Francis Cabot Lowell lobbies Congress on behalf of the textile industry.

Lowell visits Washington and persuades Congress to include cotton products under the Tariff Act of 1816. The tariff is opposed by Harrison Gray Otis and others in Boston who fear it will hurt the shipping industry in general, while protecting the textile industry in particular. But, by 1815, according to Henry Adams, Americans “were more concerned with the price of cotton, less with the rights of man,” and by 1820 the U.S. would surpass India as the largest producer of cotton in the world.