughout the deep south. New England mills and southern cotton along with other industries such as fishing and the arts promised to bring great wealth to the United States. But unrest in Europe, especially related to the French revolution put American commerce at risk. President John Adams, like his predecessor Washington was working hard to protect American industry, by establishing treaties with Great Britain, France and Spain.
In his first annual address, sandwiched in between comments about negotiations with France and Spain, was John Adam's testimony to the importance of commerce to the United States. In Adam's words, "The commerce of the United States is essential, if not to their existence, at least to their comfort, their growth, prosperity, and happiness', and every every effort to protect it should be made.
"The commerce of the United States is essential, if not to their existence, at least to their comfort, their growth, prosperity, and happiness. The genius, character, and habits of the people are highly commercial. Their cities have been formed and exist upon commerce. Our agriculture, fisheries, arts, and manufactures are connected with and depend upon it. In short, commerce has made this country what it is, and it can not be destroyed or neglected without involving the people in poverty and distress. Great numbers are directly and solely supported by navigation. The faith of society is pledged for the preservation of the rights of commercial and sea faring no less than of the other citizens. Under this view of our affairs, I should hold myself guilty of a neglect of duty if I forbore to recommend that we should make every exertion to protect our commerce and to place our country in a suitable posture of defense as the only sure means of preserving both."
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29439
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_gin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater
http://courses.missouristate.edu/bobmiller/HST/HST523/textil1.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b9/Power_loom_weaving._Wellcome_L0011293.jpg/1024px-Power_loom_weaving._Wellcome_L0011293.jpg
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