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NATIONAL PROMOTION OP WESTERN ROADS
AMD CANALS 3 1785-1830
APPROVED:
Ma'j or" t'YoTcssor*'
.'•/i.'ioi i'rotessor
*ector or f.iio DepartffipT of History
Do an"®'!:" "tHo""Gr7uIi aTe cKoo'i,
NATIONAL PROMOTION OF WESTERN ROADS
AND CANALS, 1785-1830
THESIS
Presented to the Graduate Council o£ the
North Texas State University in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
By
John R, Hoffmann, A. B,
Denton, Texas
August, 1969
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS iv
Chapter
I. EARLY IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS . 1
II. WESTERN DEMANDS FOR FEDERAL AID 20
III. MADISON, MONROE AND CONSTITU-TIONALITY 45
IV. ADAMS' FRUSTRATED NATIONALISM 6 8
V. CONCLUSION. . 06
APPENDIX 102
BIBLIOGRAPHY 10 3
111
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure Page
1. Principal Roads and Canals, 1785-1830 102
CHAPTER I
EARLY IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS
It was obvious from the beginning of our nation that
development of communications would be among the chief prob-
lems of so large and sparsely populated a country as the
United States. Colonial leaders had talked of canals along
the Atlantic seaboard, of a waterway from the Hudson to the
Great Lakes, of improving the principal rivers flowing into
the Atlantic and of connecting them with the western waters
by roads across the most convenient portages. In the last
two decades of the eighteenth century, state and private
enterprise, promoted by George Washington and other land
speculators and politicians, attacked all these tasks. On
the whole, they failed. Scarcity of capital, local jealousies
and conflicts of state interests put the more ambitious im-
provements temporarily beyond the power of any American
agency less well-financed than the federal government,^"
Following the American Revolution, capital was scarce
in the new American states. Such wealth as did exist was
chiefly invested in land or ships. Until December, 1780,
^Balthasar Henry Meyer, editor, History of Transportation in the United States before 1860 (Washington, 1917), pp. 147, 159-160, 170-171, 210 ? 217-218; Alexander C. Brown, The Dismal Swamn Canal (Hilton Village, Va., 1945), pp. 5-9; Douglas Southall Freeman-•George Washington. A Biography (New York, 1951) , III, 101-103.
when Robert Morris persuaded Congress to create the Bank
of North America, there had been no such institution in
the Western Hemisphere. Obviously, internal improvement
?
projects would require some form of government support.
The states, or the more solvent among them, might give
their support in any of three ways. They might undertake
the construction and maintenance of important and costly
improvements themselves.. They might grant subsidies of
money or land to individuals or chartered companies under-
taking such works for private profit. Finally, state
governments might become shareholders in improvement enter-
prises, helping to finance them but partially controlling
them as well.
As the struggle for independence receded, as westward
migration accelerated, and as the postwar search for private
gain intensified, all of these methods were tried. State
and private projects burgeoned; state and local interests
were, if not adequately served, at least discussed and
defined.^ The demand for roads and canals gave rise to a
? ^William Graham Sumner, The Financier and the Finances
of the American Revolution (New~Yorlc, T8lTT")*, T l , T •'Louis Hartz, Economic Policy and Democratic Thought:
Pennsylvania, 1776-TTSlTliramBridgT, Hass . /TUlirTT pp. S TF; reonar<f"TJ7H7hite ,™The Je f fersonians : A Study in Adminis -trative History, 1 BUT-ITOH^eiTYork, T95Ty7"p7"~4wr~—~
^Joseph Dorfman, The Economic Mind in American.Civili-zation (New York, 1946) , IT, b4D-lT4TT
number of questions. Were any other promotional agencies
available? To what degree was the general public interested
in improved transportation? Could anything be expected
of Congress?
The first suggestion of a general American interest
in internal improvements came from George Washington. The
story of its origin could serve as a nationalist parable;
it is one of private interest sublimated to state interest
and that, in turn, enlarged to national proportions. Un-
fortunately, such broad vision was rare among early
Americans.
Washington's youthful hunger for wealth and glory had
made him a land speculator almost as soon as he was a sur-
veyor, and a soldier almost as soon as he was a man. His
services in the Great War for Empire had netted him sub-
stantial claims, later augmented, to lands beyond the
Kanawha and Ohio rivers. Washington's desire to increase
the value of these had made him, before the Revolution, the
chief Virginia proponent of a company to develop navigation
on the upper Potomac. He was eager to resume this under-
taking upon his retirement at the close of the war."*
•'Charles Henry Ambler, George Washington and the West (Chapel Hill, N. C., 1936), pp. 173-174. Here Washington's landholdings beyond the Alleghenies, amounting at the close ,of the Revolution to approximately 58,000 acres, are item-ized. See also, James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, January 9, 1785, in Gaillard Hunt, editor, The Writings of James Madison (New York, 1901), II, 109. ~~
Plans for the development of the Potomac necessarily
hinged upon the cooperation of Maryland, and the importance
of this or any other route to the Ohio River could hardly
be separated from the development of the western country
as a whole.^ Such considerations were recognized in a
carefully written letter which Washington, after a personal
inspection of his western lands, sent on October 10, 1784,
to Governor Benjamin Harrison of Virginia. He estimated
that the "shortest, easiest, and least expensive communi-
cation with the invaluable and extensive Country back of us,
would be by one, or both of the rivers of this State which
have their sources in the Apalachian [sic] mountains."
Washington was pessimistic about the possibilities of
convincing fellow-Virginians to take action on his proposal.
He deplored "the unfortunate Jealousy, which ever has and
it is to be feared ever will prevail, lest one part of the
State should obtain an advantage over the other part." In
addition, he considered the objection that the Potomac route
traversed other states, which Virginia could not control.8
In the game of interstate rivalry, Washington was cap-
able of shrewd calculation. He was not afraid of Pennsylvania
^Washington to Madison, November 30, 1785, in John C. Fitzpatrick, editor, The Writings of George Washington from the Original ManuscripT"SoTHFc Ss7~l7T5(RasKxnSt'on"."TSTS) . XWlTT7~TS3^33r. ^ ~ ' '
7 Washington to the Governor of Virginia [Benjamin Harri-
son] , October 10, 1784, ibid., XXVII, 472-474.
8Ibid.
blocking the route from the Ohio to the Potomac, because
of the existence of "at least 100,000 souls west of the
Laurel Hill, who are groaning under the inconveniences of
a long land transportation." Unless these pioneers could
be given easy access to Philadelphia, that city would risk
the loss of their trade. As for rivalries within Virginia,
he tactfully concluded that it would be "of equal impor-
tance to improve both the Potomac and the James,
Governor Harrison apparently concurred, for he sub-
mitted Washington's letter to the Virginia Assembly for
consideration.^ Through legislator Thomas Johnson,
Washington was able to bring the Potomac project before the
Maryland legislature at the same time. But, while waiting
for these bodies to act, his mind kept turning to the Con-
federation Congress. Although he deplored its "want of
energy," he felt this agency could hardly be indifferent
to the future allegiance of the West.*^
In a letter to Richard Henry Lee, the newly-elected
president of Congress, Washington suggested that the central
government actively promote an East-West connection:
Would it not. . .be worthy of the wisdom and attention of Congress, to have the western waters well explored, the navigation of them
^Ibid.s pp. 478-479.
^Ambler, Washington and the West, p. 185, j
•'••'•Washington to Thomas Johnson, October 15 , 1784, Fitzpatrick, editor, Writings of Washington, XXVII, 481.
fully ascertained, accurately laid down, and a complete and perfect map made of the Country; at least as far westward as the Miamies running into the Ohio and Lake Erie? . . . H
Thus the question of federal aid to internal improve-
ment projects was early associated with public land policy
and cast in the form of a proposal for surveys. But Lee's
reply merely assured Washington that "your ideas concerning
the western country are wise and just," and that they would
"certainly have great weight when that business shall be
13
discussed in Congress." With the finances of the Confeder-
ation at a low ebb, the-matter ended there, at least for the
time being. Not until the Philadelphia Convention of 1787
was a new proposal for action by the federal government
forthcoming.
Meantime the- states, led by Maryland and Virginia, had
begun to act. The former had chartered the Susquehanna
Company in 1783 with a capital of $55,000 and assumed an
obligation to construct, within seven years, a canal which
would parallel the Susquehanna River from south of the
1 7 x Washington to the President of Congress [Richard
Henry Lee], December 14, 1784, ibid., XXVIII, 11,
*^Richard Henry Lee to Washington, December 26, 1784, in James Curtis Ballagh, editor, The Letters of Richard Henry Lee (New York, 1914), II, 3l"7. Surveys m the North -west "Territory were begun by Thomas Hutchins, after passage of the Land Ordinance of May 20, 1785, But Hutchins and his men were surveying townships; they were not mapping the Ohio River system, Merrill Jensen, The New Nation: A History of the- United States During tile" Confederation, T7¥rT789~(?7Sw YorF7~"l 5T0T7"ppTTST- 1ST. — -
Pennsylvania line to Port Deposit, at the head of tidewater.14
This was primarily a Baltimore project, but the merchants of
that city were unable to defeat the pressure for creation
of a Potomac Company. Washington was in close touch with
such powerful Maryland politicians as Thomas Johnson,
Samuel Chase, and Charles Carroll of CarrolIton; their in-
fluence helped force the incorporation act through the
legislature.^ A corresponding act was immediately intro-
duced in the Virginia Assembly and passed without opposi-
tion.16
The newly-created Potomac Company was authorized to
issue 500 shares at a capitalization of $222,222. Virginia
and Maryland would purchase fifty shares each, and 400
would be offered to the general public. Work must be begun
in one year and finished in ten. Virginia simultaneously
14Meyer, Transportation in the U. 15., p. 222.
^Johnson was Washington's principal confidant among the Maryland leaders. But it was to Carroll that Washington wrote, January 10, 1785, of his proposal for a conference between delegates of the two assemblies on Potomac naviga-tion and its connection with the West. See Fitzpatrick, ed., Writings of Washington. XXVIII, 29. He notified both Chase and Johnson of the Virginia Assembly's action in letters dated January 17, 1785, in ibid., pp. 31-32. For the role of these three and of Thomas Paca, at this time governor of Maryland, in western land speculation, see Thomas P. Abernethy, Western Lands and the American Revolu-tion (New York and London, 1937), pp. 171-179.
16William W. Hening, editor, The Statutes at Large: being a Collection of all the Laws of Virginia. from the first session of the Legislature in the year 1619 (Richmond, 1823), XI, 452-462. See also, Madison to Jefferson, January 9, 17 85, in Hunt, ed., Writings of Madison. II, 104-108.
8
created a James River Company capitalized at $100,000; of
its 500 shares the Commonwealth subscribed one-fifth. The
legislatures of both states passed joint resolutions appro-
priating $3,333 each for opening a road between the head-
waters of the Potomac and a suitable point on the Monongahela
River, while the governors were to apply to Pennsylvania for
permission to cut a road across its territory. Virginia
also ordered a survey to be made between the headwaters of
the James and the navigable portion of New River, and ap-
pointed commissioners to survey the route for a Dismal Swamp
Canal and to draw up plans for securing the cooperation of
17
North Carolina.
Virginia's achievements in the next few years, although
not quite equal to Washington1s predictions, were respect-
able. The James River Company can fairly be credited with
having constructed the first American canal of any conse-
quence, that around the falls of the James between Richmond
and Westham. After a liberal extension in the time allotted
it by the legislature, the project was completed in 1796.
The Potomac Company was more adventurous and less successful.
Besides attempting to clear and deepen the river's channel,
it simultaneously attacked all five of the principal Potomac
1 7 Ilening, ed. , Statutes at Large; the Laws of Virginia,
XI, 510-526
falls. By 1792 the company had completed short canals,
18
without locks, around the three uppermost falls.
Virginia, meantime, had become a stockholder in a
third internal improvement project with the chartering of
the Dismal Swamp Company, a project to which North Carolina
finally assented in 1787, It was originally capitalized
at $80,000, with the Commonwealth holding fifty of 320
shares. Construction of a canal, however, did not begin
until 1793.19
Aside from Virginia, Maryland was the most active of
the states in promoting transportation improvements during
the post-revolutionary years. In the stock of the Potomac
Company Maryland shared equally with Virginia. Maryland
also began legislating for the creation of toll roads and
turnpikesi a policy from which Baltimore would be the chief
beneficiary. The Susquehanna Canal project, begun in 1783,
dragged on uncompleted, largely because of Pennsylvania's
opposition. Maryland reciprocated by steady and effective
Albert Gallatin, "Report of the Secretary of the Treas-ury on the Subject of Public Roads and Canals," in American State Papers: Documents. Legislative and Executive. of the Congress of the United States. Miscellaneous. I, 7 30 . Cited hereafter as Gallatin's "Report." See also, Wayland Fuller Dunaway, History of the James River and Kanawha Company. Columbia University Studies in History7 Economics, and Public Law (New York, 1922), pp. 25-31.
•^Walter S. Sanderlin, The Great National Project; A History of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (Baltimore, 1946)", pp. 34-35; Jensen, The New Nation> p. 237; Brown, The Dismal Swamp Canal, pp. 10-12; Gallatin's "Report," pp, 173, 762-765, 808.
10
hostility to the construction o£ a Chesapeake and Delaware
Canal.20
Washington had feared that Pennsylvania would refuse
permission for the construction of a road between the
Potomac and the Monongahela. In the matter of the road,
however, the Pennsylvania commissioners were generous.
They consented to its construction, and decided to retaliate
against Maryland's opposition to the Chesapeake and Delaware
Canal by refusing to allow the opening of the Susquehanna
canal within Pennsylvania's boundaries. Meanwhile, they
were undertaking the construction of roads to the interior;
a law passed in 1785 appropriated $2,000 for a road between
Pittsburgh and Carlisle.^
Along with a Chesapeake and Delaivare canal, Philadel-
phia had long cherished plans for water communication between
the Susquehanna and the Schuylkill. For the present, how-
ever, the faction-torn state held back. Not until the early
1800's would Pennsylvania involve itself in an internal im-
? 2 provement program comparable to that of Virginia.
20Meyer, Transportation in the U. S., pp. 217-218, 222-223. — ~~ ""
21 Ibid., p. 51; Washington to Madison, November 30,
1785, Fitzpatrick, ed., Writings of Washington. XXVIII, 337-338; Madison to Thomas Jefferson, August 12, 1786, in Hunt, ed., Writings of Madison. II, 258-259.
22 Seymour Dunbar, A History of Travel in America
(Indianapolis, 1915), I, 224-23f; Jensen, The New Nation, p. 342.
11
Of the remaining states, New York took the lead in
1784 in furnishing maintenance for local roads. The possi-
bilities of inland navigation were extensively publicized
by the Irish-born engineer and entrepreneur, Christopher
Colles. In 1785 he obtained from the legislature an appro-
priation of $125 for a survey of the headwaters of the
Mohawk River. The legislature in the next year made another
modest appropriation to assist him and his backers in inves-
tigating the possibility of a connection between the Hudson
and Lake Ontario. Neither Colles' plans nor the motion of
Jeffrey Smith, who introduced a bill for improving the
navigation of the Mohawk and Onondaga Rivers, obtained the
support of New York's lawmakers in 1786-1787, The state's
first great effort, that of opening an inland navigation ltfith
2 3
Lake Erie,' was postponed until the following decade.
In South Carolina, advocates of internal improvements
contented themselves with requesting authorization rather
than state aid. The planters who lived along the Edisto
River secured an act of the legislature in 1785 authorizing
the clearing of its channel by private subscription under
the supervision of commissioners.^ Of much greater impor-
tance was the petition of state representative John Rutledge
^Meyer, History of Transportation in the U. S,. , p. 171; Dorothie Bobbe, De Witt Clinton (New York, 1933), pp. 152-153,
2^Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, A History of Transportation in the Eastern Cotton Belt to 1860 (New York, 1908) , p. 28.
12
in 1786 for the chartering of a company which would open
a canal between the Santee and the Cooper Rivers; most of
the hundred shares proposed had already been subscribed.
The charter was granted but, although Governor William
Moultrie interested himself actively in the project and
corresponded with Washington on the subject, construction
did not begin until 1792.^
Massachusetts was temporarily content to leave improve-
ments to the resources of private capital. The General
Court encouraged such activities by the grant of special
privileges. Of five privileged companies chartered in the
'eighties, three were dedicated to the construction of
bridges.2^ The Charles River Bridge, linking Boston and
Charleston, was completed in 1786; within the next two years
Salem and Beverly were connected by the Essex Bridge. In
1790 the Maiden Bridge was constructed across the Mystic
River from Boston. These great v/ooden structures paid hand-
somely in tolls and long enjoyed monopoly status. The
Charles River Bridge, fifteen hundred feet in length, was
considered the longest in the world and the best in the
United States,
25ibid., pp. 36-38. See also, Washington to William Moultrie", May 25 and June 14, 1786 , in Fitzpatrick, ed. , Writings of Washington, XXVIII, 4 39-441, 458-459.
2^Oscar and Mary Handlin, Commonwealth. A Study of the Role of Government in the American iiconomy: Ma'ssa'cITuseTts , 1774-1861 THew York an3 London, 19"47) , pp. 106-112.
27Meyer, History of Transportation in the IKS,., p. 39.
13
Although the government of the Bay State was cautious
toward direct participation in improvement projects, its
leaders were aware of the possibility of useful action
along these lines by a strong federal government. One of
the Massachusetts delegates to the Philadelphia Convention
of 1787, Elbridge Gerry, succeeded in adding to the new
federal Constitution one of its most frequently controverted
clauses of later years. The discussion over its phraseology
in the convention was a forecast of the conflict between
state and sectional interests which would arise after the
War of 1812. The issue involved the application of vested
interests to the problem of transportation improvements.
The report of the convention's committee of detail
included without change that clause of the Articles of
Confederation empo\vering Congress to "establish post offices."
On August 16, 1787, Gerry moved to add the words "and post
roads" to the phrase. John Francis Mercer of Maryland
seconded the motion, and it was carried by a close vote of
six states to five. Delaware, Virginia, South Carolina and
Georgia joined forces with Gerry's and Mercer's states to
pass the motion.^®
Pennsylvania, already active in building its own roads,
was among the states opposing the measure. But the leader
28Gaillard Hunt and James B. Scott, editors, The Debates in the Federal Convention of 17 87 Which Framed the Constitu-n"on~of~tl7e~TJnited States,HTepFrFeTTvy™Jaraes^acTIsonT-TT^ ITIew TorE7~lP7I577"pTTUT i^cTTs^n^s~lTotFs"~were"first published in 1840,
14
of the Pennsylvania delegation, Benjamin Franklin, moved on
September 14 that an addition be made to the eighth clause
of Article I, Section 8. Under Franklin's proposal, Congress
would be authorized "to provide for cutting canals where
29
deemed necessary." His motion encountered immediate oppo-
sition when Roger Sherman of Connecticut prophetically
warned that "the expence [sic] in such cases will fall on
the U. States [sic], and the benefit accrue to the places
where the canals may be cut."*^
This sectional argument, which became the rallying cry
of foes of federally-financed internal improvements, was
countered by James Wilson of Pennsylvania. Wilson suggested
that canals could provide a source of revenue for the new
federal government. James Madison complicated the issue
by moving to enlarge the original motion as to empower Con-
gress "to grant charters of incorporation where the interests
of the U. S. might require, § the legislative provisions of
individual states may be incompetent." His proposal was
supported by Wilson and by Governor Edmund Randolph of
Virginia, Rufus King of New York argued that it would imply
intervention in the bank rivalry of Philadelphia and New York
29lbid., p. 563. See also, Samuel Rhoads to Franklin, May 3, T77T, in Jared Sparks, editor, The Works of Benjamin Franklin . . . (Boston, 1840), VII, 53.57"" ~ ~
7f\ Hunt and Scott, eds., Debates in the Federal Conven-
tion, p. 563.
15
and would be taken as threatening the establishment of
"mercantile monopolies." Wilson stressed the importance
of connections with the West, minimized the bank question,
and pronounced the power to create monopolies already com-
prehended by that of regulating trade.
George Mason of Virginia, who was "afraid of monopolies
of every sort" and did not think them implied in the proposed
Constitution, succeeded in bringing the question back to
Franklin's original motion regarding canals. In that form
the proposal was rejected by a vote of eight states to three.
Only Pennsylvania, Virginia and Georgia voted in its behalf.
The great controversy regarding the extent of federal
power over internal improvements was to begin after the War
of 1812. This was more than twenty years before the publi-
cation of Madison's notes in 1840. Had the debates of the
Convention been available to the public earlier, two questions
of moment might otherwise have been clearly determined. In
the first place, the delegates had denied the federal govern-
ment power to cut canals. Secondly, the power of Congress
over post roads was clearly an innovation, since the right
to "establish" these roads had been conferred after the
closest of votes.
In other words, both sides were historically wrong in
the internal improvement controversy during the years fol-
lowing the War of 1812. The nationalists were unjustified
31Ibid., p. 564. 32Ibid.
16
in claiming the power to cut canals, the states1 rightists
in denying that of constructing post roads. But to assume
that earlier access to the debates would have prevented the
question from arising at all would be to misunderstand the
sectional character of American politics during the early
national period.
When the Constitution was debated in the states, little
or nothing i as said concerning the power over communications,
which the document proposed to confer on the new goverment.
William Jones, a New York Anti-Federalist, had fears re-
garding this but Patrick Henry did not become alarmed at
this possible expansion of the powers of the central govern-
ment. He apparently felt that the jurisdiction of the states
over their own roads would remain unchallenged. Failure of
the Constitution's other opponents to leave any recorded
discussion of the subject would indicate that Henry's view
prevailed in their ranks."*3
As for the Constitution's supporters, they could hardly
have been more circumspect. In The Federalist. Number Forty-
Two, James Madison assumed that "the power of establishing
post roads must, in every view, be a harmless power," though
*z
The speeches of Henry Randolph Storrs and William Cabell Rives in the House of Representatives, January 29, 1824, and February 3-4, 1824, respectively, summarize such arguments in the debates of the state ratifying conventions as were available some thirty-five years thereafter. Annals of Congress, 18th Congress, 1st Session, 1281-1291, 13T4-1T51,
17
it might "perhaps, by judicious management, become produc-
tive of great public convenience. Nothing," he added,
"which tends to facilitate the intercourse between the
States can be deemed unworthy of the public care.""^
The plea of a national interest in linking the sea-
board with the West had failed to convince the Philadelphia
Convention that Congress should be empowered "to provide for
cutting canals where deemed necessary."35 tj-ic sequel, which
saw the development of the West as predicted by Washington,
would not seem to justify the Convention's caution. Western
demands for federal aid to improvement projects would be
attributable chiefly to the achievement of statehood by
Kentucky and Tennessee and to the improved situation on the
lower Mississippi which resulted from Pinckney's Treaty.
After adoption of the Constitution, early Congresses
voted appropriations for a few lighthouses and spent much
time designating and redesignating routes for post roads.
Though it was sometimes recognized that "unprofitable roads
might be established--from the partiality of members to
their own district and country," the alternative of leaving
selection to the executive branch was rejected as a greater
evil and even described as a dangerous advance toward
Edward Mead Earle, editor, The Federalist: A Commen-tary on the Constitution of the Un 1 t e d—£> tate s (TTew York'j TgTT)7^o7~4l7~pTTTS7~ — — — (
7 C J Hunt and Scott, eds., Debates in the Federal Conven-
tion, p. 563.
18
"Monarchy."36 Rarely were voices raised to advocate federal
construction of roads, as against the mere choice of routes.
The most elaborate of these proposals, under which the cen-
tral government would have subscribed to the stock of turn-
pike companies for the improvement of the principal post
37
roads from Maine to Georgia, aroused little interest.
Meanwhile, private capital, state governments and mixed
corporations such as the Potomac, James River and Dismal
Swamp companies determined their powers and ascertained their
limitations. In the decade following establishment of the
new federal government, combinations of state and private
efforts continued to be directed to the task of internal
improvement in Virginia and Maryland. They were applied
also, with great hope and ambition, in Pennsylvania and New
York. With respect to trends in other states, Massachusetts
offered cautious and limited encouragement to private capi-
tal. South Carolina aided it still less, while the remainder *? O
witnessed only local and small-scale projects.-50
Annals of Congress, 4th Congress, 2d Session, pp. 2052-2065; ibid. , 2cT"Congress, 1st Session, pp. 229-241. On two occasionsthe usually impersonal recorder of the Annals made uncomplimentary references to the quality ot the debate's on post roads: ibid., 4th Congress, 2d Session, p. 2059; ibid., 9th Congress, 2d Session, pp. 623-624,
37Ibid., 5th Congress, 1st Session, pp. 621-622.
•^Gallatin's "Report," pp. 765-860; Meyer, History of Transportation in the U. S., pp. 218-225,
19
Under such auspices the country's array of wooden
bridges was measurably increased and a few promising begin-
nings were made in the construction of turnpikes. At the
end of the eighteenth century, however, every scheme for
development of inland transportation had encountered political
and economic obstacles in the form of conflicts of interest.
Some had never passed the planning stage. Only against this
background of limited accomplishments can the development of
western demands for federal aid to internal improvements be
properly understood.
CHAPTER II
WESTERN DEMANDS FOR FEDERAL AID
As western settlement advanced beyond the Appalachian
Mountains, the need for improved communication with the
eastern seaboard became increasingly urgent. Although a
few rivers in the Appalachian system provided natural routes
to the coast, they proved too primitive to be effectively
utilized. Farmers in the rapidly expanding West therefore
began demanding federal aid for transportation facilities
in order to bring their surplus to.market. The first decade
of the nineteenth century marked a nexv direction in national
transportation policy. In 1806 Congress authorized the first
surveys for a National Road. Two years later Secretary of
the Treasury Albert Gallatin presented to the Senate his
monumental "Report on Public Roads and Canals." The stage
seemed to be set for federal financing of a comprehensive
program of internal improvements.^
Each of the trio of philosophic statesmen whom the
"revolution of 1800" brought to power realized the importance
of adequate roads and canals. Secretary of State James
Madison had been the chief advocate in the Virginia Assembly
•^Gallatin's "Report." pp. 724-741; Philip D. Jordan, The National Road (Indianapolis, 1948), p. 18; Meyer, ed., History oi Transportation in the U, S., p. 134.
•?n
21
of George Washington's internal improvement plans. He had
personally drafted the bill which created the James River
Company, the first improvement company incorporated by any
American state.2 President Thomas Jefferson had agreed with
Washington on the importance of a Potomac Canal and supported
its development in Virginia as early as 1784. As minister to
France, Jefferson had been favorably impressed with reports
that a canal across the Isthmus of Panama was "very practi-
cable." But it was Secretary of the Treasury Albert
Gallatin who supplied the means of committing the federal
government to an internal improvement policy which involved
a sweeping precedent.
Before taking over the Treasury Department, Gallatin
had for six years represented the far western district of
Pennsylvania in Congress. Previously, as state assemblyman
from Fayette County, he had supported the Philadelphia and
Lancaster Turnpike and "every other temporary improvement in
our communications."4 Furthermore, he would soon be inves-
ting in lands beyond the Ohio River. Gallatin's prime
function in the new administration was financial reform, a
2 Irving Brant, James Madison: The Nationalist f 1780-1787 (Indianapolis, 1948), pp. 366-368.
3Jefferson to William Carmichael, June 3, 1788, in Andrew A. Lipscomb, editor, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Washington, 1904), V. 403; Corra Bacon-Foster, The Early Development of the Potomac Route to the West (Washington. 1912) , pp. 37-38.
^Gallatin's memorandum quoted in Henry Adams, The Life of Albert Gallatin (Philadelphia, 1879), p. 85.
22
task which involved simultaneous reduction of taxes,
expenditures and the national debt. While his Swiss herit-
age drove him to unremitting labor for early termination
of the public debt, Gallatin's frontier nationalism shaped
his idea of the role of government in the economy.*' Since
his department supervised not only financial affairs but
also matters which would later be allocated to a Secretary
of the Interior, Congress naturally turned to Gallatin for
guidance in considering the admission of a new state into
the Union.^
The bifurcation of the Northwest Territory and division
of its western portion into the Territory of Indiana occurred
in 1800. Even before the first state in the Northwest Terri-
tory entered the Union, the federal government authorized an
internal improvement project to benefit the area. Ebenezer
Zane, pioneer entrepreneur from Wheeling, Virginia, marked
and cleared an important land route across southern Ohio in
1796. In return for cutting the trace, Zane received the
privilege of buying land at river crossings, where he was
certain settlements would arise.^
^Thomas Worthington to Gallatin, April 11, 1804 and May 8, 180 5, in Henry Adams, editor, The Writings of Albert Gal-latin (Philadelphia, 1879), I, 89, 9*6; Raymond Walters, Jr., XIFeFt Gallatin: Jeffersonian Financier and Diplomat (New YorF7-l3T7I7_ — —
^Benjamin H. Hibbard, A History of the Public Land Poli-cies (New York, 1924), p. 61; Payson XT Treat, The National TTancT System, 1785-1820 (New York, 1910), pp. 81-85, 91, 101.
^Clement L. Matzloff, "Zane 1 s Trace," Ohio Archaeologi-cal and Historical Society Publications, XlTT~X"l904) , 287-331.
23
Eastern settlements in the Northwest Territory began
seeking statehood in 1801, As Ohio's admission approached,
improvement policy became a subject of general discussion
in Congress,^ Gallatin attempted to settle the matter in
a letter to Representative William Branch Giles of Virginia,
chairman of a select committee appointed to consider the pos-
sibility of Ohio statehood. Gallatin proposed to Giles that
one-tenth of the proceeds from future public land sales in
Ohio be used for building roads "from the navigable waters
emptying into the Atlantic to the Ohio, and afterwards con-
tinued through the new State." Construction was to be
carried out by the federal government with consent of the
states through which the road was to pass. Gallatin later
endorsed his copy of the letter under the heading "Origin
of the National Road,"^
A month later Giles reported to the House a series of
resolutions exactly duplicating Gallatin's suggestions,
Roger Griswold of Connecticut, representing the New England
viewpoint, assailed what he called an attempt to apply
federal revenue to the construction of access roads for the
use of Virginia and Pennsylvania. He further charged that
Gallatin, as a large landowner in the region immediately
8 Eugene H. Roseboom and Francis P. Weisenburger, A
History of Ohio (New York, 1934), pp. 102-104.
^Gallatin to William Branch Giles, February 13, 1802, in Adams, ed., Writings of Gallatin, I, 76-79.
24
southeast of the Ohio River, would personally profit from
the plan. Giles replied that he was sorry if any of his
resolutions had a local aspect, but he "recollected the pas-
sage of several bills for the erection of lighthouses, the
encouragement of the fisheries and other benefits to the
mercantile states." He had voted for them despite their
local character. With respect to favoritism shown toward
Giles' home state, "the simple effect of this resolution
will be to form a road over a mountainous country." Accord-
ing to Giles, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington would
receive greater advantages from a National Road than any
Virginia city."^
The House supported Giles. The resolutions passed both
houses without major alteration and were embodied in the
Enabling Act of April 30, 180 2, under the terms of which
Ohio became a state. This measure provided that 5 per cent
of the net proceeds from the sale of public lands within the
new state be applied to internal improvements. Congress
later accepted the stipulation of the Ohio legislature that
three-fifths of the money be spent on roads within the state
and the remainder applied to the National Road. The question
of constitutionality apparently did not arise in the debates.**
•^Annals of Congress, 7th Congress, 1st Session (March 30 and Tl, 13027, pp. 1098-1118, 1124.
11Ibid. (April, December, 1802-February, 1803), pp. 290, 451, 50^ST0 , 544, 584-587, 1155-1162, 1252; Roseboom and Weisenburger, History of Ohio, pp. 105-107.
25
The 2 per cent fund allotted for the National Road began
to accumulate. On December 19, 1805, the Senate committee on
roads and canals reported in favor of building the road from
Cumberland on the Potomac River to Wheeling on the Ohio,
crossing the Appalachians by the general route of Braddock's
Road. Considering it an "indelicacy" to assume that the
Senate needed to be convinced of the importance of the
undertaking, committee members devoted their main attention
in the report to geographic advantages of the Cumberland
route. Since it would provide direct connections for Balti-
more and Washington with the West, as opposed to alternate
routes from Philadelphia and Richmond, the choice was a
1 ?
controversial one.
The Senate lost little time in passing the National
Road construction bill, authorizing the President to appoint
commissioners for laying out the road, to determine its
exact location after receiving their report, and to request
the necessary consent from states involved. Senator Samuel
Smith, chief spokesman of the Baltimore merchants, was
especially active in behalf of the bill. In the House,
12Charles Francis Adams, editor, Memoirs of John Quincy Adams f Comprising Portions of his Diary from 1795 to 1848 (Philadelphia, 1874), I, 377; Everett S. Brown, editor, William Plumer's Memorandum of Proceedings in the United States Senate. 1803-1807 (New York, 1923), pp. 371-372; Jefferson to Wilson Gary Nicholas, April 13, 1806, in Lipscomb, ed., Writings of Jefferson. XI, 99.
26
however, opposition was bitter.^ Pennsylvania advocated a
Philadelphia-Pittsburgh route for the National Road. Virginia
opposed the choice of Cumberland, Maryland, as an eastern
terminus, since it conflicted with the interests of the
Potomac Company.Michael Leib of Pennsylvania proposed
indefinite postponement of the Senate bill, and nearly all
of the Virginia and Pennsylvania delegates supported him.
But Leib's proposal failed, and other dilatory motions fared
no better. The House accepted the National Road bill without
serious amendment by a vote of sixty-six to fifty on March
24, 1806. Only four of Pennsylvania's eighteen members and
two of Virginia's twenty-two were among the majority.•^ The
identity of these men indicates that the administration viewed
the National Road bill with favor. Two of the Pennsylvanians,
John Smilie and John Hamilton, were from the western region
which Gallatin had formerly represented in Congress. Vir-
ginian John Dawson was Madison's successor in the House and
13Annals. 14th Cong., 2d Sess. (February 6, 1817), pp. 888-890 ; Mexican State. Papers , Misc.ejJjineo s,, I, 474-477; Jordan, The National Roadf p. 74.
"^Joseph A. Durrenberger, Turnpikes: A Study of the Toll Road Movement in the Middle Atlantic States and Maryland (Valdosta, Ga., 1931), pp. 131-133; Gallatin's "Report," p. 738; Hening, ed., Statutes of Virginia. XI, 249-254.
15Annals. 9th Cong., 1st Sess. (March 24, 1806), 517, 835-838, 840,
27
Thomas Mann Randolph counted Jefferson as both constituent
and father-in-law,^
President Jefferson approved the bill on March 29, 1806,
and a few months later wrote Gallatin that "the road from
Cumberland to the Ohio ivill be an important link in the line
to St. Louis." Along that route he envisioned a "horse-post"
which would make the trip from Washington to the Mississippi
in six days. He realized that such a project would neces-
sarily devolve upon the federal government after the prece-
dent set by the National Road Act. He hoped that Congress
would order construction of additional western roads for
17
promotion of improved transportation.
Passage of the National Road Act represented a new
trend in federal policy. The country seemed ready to begin
a national' improvement project as evidence of economic pro-
gress. But when the National Road commissioners reported to
Jefferson in December, 1806, they noted as one of the diffi-
culties of their task "the solicitude and importunities of
the inhabitants of every part of the district, who severally
considered their grounds entitled to a preference." This
official expression of "solicitude" for local interests
"^Jefferson to Gallatin, July 14, 1806, in Adams, ed., Writings, of Gallatin. I, 304-305 ; William H. Gaines, Jr., Thomas Mann Randolph. Jefferson's Son-in-Law (Baton Rouge, La., 1966), p. 59. — — & *
17Jefferson to Gallatin, August 31, 1806, in Adams, ed., Writings. of Gallatin. I, pp. 308-309 ; Gallatin to Jefferson, February 12, 1808; ibid., p. 370,
28
disillusioned Jefferson somewhat, but he decided to accept
18
the commissioners' report.
Early in 1807 Congress began actively discussing two
other internal improvement projects, the Chesapeake and
Dela\\rare Canal and a proposed canal around the Ohio River
falls at Louisville. Internal improvement advocates recom-
mended both proposals on grounds of national interest. Sup-
porters of the Louisville Canal emphasized its importance
for the entire Ohio Valley. Representatives of the Chesa-
peake and Delaware Company presented their project as an
essential part of an inland navigational system, valuable to 19
the nation in peacetime and indispensable in time of war.
Congressional supporters of these two enterprises proposed
that Congress grant western land in exchange for stock in
the companies. Newly-elected Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky
introduced the Falls of the Ohio bill on January 12, 1807.
John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts violently opposed the
Chesapeake and Delaware project. He spoke of a "league" of
senators representing six states immediately interested in
the canal and warned of fraud and collusion which might
result from similar combinations in behalf of local
^American State Papers, Miscellaneous, I, 474-477, 714- 715y~1JorHan,"*THnsJational IToa~d ~pp~« TITO'S0 .
•^American State Papers, Miscellaneous, I, 419-456, 4 7 g^ . _ _ _ _ _
29
2 0
measures. On February 28, Adams introduced an alternative
resolution asking the Secretary of the Treasury to submit
to the Senate a general plan of road, canal and river im-
provements which might require the aid of Congress. Adams
pointed to this action years later as marking the beginning
of a systematic national improvement policy. The resolution, 21
however, failed to pass.
As the end of the Ninth Congress approached, internal
improvement advocates began to realize they would not ob-
tain positive action on specific projects. One month after
Adams' proposal, Senator Thomas Worthington of Ohio intro-
duced a resolution asking the Secretary of the Treasury to
make a general study of the need for internal improvements.
The resolution closely followed the substance and wording of
Adams' proposal. However, it came from a westerner who had
voted for specific projects as consistently as Adams had
voted against them. Worthington's measure won the support
of a large majority and was accepted on February 26, 1807, 70 Brown, ed., William Plumer's Memorandum of Proceedings
in the U. S. Senate. pp. 628-629. The text of Adams' speech has not been preserved. According to his friend William Plumer, the six states mentioned were Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky. See also Adams, ed., Memoirs of John Quincy Adams. I, 460-461; Annals. 9th Cong., 2d Sess. (February 7, 1807), p. 60,
? 1 Adams to Rev. Charles Upham, February 2, 1837, quoted
by Brooks Adams in Henry Adams, The Degradation of the Democratic Dogma (New York, 1919), p. 11; Annals. 9th Cong., 2d Sess. (February 28, 1807), pp. 77-78. The vote on Adams' resolution was not recorded.
30
by a vote of eighteen to eight.22 The Senate directed the
Secretary of the Treasury on March 2 to prepare and submit
to its next session a plan:
for the application of such means as are \tfithin the power of Congress, to the purpose of opening roads and making canals, together with a state-ment of the undertakings of that nature, which, as objects of public improvement, may require and deserve the aid of Government.2**
Gallatin's report reached the Senate on April 6, 1808.
This monumental state paper, on which Gallatin worked for
nearly a year, was the first extensive plan ever presented
for the physical development of the country. Thoroughly
national in scope and design, it was bold and farseeing in
outlook. Its recommendations were practical and easily
within the technical and financial resources of the time,
had not those resources been subsequently drained by war
with Great Britain. Its major outlines remained vital until
finally rendered obsolete by invention of the locomotive.^4 <3
The magnitude of the plan and its enormous consequences
for the future of the nation become clear in even a brief
summary of its principal features. Gallatin proposed two
major lines of North-South communication, one by inland
waterways and another by land. The water channel stretched
22Armals_, 9th Cong., 2d Sess. (January 14, February 25-26, TBH7J7 pp. 32, 88-90.
23Ibid. (March 2, 1807), pp. 95-97.
24Leonard D. White, The Jeffersonians, pp. 476-477.
31
from Boston to St. Mary's, Georgia, and required construc-
tion of four short canals. These included one from Boston
to Buzzards Bay; a New Jersey canal from the Raritan to the
Delaware River; a Chesapeake and Delaware canal leading into
Chesapeake Bay; and a Chesapeake and Albemarle canal ex-
tending southward through the Dismal Swamp of Virginia,
Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds to the protected natural water-
way along the North Carolina coast. Gallatin estimated the
total canal construction of ninety-eight miles would cost
$3,050,000. The second major line was to be a national
turnpike from Maine to Georgia traversing established routes,
at a projected cost of $4,800,000 . ^
Of even greater consequence were Gallatin's suggestions
for improved East-West transportation. He proposed to estab-
lish four routes to the West, utilizing rivers on either side
of the Appalachians and connecting each pair of rivers with
a highway. From north to south these were: the Susquehanna
and Allegheny, Potomac and Monongahela, James and Kanawha,
and the Santee and Tennessee. When connected, the rivers
would serve the interests of the middle and southern sea-
board states. A canal at the Louisville falls of the Ohio
River would supplement these routes.^
Gallatin felt that the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers provided
a natural connection between New England and the West.
^Gallatin's "Report," pp. 728, 740,
26Ibid., p. 740.
32
Recognizing that New York state was already planning a canal
to the Great Lakes, he included among his suggestions a
canal from the Hudson River to Lake Ontario, another to
Lake Champlain and a third around Niagara Falls. The esti-
mated cost of all these national projects was $16,600,000.
Gallatin realized that objections would be raised from sec-
tions less likely to benefit from his program, such as New
England and the deep South. He sought to forestall these
objections by proposing construction of secondary canals
and roads of primarily local benefit, at a cost of
$3,400,000. This brought total estimated expenditures to
$20 ,000,000.27
Regarding the vexing problem of standards by which
federal grants were to be made, Gallatin warned against ap-
portionment of federal money among states according to
population:
Arithmetical precision cannot, indeed, be attained in objects of that kind; nor would an apportionment of the money applied according to the population of each State be either just or practicable, since roads and particularly canals are often of greater utility to the States which thev unite, than to those through which they pass. 8
Gallatin justified action by the federal government,
since its resources were "amply sufficient for the completion
of every practicable improvement. . . . With these resources,
it will complete all the improvements, however distant, which
29 i
may be necessary to render the whole productive." Gallatin
27Ibid. 2^Ibid. 2^Ibid., p. 741.
33
believed that "an annual appropriation of two million dol-
lars would accomplish all these great objects in ten years."
Under prosperous conditions this annual sum could be paid
from surplus revenues without taxation. Since 1801 nearly
$3,000,000 had been paid on the national debt, which by 1808
was almost completely discharged. As an alternative Gallatin
proposed that proceeds from public land sales might be applied
to national projects. The improvements themselves would be
of immediate benefit to land purchasers and "the United
States, considered merely as owners of the soil, . . would
be amply repaid in the rise of value of the lands remaining
unsold."30
As an essential first step the report recommended sur-
veys of the proposed routes with consent of the states
involved. Projects might be initiated either at federal
expense or through subsidization of private companies, pref-
erably by stock subscriptions. The former method would
provide greater control over local interests, but the latter
might prove more economical. Perhaps the two might be com-
bined to obtain the advantages of each. Gallatin returned
to the problem of conflicting local interests in a spirit
of optimism. "The National Legislature alone, embracing
every local interest, and superior to every local considera-
tion, is competent to the selection of such natural objects."3^ I
3°Ibid. 31Ibid.
34
This was to be a ten-year plan of national action. The
economic argument is modern in substance if not in phrase-
ology. As the 180 pages of appendix indicate, Gallatin
based his recommendations on a painstaking investigation of
improvements already begun or projected. Most elements of
the plan were already familiar. Improvements had been
started on the Hudson, Mohawk, Potomac and James Rivers,
One of Gallatin's four highways connecting eastern and
western rivers was the National Road, already being con-
structed under his own direction. What distinguished the
report from earlier discussions was not the novelty of its
specific proposals but the comprehensive listing of national
projects. Their selection demonstrated Gallatin's keen ap-
preciation of the geographical features of his adopted
country and ways in which they might be shaped to human use.32
The political and administrative aspects of the plan
were less fully developed. Gallatin designated projects of
national importance by example rather than precept. He dis-
cussed alternate methods of organizing federal action only
briefly and merely suggested rather than analyzed the choices
between them. He viewed the constitutional issue as offering
no difficulty. The question of competing state and local
interests presented no problem to an idealistic nationalist
32Meyer, ed., History of Transportation in the.U, S,, pp. 135-136. ~~
35
like Gallatin. Yet major difficulties soon arose concerning
these points.
One major obstacle appeared even before the report
was submitted. Gallatin recommended neither new taxation
nor borrowing. He based his fiscal proposals explicitly
on the maintenance of peace, continuation of substantial
customs revenue, and the absence of large military expendi-
tures. Unfortunately, Congress adopted the Embargo Act in
December, 1807, and the years that followed were character-
ized by trade interruptions, creation of a military estab-
lishment and finally by the War of 1812.
Even under these circumstances, internal improvement
advocates armed themselves with numerous petitions on behalf
of particular projects and attempted to persuade Congress
that foreign relations ought not to exclude other considera-
tions. The federal government did little to augment Galla-
tin's recommendations. Congress voted a small appropriation
for the Carondelet Canal in Louisiana in 1809 as a defensive
measure against possible British attack on New Orleans.
Senator John Pope of Kentucky and Representative Peter B.
Porter of New York introduced a comprehensive bill in 1810
to initiate a series of projects similar to Gallatin's,
choosing to finance them by subscription to the stock of
33Gallatin's "Report," p. 740.
34victor L. Albjerg, "Internal Improvements Without a Policy (1789-1861)," Lndiana .Magazine of History, XXVIII (December, 1932), 168-1F9T
36
improvement companies.^5 Bills for the Chesapeake and Dela-
ware and Falls o£ the Ohio canals several times won Senate
majorities but failed to pass in the House.36 The New York
Canal Commission sent Gouverneur Morris and De Witt Clinton
to Washington in 1811 to appeal for federal aid to the pro-
posed Erie Canal. In an attempt to win the widest possible
support, Morris and Clinton presented an omnibus proposal
which would have set aside all land in the Michigan Terri-
tory north of the fortieth parallel for improvement purposes,
The federal government would then allot it to twelve states,
with New York receiving 4,500,000 acres out of some
10,000,000. All of these proposals were forgotten as Con-
gress concerned itself with our steadily worsening foreign
relations.
Early in 1812 Gallatin testified before the House com-
mittee on roads and canals that direct appropriations for
internal improvements could not be considered under present
financial conditions. The committee agreed that "the inaus-
picious situation of the United States, in regard to our
•^Annals, Hth Cong., 1st Sess. (January-March, 1810), pp. 522^777 613, 1385-1401, 1443.
36Ibid. (March 29, 1810), pp. 1679, 1699; ibid., 11th Cong., 13d Sess. (January 12, 1811), pp. 94-95.
•^Laws of the State of Npw York, in Relation to the Erie and Champiam Canals, logether with the Annual Reports of the Canal Commissioners, ana Other Documents, Requisite for a CompTete Official History of Those Works. . . I (Albany rS7-SJ7~pp73Z^3¥7 — * — — — -
37
foreign relations render it inexpedient for a Congress of
the United States to make a donation in land or money."
The committee's policy prevailed, and its arguments were
reinforced by the outbreak of war with Great Britain in
June, 1812.38
The War of 1812 was a watershed of the Republican era
from many points of view. Economically it marked "the
shifting of the center of interest in our economic activity
from the ocean and foreign commerce to the interior and in-
7q
ternal commerce.UJJ It was the beginning of the application
of capital to settlement of the interior and development of
its natural resources. The war demonstrated an urgent need
for better transportation facilities. Army quartermasters
found that a cannon worth $400 at an eastern foundry cost
$2,000 when delivered on the frontier. Flour cost $100 per
barrel and oats $60 per bushel, nearly twice the prewar
price. Army regulations allowed officers "titfo dollars per
100 pounds per 100 miles" for the transport of their bag-
gage. Had adequate roads and canals been in existence
^Annals, 12th Cong., 1st Sess. (February 20, 1812), pp. 107Frl080 ; Adams, Life of Gallatin, p. 399.
3^Guy S. Callender, "The Early Transportation and Banking Enterprises of the States in Relation to the Growth of Corporations," Quarterly Journal of Economics, XVII (1902-03), 115. ~~~~ — — -
^Niles' Weekly Register, IV (May 15, 1813), 177;!Meyer, ed. , History oTTrarTsportation in the U. S., p. 91.
38
during the war, the armed forces would not only have moved
more rapidly, but millions of dollars would have been saved
on transportation costs.
Another way in which the War of 1812 contributed to the
growth of a public demand for improved transportation was to
highlight the importance of the trans-Appalachian West. New
lands taken from the Indians became available for settlement
toward the end of the war and a rush of westward migration
followed.^ Inland settlers from Virginia to central
Alabama required facilities for shipping tobacco and cotton
to the coast and for securing supplies from the West.^"*
Two important developments fostered the growth of western
population: the introduction of the steamboat to western
rivers and extension of cotton cultivation into the Gulf
Plains. The first development brought improved transporta-
tion to all areas with navigable rivers; the second produced
^American State Papers. Military Affairsr IV, 141; ibid. , Miscellaneous. II, 425.
^Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States. Colonial Times to 195 7 (Washington,"" 1960) , p. 9; Niles' Weekly Register. X (April 13, 1816) , 161. Census figures show that between 1810 and 1816 Kentucky's population grew from 406,511 to 527,000; Ohio's from 230,000 to 401,100; and Indiana's from 24,520 to 71,000.
^Ulrich B. Phillips, A History of Transportation in the Eastern Cotton Belt to r8(T0 [TTew Tor ITT 19OS) , pp. 2^?; see also Phillips, "Transportation in the Ante-BeHum South: An Economic Analysis," Quarterly Journal of Economics. XIX (May, 1905), 435.
39
an increased trade in agricultural products on the i^estern
44 rivers.
As population increased, western farmers began raising
greater quantities of surplus produce. Cut off from the
eastern seaboard by the Appalachian Mountains, they shipped
their products down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New
Orleans and then abroad or to northern cities. The tremen-
dous cost of transporting his crops to market left the
western farmer little profit and prevented a rapid appre-
ciation in the value of his land.4^ An Ohio farmer who
brought his produce to Pittsburgh in 1820 had to trade a
bushel and a half of wheat for a pound of coffee, a barrel
of flour for a pound of tea, and txtfelve and a half barrels
of flour for a yard of fine cloth.^
Between 1815 and 1829 several surplus areas developed
in the trans-Appalachian West. Inhabitants of the Kentucky
bluegrass region wagoned their products at much expense over
rough roads to the Ohio and downriver to New Orleans.^ The
inconvenient portage around the falls at Louisville led
Kentucky farmers to advocate construction of a canal at that
point. Kentuckians displayed local jealousies in advocating
^Frederick Jackson Turner, Rise ojf the New West, 1819-1829 , Vol. XIV of The American Nation: A Mi'story, "edited by Albert Bushnell Hart," 2 8 vols." T7Tew"~Ybrk, 1^0 (fJ, p. 47.
45Ibid. , p. 225. /
46Niles' Weekly Register, XX (Mary 19 , 1821) , 180.
^Cincinnati Western Spy, February 9 and March 22, 1816.
40
a series of turnpikes to reach the navigable waters. Set-
tlers in the eastern bluegrass region becme particularly
interested in a road from Lexington to Maysville on the
Ohio River which would connect with Zane's Trace through
central Ohio.^
With settlements in Ohio extending inland into terri-
tory inaccessible to Lake Erie or the Ohio River, internal
improvements became more urgent in the Buckeye State.
Merchants and farmers of the older sections insisted upon
access to the eastern seaboard. This lack of transportation
facilities influenced the development of manufacturing in
the Ohio Valley. In an effort to furnish a home market,
small manufacturing plants arose at Pittsburgh, Frankfort,
Lexington, and Louisville.^ Farmers in the Scioto Valley
of central Ohio sought connections with these new manufac-
turing centers through construction of a Portsmouth-Cleveland
Canal and a Hocking Valley branch connecting with the
National Road and the Pennsylvania canal system. The Miami
region, with Cincinnati at its center, advocated a canal
from the Ohio River to Toledo on Lake Erie. Scioto Valley
residents were able to secure passage of their canal bill
in the state legislature only by placating the Miami interests
48 Lexington Reporter, April 1, 1818.
49prank P. Goodwin, "The Rise of Manufactures in the Miami Country," American Historical Review, XII (July, 1907), 761, 766; CineinnatTTTestern Spy, January 29, 1814.
41
with another c a n a l . I n addition, settlers of the Wabash
Valley of western Indiana and eastern Illinois sought an
eastern exit for their products via a Wabash and Erie
Canal.51
A rivalry developed among commercial cities of the
eastern seaboard to secure a share of western trade. New
York, Philadelphia and Baltimore competed \vith New Orleans
to supply the West with goods and receive its products.
Norfolk, Charleston, Richmond, and Savannah made similar
efforts. John C. Calhoun and other leading southerners
sought to direct ivestern trade to the ports of South Carolina
and Georgia. Henry Clay, foremost champion of the Ohio Val-
ley West, attempted to find a feasible solution to the prob-
lem as part of his American System of internal improvements,
protective tariff and national bank.5'*
Clay realized that the western need for roads and canals
was far more acute than in the East, because of the newness
•>0R. B. Way, "The Mississippi Valley and Internal Im-provements, 1825-1840 ," Proceedings of the, Mississippi Valley Historical Association. IV (1910-11) , 159-160.
•^Elbert Jay Benton, The Wabash Trade Route in the Development of the Old Northwest. Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science (Baltimore, 1903) , p. 9.
•^Archer B. Hulbert, The Great American Canals. Vol. XIII of Historic Highways of America. 16 vols. (Cleveland, 1904) , 69-70 ; Turner, Rise of the Nei West f pp. 226-228; Charles C. Weaver, Internal Improvements in North Carolina Previous to I860. Johns Hopkins University Studies in Histori-cal and Political Science (Baltimore, 1903), pp. 9-44; E. Merton Coulter, "The Genesis of Henry Clay's American System," South Atlantic Quarterly. XXV (January, 1926), 45-54.
42
of western settlements and the greater distances involved.
Moreover, state governments beyond the Alleghenies were
iveak in comparison with those on the seaboard. Bet\tfeen 1816
and 1821 five new western states entered the Union: Indiana,
Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, and Missouri. Together with
the states of Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Louisiana, they
formed a region united by similar interests and separated
from the older states by the Appalachians. From a popula-
tion of approximately 1,000,000 in 1810 or one-seventh of
the entire nation, the West grew to over 3,760,000 by 1829,
or over one-fourth of the total. Its importance is demon-
strated by the growth of western representation in Congress.
While the census of 1810 had allotted the West twenty-eight
members in the House of Representatives, its representation
increased to forty-seven in 1820 and to one hundred by 1830.
The addition of five new western states between 1816 and
1821 increased the western delegation in the Senate from ten
to eighteen members during that period.
C % JSee Curtis Nettels, "The Mississippi Valley and the Constitution, 1815-29," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XI (December, 1924), 332-357, for an excellent discussion of the constitutional sanctions for federal construction of roads and canals. Nettels concludes that the struggle was essentially one between strict and loose constructionists and that by 1828 the latter had triumphed in their attempt to provide a comprehensive program of internal improvements.
^Bureau 0f the Census, Historical Statistics, pp. 13, 69 3. I
43
Since the federal government had more prestige and
greater taxing power than the states, it was logical for
westerners to seek federal leadership in the development
of transportation. Two factors seriously restricted the
ability of these new western states to produce adequate
revenue from taxation: western settlers had little per-
sonal property and Congress controlled the majority of
their l a n d s . T h e scarcity of private capital also hin-
dered the development of western transportation facilities.
Most Americans with capital did not wish to commit their
savings to risky investments from which a return would be
slow and uncertain. Faced with the inability of state
governments to provide financial support for transportation
improvements, westerners demanded federal aid more readily
than residents of heavily settled areas.
With the return of peace in 1815, internal improvement
advocates revived their demands for federal aid. When the
Fourteenth Congress convened in December, 1815, it contained
a group of western congressmen, under the leadership of Henry
Clay, who urged the importance of a national transportation
system. This western bloc met hostile resistance from repre-
sentatives of older states who denied the constitutional
^Nettels, "The Mississippi Valley and the Constitution," pp. 332-333.
^Ibid.j p. 334; Callender, "The Early Transportation and BanFTng Enterprises of the States," pp. 141-154.
44
right of the federal government to provide internal improve-
ments. Advocates of federal aid deduced the authority from
the general welfare clause and from the specific powers
vested in Congress for regulating commerce among the states,
establishing post roads and declaring war. Their opponents
stressed strict construction of the Constitution and denied
that federal authority was necessary or proper to the execu-p y
tion of any of the enumerated powers.
The constitutional issue focused primarily upon the
respective rights of federal and state governments. How-
ever, constitutional questions raised in these debates
merely formed a focal point for major conflicts of state
and sectional interests. The essential point itfas that
the political and economic positions of certain sections
of the country would be furthered by a maximum or minimum
of federal action.
57Nettels, "The Mississippi Valley and the Constitution," p. 334.
CHAPTER III
MADISON, MONROE AND CONSTITUTIONALITY
Between 1815 and 1822 the constitutional views of
Presidents Madison and Monroe, expressed by the former in
his veto of the Bonus Bill in 1817 and by Monroe in his
rejection of the Cumberland Road Bill in 1822, hampered
Congress in dealing with the internal improvement issue.
Consequently no bill of general scope became law during
this period. Unlike his predecessor, Monroe modified his
original position in a lengthy statement accompanying the
veto message, A comparison of the views of Madison and
Monroe on the constitutionality of federal aid may'prove
helpful in understanding the ultimate failure of Congress
to enact a comprehensive internal improvement program."
Madison's presidential policies were of special im-
portance because of his relation to the framing of the
Constitution. In his later career he recalled that the
constitutional convention had denied federal authority
over internal improvements.1 Yet, during his presidency,
he frequently advocated federal aid for road-building
projects. In his first inaugural address of March, 1809,
1Madison to Edward Livingston, April 17, 1824, in Hunt, cd., Writings of Madison, IX, 180.
46
Madison urged Congress to promote "by authorized means
improvements friendly to external as well as internal
commerce." On December 23, 1811, he sent a special message
to Congress recommending a general system of internal im-
provements. His seventh annual message advised establish-
ment of such roads and canals as could be executed under
national authority. Madison maintained his sympathy with
the western position on the internal improvement issue
throughout his administration. In his eighth annual mes-
sage of December 3, 1816, he requested a constitutional
7
amendment authorizing federal aid to public works projects.
Congress seemed inclined to accept the responsibility.
Appropriations for road-building during Madison's presi-
dency amounted to $568,800, Most of this money went to the
National Road, to which the federal government stood com-
mitted by law and precedent.^ Madison admitted being
influenced by earlier appropriations for the (national toad,
but found it necessary to justify his support of postal and
military roads. He reminded Congress that "instead of
implying a general power to make roads, the constitution-
ality of them must be tested by the bona fide object of the
particular r o a d s . * Though he denied the right of federal
^James D. Richardson, editor, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents (New York, TIT97J , II, _ — —
"T '
JAmerican State Papers, Miscellaneous, II, 468-469.
^Hunt, ed., Writings of Madison, VIII, 406.
47
construction as well as appropriation, Madison alloxved the
federal government to build dozens of roads without stating
their specific objectives. During his administration Con-
gress appropriated $6,800 for Ohio roads, $8,000 for roads
in Illinois, and $14,000 for various other public roads.
Although probably intended for military use, they served
a variety of purposes.^
In keeping with Madison's internal improvement sugges-
tions in his eighth annual message, early in 1817 the House
committee on roads and canals presented a favorable report
to Congress concerning the desirability of federal aid.
The committee reported that average annual revenue no\tf
amounted to $25,000,000, an increase of $11,000,000 since
Gallatin presented his report on public roads and canals
in 1808. Improved transportation would benefit newly-
settled areas of the nation and the cost need not be ex-
cessive. Federal aid might take the form of subscriptions
to the stock of private companies chartered by the states.
Benefits would include an increase in federal revenue and
public land values, improved military efficiency, and vast f i
savings in transportation costs.
^American State Papers, Miscellaneous, II, 443-447, 469-470'; U. ST Statutes at Large, TTI^ JUT, 377 (1816, 1817); E. C. Nelson, "Presidential Influence on the Policy of In-ternal ImprovementsIowa Journal of History and Politics, IV (January, 1906), 19.
^Annals, 14th Cong., 2d Sess. (February 14, 1817), pp. 120-TZTf Niles' Weekly Register, XI (February 22, 1817), 423-427. — — _
48
The report received 110 further consideration. On
December 16, 1816, South Carolina nationalist John C. Calhoun
introduced a bill containing a series of recommendations
strikingly similar to those made by the House committee. Cal-
houn proposed the establishment of a federal internal im-
provement fund, to be composed of the $1,500,000 bonus and
the net annual dividends to be paid by the Bank of the
United States as the price of its charter. Calhoun urged
that "party and sectional feelings be immerged in a liberal
and enlightened regard to the general concerns of the
nation."^ His pleas went unheeded, for each section con-
tended for its own advantage in the lengthy debate which
followed. Southerners warned that Calhoun's Bonus Bill
would immeasurably strengthen federal power at state expense.
New England spokesmen feared that improved East-West communi-
cation might encourage westward migration. Since their
section had already built its own roads, the New England
states could not be expected to contribute tax money for the
construction of western roads and canals.**
In its original form the Bonus Bill provided for a per-
manent fund to be used under the direction of Congress for
improvements of national importance. As finally passed, the
7 Annals, 14th Cong., 2d Sess, (December 16, 1816),
pp. 296-297; ibid. (February 4, 1817), p. 851, 8Ibid. (February, 1817), pp. 858-871, 874-914, 916-923.
49
bill represented little more than a gift of federal revenue
to the states. Amendments added through the pressure of
state and sectional jealousies provided that the fund would
be distributed according to population and the money ap-
plied to improvements within each state, under the concur-
rent authority of Congress and the respective state
legislature. Clay and Calhoun pointed out that these pro-
visions would make it difficult to construct projects of
national importance, citing as an example the canal around
the falls at Louisville, which would be of greater benefit
to states along the river than to Kentucky. The amended
bill proved somet^hat of a disappointment to Calhoun, for
it provided very little authority for the type of systematic
national planning ealled for in Gallatin's report.
When the Bonus Bill came to a vote, the House displayed
its characteristic self-interest. New England opposed the
measure for fear that it would promote the commercial in-
terests of New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore, Southern
representatives argued that their section would derive little
financial assistance from the bill. But the strength of the
middle and western states proved greater than that of New
England and the South, Nearly unanimous support came from
the Ohio Valley, New York and Pennsylvania. New York still
^Ibid,, pp, 866-868, 876, 889; Carter Goodrich, "National Planning of Internal Improvement," Political Science Quarterly, LXIII (March, 1948), 33,
50
hoped for federal aid in building the Erie Canal. Pennsyl-
vanians believed that Philadelphia trade might reach the
South by way of a Chesapeake and Delaware Canal and that
Pittsburgh would profit immeasurably in the West by opening
the falls of the Ohio to navigation.*® The Bonus Bill
struggled through the House on February 8, 1817, by the
narrow margin of eighty-six to eighty-four. Three weeks
later the Senate accepted a slightly amended version of the
bill by a vote of twenty to fifteen. Every New England
senator except one voted in opposition.**
The Bonus Bill reached President Madison on March 3,
1817, his last day in office. Refusing to shift responsi-
bility to his successor James Monroe, Madison chose to veto
the bill in the eleventh hour of his official career. In
the veto message he carefully reviewed the constitutional
arguments advanced by internal improvement advocates and
found them inadequate. Madison pointed out that the power
proposed to be exercised by Congress did not appear in the
enumerated powers of the Constitution. Neither the commerce
clause, the clause relating to common defense and general
welfare, nor any other section authorized the federal
lOGeorge Rogers Taylor, The Transportation Revolution, 1815-1860 1 Vol, IV of The Economic History of the Unite"d States, edited by Henry David, Harold V. Faulkner and others, § vols. CNew York, 1951), p. 21; Charles M. Wiltse, John C. Calhoun: Nationalist, 1782-1828 (Indianapolis, 194411^ p. 403.
**Annals, 14th Cong., 2d Sess. (February 8 and March 1, 1817), pp7~TTT4, 191. Senator Jeremiah Mason of New Hampshire voted for the Bonus Bill,
51
government to construct roads and canals within individual
states. Had he not vetoed the Bonus Bill, the President
might have been guilty of an "inadmissable latitude of
construction and a reliance on insufficient precedents,"
and he would have contradicted his belief that "the perman-
ent success of the Constitution depends on a definite parti-
tion of powers between the general and state governments.
Madison's discussion of the general welfare clause
proved to be a pivotal section of the veto message. He
argued that by restricting the general welfare clause to
appropriation measures "this would still leave within the
legislative power of Congress all the great and most impor-
tant measures of Government."13 Monroe later interpreted
this important passage as allowing the right of appropria-
tion for improvements while denying that of execution. In
his later years Madison denied that this had been his inten-
tion, stating that "it was the object of the veto to deny
to Congress as well the appropriating power, as the execu-
ting and jurisdictional branches of it."14 Apparently he
failed to convince James Monroe.
1 n ^Richardson, ed., Messages and Papers of the Presidents.
II, 569-570; George Dangerfield, The Awakening 0f American Nationalism, 1815-1828, New American Nation Se'rxes (New York. T3"5bJ , p. 19."" '
1^Richardson, ed., Messages and Papers of the Presi-dents , II, 570. — a""" —
14Madison to Martin Van Buren, June 30, 1830, in Hunt, ed., Writings of Madison, IX. 376; Annals. 14th Cone.. 2d Sess7n^cE~37T^T77, pp. 1059-IUF2T"
52
Although Madison sincerely hoped that the aims of the
Bonus Bill might be attained by a constitutional amendment,
politics and sectional rivalries undoubtedly influenced his
veto. Heavily populated New York State, desperately in need
of money for the Erie Canal, would have received great bene-
fit from the appropriations authorized by the bill. Through
his promotional efforts in behalf of the canal, De Witt
Clinton had become a dangerous rival to the Virginia leader-
ship of the Republican Party, including Madison and Monroe.
Any financial assistance given to the Erie Canal would make
it more difficult to thwart Clinton's political ambitions
and restore party unity. Moreover, the policy of the Vir-
ginia leaders was again leaning towards state sovereignty,
while the Bonus Bill would have extended the powers of the
federal government.Although apparently honest in his
objections to a measure which he believed to be unconsti-
tutional, Madison had previously signed bills appropriating
federal revenue for internal improvements. He must have
realized that a constitutional amendment could never be
secured as long as Henry Clay and other western congressmen
would neither admit its necessity nor trust the decision to
an uncertain campaign for such an amendment,^
1 s Way, "The Mississippi Valley and Internal Improve-
ments," p. 164; Turner, Rise of the New West, pp. 300-306,
• ^ A n n a l s , 15th Cong., 1st Sess. (March 7, 1818), PP. II6T^RMR.
S3
The initial effect of the Bonus Bill veto on newly-
elected President Monroe's attitude is indicated in a letter
to Madison dated November 24, 1817, in which he stated his
reluctance to consider similar legislation: "It would be
improper in me, after your negative, to allow them to dis-
cuss the subject and bring in a bill for me to sign, in the
expectation that I would do it."17 Madison replied on
November 29: "The course you mean to take in relation to
Roads § Canals appears to be the best adapted to the posture
in which you find the case."-'-® Finding his intended course
encouraged by his predecessor, Monroe decided to take a
strong stand. In his first annual message of December, 1817,
the new Chief Executive expressed the opinion that the Con-
stitution did not empower the federal government to estab-
lish internal improvements. Like his fellow Virginian, he
recommended an amendment to convey the necessary authority."^
Monroe's suggestion received a cold welcome from western
congressmen, who were convinced that Congress had ample power
to act under the existing Constitution. Attempts to comply
with Monroe's request were made largely by easterners, since
17 Stanislaus M. Hamilton, editor, The Writings of James
Monroe (New York, 1902), VI, 32.
18Hunt, ed., Writings of Madison, VIII, 397.
l^Richardson, ed., Messages and Papers of the Presidents, I!, 587. _ —
54
their section would be favored by a minimum of federal
7 0
action. Loose constructionist Henry Clay saw no need for
an amendment. Since 1815 Clay had been advocating federal
aid for the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, which would link
the Potomac with the West. Clay argued that the Constitu-
tion grew with the nation and had not been intended for
exclusive use of the original thirteen states. New England 21
and southern congressmen were"unwilling to go that far.
Immediately following the reading of Monroe's first
annual message, Congress began a series of important debates
on the constitutionality of internal improvements sponsored
by the federal government. In March, 1818, the House commit-
tee on roads and canals, headed by ardent nationalist William
Lowndes of South Carolina, proposed a system of public works
projects. The committee asserted correctly that a number of
roads and canals had already been constructed at federal
expense. After submitting a list of general categories of
projects which they believed Congress had power to construct,
the committee concluded its report with the opinion that
Congress could appropriate funds for any project of national
benefit. After a vigorous debate involving the distinction
^This was true of proposals sponsored by Senators James Barbour of Virginia in 1817, Martin Van Buren of New York in 1824, and Representative John Bailey of Massachusetts in 1825. Annals, 15th Cong., 1st Sess. (December 9, 1817), pp. 21-24; TFid., 18th Cong,, 1st Sess. (January 22, 1824), pp. 134-136"; Register of Debates in Congress, 19th Cong., 1st Sess. (December 13, llT25.)7 pp. SOT^STTT.
21Colton, ed., Works of Clay, I, 451-471; Annals, 15th Cong.
55
between the right to originate and the right to appropriate
in aid of state construction, the House resolved, ninety to
seventy-five, that Congress could appropriate money for
construction of post roads, military roads and canals. A
resolution affirming that Congress might authorize construc-
tion of roads and canals for interstate commerce failed, 46
to 120, A bill authorizing construction of military roads
also failed to pass by the narrow margin of eighty-one to
eighty-three. It became'clear after this debate that the
House lacked a sufficient majority to override an internal
71
improvements veto.
Western congressmen now decided to modify their tactics
somewhat. Late in 1818 they succeeded in pushing through
the House a resolution asking Secretary of War John C.
Calhoun for a statement concerning military roads presently
under construction. On January 14, 1819, Calhoun submitted
a report outlining a program of suggested improvements for
military purposes. While avoiding the constitutional ques-
tion, he declared that a system of roads and canals "would
be itself among the most efficient means for the more com-2
plete defense of the United States." He recommended use
of the Corps of Engineers for surveying routes and federal 22 Annals, 15th Cong*, 1st Sess. (December 15, 1817),
pp. 451^75*0; ibid. (March 4, 1818), pp. 1385-1389; Turner, Rise of the NewT7est, p. 229.
^ A m e r i c a n state Papers, Miscellaneous, II, 533-534; U. S. Statute's"at Large7~ITT, T b U H T S W ; —
56
troops for actual construction work. President Monroe
seemed ready to act on these recommendations until the
Panic of 1819 threatened to deplete the federal treasury.
The House-reluctantly-tabled Calhoun's report^until the
return of prosperity in 1822.^
Meanwhile the National Road, on which construction had
continued during the War of 1812, now extended from Cumber-
land, Maryland to Wheeling, Virginia, In 1818 Congress
provided appropriations for surveys to the Mississippi River.
Acts admitting Indiana, Illinois and Missouri to statehood
all contained provisions similar to those of the Ohio Ena-
bling Act and seemed to assure the future of the National o-
Road. But even this promising enterprise *swung on a sway-
ing constitutional rope.^S As a result of the Panic &&-1819
the Cumberland Road, as it was now called, fell into dis-
repair and further appropriations seemed unlikely in the
immediate future. Construction was not resumed until 1822.
On December 18, 1821, Representative David Trimble of New
York introduced a bill appropriating $9,000 for repair of
the highway. To facilitate payment of future repair bills,
Trimble's measure authorized President Monroe to establish
toll gates along the road and appoint toll collectors. Since
the bill also provided for a system of toll charges and
^Annals, 15th Cong., 1st Sess. (March 30 and April 4t 1818), pp. 1649-1650, 1678-1679.
^Jordan, The National Road, p. 159; American State Papers, Miscellaneous^ T\ 7ljTT
57
penalties for nonpayment, it involved not only the power of
appropriating federal money for road construction but also
that of operating the road and having jurisdiction over it.2**
In the House debate on the Cumberland Road Bill, sec-
tional opposition cloaked in constitutional terms resulted
in an early deadlock. After representatives of the older
states resolved their conflicting viet^s, the House finally
passed the bill on April 29, 1822 by a vote of eighty-seven
to sixty-eight. The western delegation cast twenty-three
votes in favor and only two in opposition. Representatives
of districts adjoining the road in Virginia, Pennsylvania,
and Ohio approved the measure unanimously. Although New
England spokesmen remained generally opposed to federal
promotion of internal improvements, they supported the Cum-
berland Road Bill in the apparent hope that federal contri-
butions to the road would thereafter cease. Major opposition
to the bill came from New York, eastern Pennsylvania, and the
deep South,2'' Since Madison's refusal of federal aid for the
Erie Canal in 1817, New York had consistently opposed exten-
sion of the National Road for fear of its effect upon the C \ ' „ J ; / ^
business of the-carial. Representatives of the Susquehanna
Annals, 17th Cong., 1st Sess. (December 21, 1821), 560; Turner, Rise of the New West_, pp. 228-231; Archer B. Hulbert, The CumEerlanO""Road","Vol. X of Historic Highways of America (Cleveland,li)Q4) , 57-64; W. FTTresson, James Monroe TcFapel Hill, N. C., 1946), p. 392. (
27Annals, 17th Cong., 1st Sess. (April 29. 1822). p. 1 7 3 4 7 ~ —
58
region o£ Pennsylvania, which relied upon Baltimore and
Pittsburgh for its trade, also voted against the bill. In
the Senate, where the West was relatively stronger than in
the House, the measure passed by a decisive margin, twenty-
2 8 nine to seven, on May 3, 1822,
President Monroe lost no time in vetoing the bill,
which he returned with his objections on the following day.
Since violators of the toll system would have to be dealt
with by the federal government, Monroe viewed the measure
as an infringement on the police powers of the states. He
accepted Madison's contention that Congress lacked authority
to promote roads and canals without a constitutional amend-
ment.29 A detailed statement of Monroe's views on the
subject of internal improvements accompanied the veto mes-
sage. He'had written it nearly a year earlier without his
customary cabinet conference. Realizing that cabinet mem-
bers John C. Calhoun, William H. Crawford, and John Quincy
Adams favored federal aid to internal improvements and that
he could expect little support from them, Monroe decided to
2^Ibid., 15th Cong., 1st Sess. (March 31, 1818), p. 165 7 ; ibid., 17th Cong., 1st Sess. (May 3, 1822), p. 444.
^Richardson, ed., Messages and Papers of the Presidents, II, 711-712.
59
-ZQ
draft a statement without cabinet advice. In his "Views
of the President of the United States on the Subject of
Internal Improvementsthe Chief Executive attempted to
find a constitutional sanction for federal promotion of
roads and canals. After carefully examining the enumerated
powers of the federal government, Monroe reversed the posi-
tion taken in his first annual message. He was willing to
modify his earlier position and allow a flexible consti-
tutional interpretation, admitting that: Congress had [sic] an unlimited power to raise money, and that in.its appropriation they have a discretionary power, restricted only by the duty to appropriate it to the purposes of common defense and of general, not local, national, not State, benefit.
In concluding that the appropriation power implied congres-
sional authority to promote internal improvements, he
concurred with the opinion of the house in 1818 on the im-
portant distinction between the right to originate and the
right to appropriate. But Monroe warned that while Congress
might provide revenue for construction of roads and canals,
it could not establish jurisdiction over them or authorize
the executive to administer them. In effect he admitted the
30Monroe to Spencer Roane, July 9, 1821, in John L. Cadwalader, editor, "Letters of James Monroe, 1798-1823," Bulletin of The New York Public Library, VI (July. 1902") . 249-250; Adams, ed., Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, V, 516-517 j John C. PitzpatricF, editor, "Tile "Xu to bio g r aphy of Martin Van Buren, in American HistoricIH~AssociaT:ronT"7Cnnual Import ,~"nri8 (-Washington, 1920), II, 205-207 .
^Hamilton, ed., Writings of Monroe, VI, 217, 232-233.
60
power of Congress to appropriate revenue in support o£ pro-
jects promoted by other agencies, while denying the right
of federal construction and jurisdiction. Recognizing the
importance of transportation in the economic development of
the nation, he concluded with the recommendation that a con-
stitutional amendment be enacted. This had two advantages.
On the one. hand, if voting in the House was any criterion,
the amendment would be long delayed. If passed, it could
be so written as to delimit, once and for all, the juris-
dictional powers of Congress. Hopefully such an amendment
would confine federal legislation to truly national works
and leave all minor improvement projects to the states.^
Monroe's lengthy treatise on internal improvements was
solemn, dry, and extremely able. No one could have read it
without perceiving the legal and constitutional jungle into
which the federal government might have floundered had it
not been guided by Monroe's restrictions. Apparently his
views convinced many congressmen who had voted for the Cum-
berland Road Bill,for an attempt to override the veto met
defeat by a vote of sixty-eight to seventy-two. Monroe'&
pleas for an amendment, however, failed to bring the desired
results.33
Ibid. , pp. 265-266; American State Papers. Miscellan-eous., II, 534; Cresson, James Monroe, p. 396; Dangerfield, The Awakening of American Nationalist. p. 200 .
^^Annals, 17th Cong., 1st Sess. (May 6, 1822), pp. 187T-THT5",
61
The fate of the Cumberland Road Bill marked a turning
point in internal improvement legislation. Assured of a
veto for all measures advocating the construction of roads
and canals, Congress thereafter accepted Monroe's sugges-
tions and began appropriating money or land as well as
buying stock in various improvement companies. In spite
of the opposition of eastern representatives, during the
next three years Congress provided revenue for the repair
of. the Cumberland Road, for surveys of major improvement
projects, and for stock subscript ions amounting to $300 ,000
in the Chesapeake and Delaware C o m p a n y . W h i l e Monroe had
not explained how major improvement projects would be con-
structed, maintained, and policed under his appropriation
theory, these acts indicated three distinct possibilities.
Projects might be aided by direct application of federal
funds, either by the government itself or by contract. Fed-
eral revenue might be granted to the states for construction
of works under their jurisdiction, or the federal govern-
ment might purchase stock in private improvements companies.
Before Monroe left office in 1825, each of these promotional
methods would be utilized by the federal government.^
34Nelson, "Presidential Influence on Internal Improve-ments," pp. 29-30; Us S. Statutes at Large. Ill, 723 (1823): ibid. , IV, 22 (18247; lbiaTT~TVT"lZT TT^TT.
^ j Albjerg, "Internal Improvements Without a Policy,"
p. 171; White, The Jeffersonians, p. 481.
62
The obvious difficulty in applying Monroe's spending
theory lay in choosing improvement programs of wholly
national benefit. The federal government failed to resolve
this crucial problem and instead began aiding a multitude
of state and private enterprises. This ill-advised policy
weakened any future opportunities for systematic national
promotion of roads and canals. As a result, by the 1820's
the West remained the only section of the nation solidly
in favor of federal aid to internal improvements. New York
had recently completed the eastern section of the Erie Canal
from Rome to the Hudson River, and the western states, with
less feasible schemes, were anxious to follow the example
of New York. Handicapped by geographical and financial
difficulties in solving its transportation problems, the
West viewed federal aid as the most suitable solution.^
In 1823 the western delegation mustered its full
strength on the floor of Congress, reflecting the postwar
increase in western population which had first been offi-
cially recorded in the census of 1820. When the Eighteenth
Congress convened in December, 182 3, western representation
in the House numbered forty-seven members, an increase of
nineteen over the previous session. The western delegation
in the Senate grew from eleven to eighteen during the same
period. Unable to overcome the successive internal
36Annals, 17th Cong., 2d Sess, (February 7, 1823), p. 104G~Turner, Rise of the New West, p. 71.
63
improvement vetoes of Madison and Monroe, westerners de-
cided to initiate new tactics on the eve of the presiden-
tial campaign of 1824
The measure which the West agreed to promote during
this session was a bill authorizing surveys and a $30,000
appropriation for postal, military, and commercial roads
and canals. Western spokesmen hoped that before the sur-
veys could be made and a congressional program drawn up,
each of their constituencies having a local project would
be heard. The evident purpose of the General Survey Bill
was to facilitate future internal improvement appropriations
*Z Q
and stock subscriptions on a national scale. Following
introduction of the survey bill on January 30, 1824, the
internal improvements bloc in the House naturally looked
to Henry Clay for leadership. Clay had just returned to
Congress and had been triumphantly reelected Speaker,
With all his oratorical skill and vigor, Clay condemned the
Virginia Dynasty for its vetoes of 1817 and 1822: "A new
world has come into being since the Constitution was adopted,
Are the narrow, limited necessities of the old thirteen
•^Annals, 18th Cong., 1st Sess. (January 13, 1824), p. 1021; Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the U. S., p. 693. ~"
38U. S. Statutes at Large, IV, 629 (1824) ; Way, "The Mississippi" VaTley andTntcrnal Improvements," p. 167.
George Dangerfield, The Era of Good Feelings (New York, 1952), p. 320. — — —
64
states . . . forever to remain the rule of interpretations?"
Reviewing federal appropriations for construction of light-
houses and sea walls along the Atlantic coast, he noted
that "not one stone, not one spade of earth has been yet
removed in any Western State." Clay argued that the com-
merce clause provided constitutional authority for federal
construction of roads and canals, since internal trade would
foster national economic development,^
Clay's speech convinced only the most nationalistic
congressmen. One need only study the House voting on the
General Survey Bill to understand the reasons for federal
caution. Opposition to the bill came principally from un-
sympathetic eastern and southern congressmen. In contrast
to the united position of the West, the southern viewpoint
began to show divisions which reflected vested economic
interests. Representative John Randolph of Virginia warned
his fellow slaveholders that with federal power construed
as broadly as this bill proposed, Congress might conceivably
abolish slavery. Other southern representatives, however,
sought lucrative connections with the West and voted in sup-
port of the survey bill, George McDuffie of South Carolina,
later an arch-nullifier, sought a western alliance for his
state. Other southern spokesmen, although in the minority,
^Annals, 18th Cong., 1st Sess, (January 30, 1824), p. 1315"; IFTn*. (February 14, 1824), pp. 1040-1042. 1
65
hoped that improved transportation might facilitate the
sale of western meat products to the South
When the General Survey Bill came to a final vote in
the House on February 10, 1824, the internal improvements
bloc emerged victorious by a margin of 115 to 86. Henry
Clay's vision had encompassed the entire West and brought
its viewpoint into sharp focus. The entire western dele-
gation and the southwestern slave states voted with Penn-
sylvania and the Potomac Valley in support of the bill,
while opposition came mainly from New England, New York, and
the old South. The bili passed in the Senate by a twenty-
four to eighteen vote with New England senators voting
solidly against it.^2
Believing the Survey Bill permitted an elastic inter-
pretation ; President Monroe signed it on February 14, 1824.
The General Survey Act was a logical extension of Monroe's
own views; it was all promise and no performance. It could
hardly be viewed as establishing a comprehensive internal
improvement system, for it merely portrayed a willingness to
provide government engineers for surveys of projected im-
provements. As a result, reports of the United States Corps
41Ibid. (February 7-9, 1824), pp. 1468-1469; 1480-1485.
42IJbid. (February 10, 11, 1824), pp. 1553-1554, 1677. New EnglaiTcT opposed the General Survey Bill by 26 to 12; the Middle Atlantic states were in favor by 37 to 26, with New York opposed by 7 to 24; while western Virginia, western North Carolina, and a considerable fragment of South Carolina and Georgia also voted for it.
66
of Engineers and its Board of Internal Improvement began to
appear in congressional discussions and committee reports.
Under the terms of the act, the President would arrange for
surveys of the routes of canals and roads of national impor-
tance in a manner pleasing to the majority in Congress. At
the first authorization of specific surveys, however, per-
sistent sponsors of unsuccessful projects leveled charges
of favoritism against Monroe. While he undoubtedly realized
the difficulty of making impartial and scientific judgments
in the selection of projects to receive federal aid, Monroe
left office in March, 1835 , without resolving this problem.43
By 1825 the growing urgency of demands for federal aid
to internal improvements had reached its peak. Madison's
veto in 1817 had been accepted with near equanimity, for
it had temporarily quieted disagreements within his own
party over the constitutionality of improvement legislation.
The House had decided in 1818 that Congress possessed the
power of appropriation but not that of jurisdiction. Sec-
retary of War Calhoun's report in 1819 had shelved the
constitutional question but praised the defensive value of
a national system of roads and canals. Monroe had vetoed
the Cumberland Road Bill in 1822, but he dismayed strict
^Register of Debates in Congress, 19th Cong. , 1st Sess. (February TT, ~ , T 8" 2 fTf, pp'. $*2* 108; ibid.,(March 20, 1826), pp. 349-365; Taylor, The Transportation"~Revolution, p. 20; Glyndon D. Van Deusen, 'The nJ"ac'l<sonian Era"! 182 8-TL848, New American Nation Series (NewTorIT7~T5^TT p T " 5 2 7 —
67
constructionists with a statement affirming the constitu-
tionality of federal appropriations. Although opponents
of federal aid did not doubt the importance of the Cumber-
land Road, many wondered how Congress had come to build it
in the first place. In the minds of eastern congressmen,
the Cumberland Road Bill and the General Survey Act of 1824
opened alarming vistas of future federal invasions of the
states. Naturally suspicious of federal grants to private
corporations, strict constructionists believed that serious
abuses might result if the federal government entangled
itself in local projects. But local interests and the
pressure of corporations eager to receive federal subscrip-
tions to their stock effectively prevented establishment of
a national program of internal improvements sponsored by
the federal government.^
^Annals, 15th Cong., 1st Sess. (March 24, 1818), p. 1249; American State Papers, Miscellaneous, II, p. 534; Kendric C. Bab cock, The TTise of American Nationality, 1811-1819 [New York and London, TlJIFbX", p."TTS"~.
CHAPTER IV
ADAMS' FRUSTRATED NATIONALISM
On the day of the signing of the General Survey Bill,
an event occurred which expressed, in terms of political
mobility, precisely what the survey bill attempted to por-
tray in the realm of physical movement. With a new presi-
dent to be elected, the congressional caucus passed from
the scene, as if to make way for a government more respon-
sive to the restless individuals who composed the majority.
The caucus met for the last time on February 14, 1824, and
duly nominated William H. Crawford for President and Albert
Gallatin for Vice-President. However, only sixty-six
congressmen cared to put in an appearance. The friends of
the other candidates --John C. Calhoun, John Quincy Adams,
Henry Clay, and Andrew Jackson--used state conventions,
public meetings, newspapers, committees of correspondence
and circulating letters in a successful attempt to eliminate
the outmoded congressional caucus as a system of nomination.^"
Lee Benson, The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy: New York as_ a Test Case~XPrin c e t o n * . J ., 1 i)01) , p^ 9 ; "Shaw" TTvermore j'TTFT,-TTIe" Twilight of Federalism: The Disintegra-tion of the FederaTist"Tar ty,T81T-1T313 [Tr i n ce'ton, N. J. , TinS!} , p. "T4D ; Cnarles TT. Sydnor, The Tieve 1 opment of South-ern Sectionalism, 1819-1848. Vol. V" o'f A~irrstory~oT~~tin? ^ontVrTeKxtoiriTy WemleirTTT Stephenson anTHTTTieri~n"TouIter, TO" vols. (Baton Rouge, La., 1948), pp. 164-165.
69
The presidential election o£ 1824 appeared at first to
be irrelevant to the dissatisfied and troubled spirit of
sectionalism prevailing in the nation. All five candidates
avowed themselves Republicans and all seemed to offer simi-
lar programs. John C. Calhoun, Monroe's Secretary of War,
gave up the contest in March. An anticaucus nominating
convention in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, nominated Jackson
for President and Calhoun for Vice-President. Calhoun
accepted the verdict; he could wait forever for the presi-
dency. Of the two remaining candidates, both of whom were
Cabinet members, Secretary of the Treasury Crawford bore the
stigma of the caucus nomination. This, combined with a near-
fatal attack of paralysis and his states' rights views, nar-
rowed his chances of victory. Jo3m Quincy Adams strongly
favored a 'national program of internal improvements but
evaded the tariff issue. He relied chiefly upon his respect-
able record as Secretary of State, marked by a series of
successes which earned him the respect of the business com-
munity in the Northeast.2
The candidacy of Andrew Jackson did not appeal to cau-
tious minds. Because his political views were more obscure
than his military achievements, he received the support of
men who were not only dissatisfied but also unsure of the
"Washington National Intelligencer. February 24, 1824; Eugene II. Roseboom, A History of Presidential Elections r 2d ed. (New York, 1964), pp. 84-86 ; "Philip s7 Klein, Penn-sylvania Politics1817-1832 (Philadelphia, 1940), pp. 153-155; Wiltse, Calhoun: Nationalist. pp. 283-284.
70
causes of their dissatisfaction. As a Senator from Tennes-
see, Jackson's record had never been inspiring. He voted
but did not speak in favor of the General Survey Bill and
maintained a noncommittal attitude towards the tariff. His
military record, already becoming enshrined in legend, and
the absence of clearly defined ideas helped account for his
popularity.^ Of all the candidates, only Henry Clay offered
a recognizable program. He had deeply committed himself to
his American System of internal improvements, protective
tariff and national bank. But Clay had no chance of victory
in New England and New York, which opposed federal aid to
internal improvements, nor in the Southwest, where protec-
tive tariffs were anathema. While the election results
proved inconclusive, Clay's American System went down to a
resounding defeat.'*
The election was decided on the basis of personalities
and sectional interests. Once the returns were counted,
there was no doubt that the next Vice-President would be
Calhoun. There was, however, considerable doubt as to who
would be the next President. In those states where the
people chose the presidential electors, Jackson led at the
polls. He also came out ahead in the electoral college,
White , The Jeffersonians, p. 127; Samuel Flagg Bemis, John Qui ncy AH"ams an<T tTfe Union (New York, 1956), pp. 22-24; ITahgerTTelcT, Th"e Awakening oi American Nationalism, p. 221.
^Jackson to A. J. Donelson, August 6, 1822, in John Spencer Bassett, editor, Correspondence of Andrew Jackson (Washington, 19 26), III, TAT"?H7qTirrTa^ Jacks'on: Portrait of a President (Indianapolis, 19 37),~p7~TT.
6
71
with ninety-nine votes to Adams' eighty-four, Crawford's
forty-one, and Clay's thirty-seven.5 Since Jackson lacked
the necessary majority, in accordance with the Twelfth
Amendment the House of Representatives would make the final
decision. The House would choose from the three candidates
with the highest electoral vote, thus eliminating Henry Clay.
If Clay could not be President in 1825, he could at
least be President-maker. As Speaker, he was in a strategic
position for influencing the decision of the House of Rep-
resentatives. In deciding among the three leading candidates,
the House would vote by states, with each state delegation
casting one vote. As the winner of the popular election in
Kentucky, Ohio, and Missouri, Clay could at least swing the
votes of those three states. Before the House election, sup-
porters of Jackson, Crawford, and Adams approached Clay in
behalf of their respective candidates. But Jackson was
Clay's rival for the political affections of the West and he
could not be depended upon to champion Clay's legislative
program. Crawford was out of the question, for he was now a
paralytic, incapable of discharging presidential duties.
Only Adams remained. Although Clay had clashed with him
5Adams, ed., Memoirs of John Quincy Adams. VI. 447. 452 , 457; Bemis, J^T^T^ncy M a m s ^ d ^ e T J n T o n , pp. 25, Roseboom, PresideITmi-7T^T.i5Tr~pr~8'5:; — i . ***
^Fitzpatrick, ed., Autobiography of Martin Van Buren. II, 199-200 ; Robert V. R e m ^ ^ I a r t T n VTTnHJurcn aruT 'fhe Making of the_ Democratic Party XNew"TorIe7 nr5TT,"pp.™7ir-2 2.
72
repeatedly, Adams cherished nationalistic principles similar
to those of the American System, Finally Clay gave his sup-
port to Adams, and the House elected him on February 9,
1825, Adams received the votes of thirteen states compared
to Jackson's seven and Crawford's four,^
The Jacksonians were angry enough at Adams' election,
but they became far angrier \dien the new President made
known his cabinet selections. Adams decided to appoint Clay
as Secretary of State because the experienced westerner
agreed with him on national policies. Before the balloting
in the House, Clay had indicated his support of Adams,
Although he apparently made no promises to Clay, Adams told
John Scott of Missouri that, if he should be elected by
western votes, he would look to the West for "support."**
There had obviously been an understanding between Adams and
Clay, but it proved to be politically disastrous for both
men. The Jacksonians anticipated Clay's appointment prior
to the House election. On January 28, 1825, the Columbian
Observer of Philadelpha printed a charge of "bargain and
corruptionAlthough a House committee could discover no
7 Adams, ed., Memoirs of John Quincy Adams. V I , 4 4 7 - 4 6 9 ;
Thomas Hart Benton, Thirty Years' View: or ~ A History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years. from 1820 to 1850 (New York, 1854), I , 69; Roseboom, Presidential Elect ions . p. 86,
o Adams, ed., Memoirs of John Quincy Adams. VI , 474;
Bonis, John Quincy Adams and the Union,~pp 4 3 - 4 4; Bennett Champ'cHW,: jJhir0uiTaT7 X3S5r«—oTrWn Eloquent Boston, 19 32), p. 3 1 2 ? ™ " ~ ~~~ -—J '
73
truth to the allegation, Jackson and It is followers continued
to believe that "the Judas of the West" would receive his
thirty pieces of silver. James Monroe, courteous to the last,
9
offered no words of criticism.
In light of the nationalistic views of John Quincy Adams,
it appeared in 1825 that the federal government was about to
initiate a substantial program of internal improvements.
Adams boldly set out to "dispel every speculative scruple
by a practical blessing," feeling convinced that "from the K;
inauguration of internal improvements . . . the unborn mil-
lions of our posterity . . . will derive their most fervent
gratitude to the founders of our U n i o n . A d a m s believed
it possible to unite the sectional forces sufficiently to
carry out a federal system of roads and canals. Although
the President persisted in this view throughout his admin-
istration, he severely underestimated the strength of the
opposition. His political opponents succeeded in breaking
the ranks of internal improvement advocates, while Adams
himself alienated the South with his doctrines of loose con-
struction. John Quincy Adams proved incapable of interpret-
ing the signs of the times. Imperious in tone and
^Jackson to William B. Lewis, February 14, 1825, in Bassett, ed., Correspondence of Jackson, III, 276; Clay to Crawford, Februax)rT87~T?r2¥7 CoTEon7 ed., Works of Clay, I V, 192. — — —
10 Adams, ed., Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, VII, S9;
anger fie Id, bra of boocTTee lings , p. 3TCT; Semis, John M'i Quincy Adams arnT We~UHroH7"prt7. — . •
74
authoritarian in attitude, he alienated an electorate which
for eight years had grown accustomed to the mild and con-
ciliatory Monroe. Adams missed his opportunity to institute
a national program of internal improvements, and the reaction
curtailed the political future of himself and his program.
A certain amount of tact and forbearance might have
helped both Adams and his system, for he embraced his oppor-
tunity far too readily. Nor did the untoward and ominous
circumstances of his election teach him to walk warily. His
inaugural address of March 3, 1825, left no one in doubt as
to his concept of the functions of central government or his
interpretation of the public mind. He seemed to think that
the Era of Good Feelings had established a unanimity on
public questions and forever shattered sectional strife.12
While earlier presidents had held the use of powers not
specifically granted to be unconstitutional, Adams declared
that the exercise of implied pollers "is a duty as sacred
and indispensable as the usurpation of power not granted is
criminal and odious." To that conception of the Constitu-
tion he added his ardor for internal improvements, for he
"^Calhoun to J. G. Swift, September 2, 1825, in Thomas Robson Hay, editor, "John C. Calhoun and the Presidential Campaign of 1824; Some Unpublished Calhoun Letters," American Historical Review, XL (January, 1935), 297; George A. Lipsky, John Quincy~^3"ams: His Theories and Ideas (New York. 1950). pTT43. _ ~~ ~ ™~~ *"
12 Nelson,. "Presidential Influence on Internal Improve-
ments," pp. 32-33; Dangerfield, Era of Good Feelings, p. 344.
75
viewed the roads and aqueducts of Rome as the chief extant
monuments of her glory. With respect to the constitutional
question, he pointed out that although "the most respectful
deference is due to doubts originating in patriotism," the
National Road had been begun txventy years earlier without
constitutional scruples. Adams concluded his inaugural by
disagreeing with his predecessors on the necessity for addi-
tional authority: "I perceive the power of making roads and
canals to be given by the Consitution; and . . . an amendment
1
[sanctioning this is] . . , impracticable and useless."
Adams' federal program did not advance far beyond the
stage of surveys and reports, Instead of accepting the
minority president's ideal of a general system irrespective
of local or party interests, regions combined with one an-
other for local favors, corporations competed for subscrip-
tions to their canal stock, and rival political factions bid
against each other for the support of financially weak western
states. Realizing that certain sections of the South desired
connections with the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys, Adams
sought to win them over by assurances of his lack of interest
in the tariff. But his loose construction doctrines appeared
far too nationalistic for the South.
13 Richardson, ed., Messages and Papers of the Presidents,
1 , 288-289 ; Adams, ed. $ Memoirsof: Jolm (Juincy AtFams # ?TT7 80 m
^Lipscomb, ed., Writings of Jefferson, XVI, 149-150 ; William E. Smith, The Francis~Prost'ion B'lair Family in Poli-tic^, I, 38; Turne r7"HIse"oT~tETTTevTWeFf,~"p• "ITS".
76
The Jacksonians insisted that Adams' internal improve-
ment program was politically motivated. Jackson's Senate
floor leader, Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, asserted that
the selection of routes under the General Survey Act would
degenerate "from national to sectional, from sectional to
1
local, and from local to mere neighborhood improvements ,"x-'
Even in the face of such opposition, Adams remained con-
vinced that under his leadership Congress would soon embark
upon an energetic program of federally-sponsored internal
improvements«
On November 25, 1825, the new President read to his
Cabinet the draft of his first annual message. In it he
had recommended to Congress a flagrantly nationalistic
program, including the founding of a national university,
creation of a Department of the Interior, establishment
of a uniform standard of weights and measures, construction
of an astronomical observatory, reform of the patent laws,
and, significantly, the inception of a system of internal
improvements on a scale rivaling that of Gallatin's plan.
Had he listened to the advice of his Cabinet, Adams would
never have submitted such a message to Congress. Henry Clay,
acknowledged leader of the internal improvements bloc, ap-
proved of the principles involved but shuddered at the plan's 15 Way, "The Mississippi Valley and Internal Improve-
ments," p. 174, Benton, Thirty Years' View, I, 26; White, I he Jef fersonians , p, 48 3; ilemis, John Qumcy Adams and the Dili oh, p, SI."
77
boldness and breadth. Attorney General William Wirt called
Adams' attention to the possible negative effect such a
1{3
policy would have on the President's popularity in Virginia.
In spite of their warnings, Adams decided to go ahead with
the message. As he explained years later, the primary ob-
jective of his administration "was to mature into a regular
system the application of all the surplus revenues of the
Union into internal improvements \tfhich at this day would have
afforded high wages and constant employment to hundreds of 17
thousands of laborers." Consistent with his independence
of mind, the sturdy New Englander scorned the thought that
Congress might not agree with his principles.
Adams did not doubt that Congress possessed the author-
ity to implement his broad program. He believe that the
enumerated powers both collectively and individually gave
the federal government power to carry out such nationalistic
policies, for "to refrain from exercising these powers for
the benefit of the people themselves would be to hide in the
earth the talent committed to our charge--wculd be treachery 18
to the most sacred of trusts." Only through the use of
Adams, ed., Memoirs of John Quincy Adams t VII, 59-6 3; Dangerfield, Awakening "of* American NatlonaTTsm^, p. 231; John II. Powell, RiHTaixTTTusliT Tiepu"FTTc"an Diplomat (Philadelphia, 1942), p. rsr. • - -
i 7 Adams to Rev. Charles Upham, February 2, 18 37, quoted
by Brooks Adams in his introduction to Henry Adams, The Degra-dation o_f the Democratic Dogma (New York, 1919) , p. 24. ~"
l^Richardson,' ed., Messages and Papers of the Presidents, II, 882. ™ ~~~ ~~~~ — —
78
federal power, according to Adams, could social improvement
be brought about. He therefore asked Congress to consider
"the general principle of internal improvements in a more
enlarged extent." The federal government should initiate
"works important to the \\rhole, and to which neither the
authority nor the resources of any one State can be ade-
quate," Impartial judgment in their selection would be
provided by a Board of Engineers for Internal Improvement.
Introducing a new element into improvement planning, Adams
expressed the hope that "the swelling tide of wealth from
the sale of public lands would be made to reflow in unfail-
ing streams of improvement from the Atlantic to the Pacific
O c e a n . W i t h the inclusion of a planning agency, this
program may be considered as the most extensive expression
of the philosophy of federal aid to internal improvements
ever pronounced.
Such was the nationalistic program of John Quincy Adams.
In developing his policies, Adams failed to reflect the pre-
vailing attitude of his generation toward the functions of
government. While he described a strict interpretation of
the enumerated powers as "treachery to the most sacred of
trusts," many Americans insisted on such caution in order to
curb the powers of the national government, Adams' prede-
cessors in office had taken a stricter view of the proper use
•^Ibid,, p. 889.
79
of federal power. Presidents Madison and Jefferson had both
assumed that Congress lacked the power to do anything not
expressly delegated. Both had recommended a constitutional
amendment to convey federal power over internal improvement
projects. James Monroe, under whom Adams had served as
Secretary of State, had also considered suggesting such an
amendment to Congress, although he later consented to limited
federal aid through the appropriation power. While certain
members of Monroe's Cabinet had appeared to agree with Adams'
nationalistic policy, many of them, including the ardently
nationalistic Calhoun, subsequently turned their backs upon
it. Even Andrew Jackson, cognizant of the western votes an
internal improvement program would garner, entered into op-
position for basically political reasons.^®
The uncertain times and political climate of the country
proved unfavorable to the nationalistic views of John Quincy
Adams. Reaction to his first annual message, read to Con-
gress on December 6, 1825, came swiftly and inevitably.
Among prominent political figures voicing their criticisms,
Thomas Jefferson saw the message as a reversion to an aristo-
cratic form of Federalism, "under the guise and cloak of
their favored branches of manufactures, commerce, and navi-
gation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and
2 0 Adams, ed., Memoirs of John Quincy Adams; Lipsky,
John Quincy Adams; Theories and Ideas, p."TT&T
80
21
beggared yeomanry." William H. Crawford viewed it as "being
replete with doctrines which I hold to be unconstitutional."
Clay supporter Francis Preston Blair reacted by switching his
political allegiance to Jackson. Adams' message struck in-
veterate states' rights exponent John Randolph as "a mass of
dangerous and threatening innovations."^ But James Madison
quieted his fellow Virginian's fears with an astute analysis
of the forces which would eventually defeat: a national trans-
portation system. Madison argued prophetically that the
states would unite against the exercise of strong federal
power, which '.vould not only interfere with their rights but
"expend vast sums of money, from which their share of the
benefit, would not be proportioned to their share of the
burden." He concluded correctly that as states perfected
their own improvements, their interest in federal aid would ? ^
depreciate proportionately.
Public reaction to the first annual message ranged from
humorous to severe. The entire country laughed at Adams'
unfortunate metaphor in referring to astronomical observa-
tories as "lighthouses of the skies." Opposition in the 7 i Jefferson to W. B. Giles, December 26, 1825, in
Lipscomb, ed., Writings of Jefferson» XVI, 149-150.
? ? Crawford to Clay, February 4, 1828, in Colton, ed. ,
Works of Clay, IV, 192; Richmond Enquirer, December 28, 18 2 5; Smitn, The Blair Family in FoTitics, I, 38.
^Madison to Jefferson, December 28, 1825, in Hunt, ed., Writings of Madison. IX, 2 36.
81
South took the form o£ direct action. Anticipating Adams'
proposals, the South Carolina legislature resolved in Nov-
ember, 1825, that "it is an unconstitutional exercise of
power, on the part of Congress, to tax the citizens of one
state to make roads and canals for the citizens of another
state." The Virginia legislature quickly passed a resolu-yj M
tion upholding the action of South Carolina. Southern
leaders realized that natural barriers prohibited their *
region from sharing in any wave of prosperity which might
be produced in other sections by a network of canals and
roads. They insisted that construction projects be paid
for by those states which would benefit from them rather
than by the federal government. Governor John L. Wilson of
South Carolina expressed the fear of many southerners that
"the day is not far distant, when South Carolina shall pay
for the cutting of a canal across Cape Cod."^ The states
of the deep South saw no logic in supporting a presidential
program from which they expected little direct benefit.
In view of his failure to conciliate the opposing forces,
chances for passage of Adams' program appeared nonexistent.
Adams persisted in his views, hoever, trusting that his ap-
peals to the West and to those interested in western
^Herman V. Ames, State Documents on Federal Relations .The States and the UniteTlTtateTn[l')HITacrel^HirrT^innT" p p 1 4 0 b V t i n o r , Deve1 opment of Southern Sectionalism, pp. 181-182.
? /"JAmes, State Documents oil Federal Relations, p. 137;
Sydnor, Development oT SoutKern JTectionaTTsm, p. 181.
82
connections xvould win over his political enemies. Unfor-
tunately for Adams, the Nineteenth Congress proved neither
sympathetic nor subservient, and paid little attention to
the President's recommendations. No one seemed to repre-
sent the administration viewpoint in Congress. Vice-
President Calhoun controlled the Senate, allowing the
Jacksonians to gain control of seven of the fifteen standing
committees.' Southern leaders in the House openly opposed
anti-slavery Speaker John Taylor of New York, and his friend-
ship with Adams could only hurt the President in the South.
The major difficulty in attempting to find someone to wield
a party whip, however, was that there was no unified party
over which to crack it. Because of his refusal to use pa-
tronage in his own behalf, President Adams lacked the assis-
tance of an effective political machine. He was not
politician enough to secure congressional support for his
proposals,^7
Congress merely passed a few appropriation bills for
particular projects and continued granting funds for the
repair and extension of the Cumberland Road to Zanesville,
Ohio. After hearing appeals from private corporations and
9 f s
Register of Debates, 19th Cong., 1st Sess. (April 15, 1326), T7"2™-irr3; WTltse, Calhoun: Nationalist, pp. 322-323;' Gerald M. Capers, John C~ CaTrHTun- - Opportunist: A Reapprai-sal (Gainesville, lTaT,~19(T0) , p. llT. —
^Adams , ed., Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, VII, 7l; Bemis, John Quincy Actans and tneunion, p# 72.
83
state projects, the House decided to purchase stock in
various state-chartered improvement companies, a practice
which seemed to meet the constitutional objection to federal
aid. This method also appeared to require smaller appro-
priations and might result in more careful spending, for
the judgment and zeal of private investors ivould be in-
volved. In this way the federal government seemed less
2 8
likely to participate in impractical projects. In the
face of sectional misgivings and the gradual development
of political opposition, Adams' system of internal improve-
ments rapidly degenerated into a program of logrolling in
Congress. That body made a number of unsystematic invest-
ments, including 10,000 shares in the Chesapeake and Ohio
Company, 1350 shares in the Louisville and Portland Company,
750 in th<2 Chesapeake and Delaware Company, and 200 shares
in the Dismal Swamp Company. Exclusive of land grants and
Cumberland Road appropriations, revenue spent for aiding
small projects and investing in canal companies during the ? 9
Adams administration amounted to $2,500,000.
Meanwhile an additional form of federal subsidization
had been worked out, and in 1826 and 1827 Congress passed 28
Report of the Committee on Internal Improvements, 21st Cong*t~7 2"d~cTes"sT TTeTJrtnTry TIT,TSTJJTIIousTTtepTTTo! 77, pp. 37-63.
29 Department of the Interior, Statement of Land Grants
Made Coneress to Aid in the Construction "of RaiXroads. Wagon Roads, Canals arid Internal Improvements (Washington, Td08)",~p~p.*~"l2-27". • ~ ~ " "
84
bills authorizing land grants to Illinois for a canal from
Lake Michigan to the Illinois River, and to Indiana and Ohio
for various roads and canals. Such projects could be thought
of as western extensions of the Gallatin plan, linking the
commerce of the Great Lakes and the Erie Canal with that of
the Mississippi system. These measures set the precedent of
granting alternate sections of land along the construction
sites, with the remaining areas reserved for use of the
federal government. Such grants however, represented little
more than a cash loan to the western states, since the money
gained from sale of public lands would be used to pay for
30
the improvements themselves. Constitutionally this policy
met the approval of eastern representatives who had tradi-
tionally opposed Monroe's policy of appropriating federal
money for roads and canals. The land grant plan attempted
to satisfy the western demand for outside assistance to
internal improvement projects. But instead of solving this
already complex problem, it merely compounded it."^
Throughout the Adams administration the public land
question intertwined with that of internal improvements.
Adams hoped that the increased price of public lands, arising
from improved means of communication, would in turn furnish
30 Register of Debates, 19th Cong., 2d Sess. (December
IS, 18 257*, pp. 7-T2"; ibid. (January 9 , 1827), pp. 39-52.
3*John Rae Bell, "Federal Land Grants in Aid of Canals," Journal of Economic History, IV (November, 1944) , 167-177.
85
a large and steadily increasing fund for national turnpikes
and canals.^ But many westerners argued that the federal
government should either cede or donate the public domain
to the states as a condition of statehood. By 1826 a feel-
ing had developed in the West that the federal policy of
selling land at $1.25 per acre irrespective of quality, as
provided in the Land Act of 1820, actually prevented western
population from reaching the density at which internal im-
provements could be made without heavy taxation. Having no
authority over distribution of public lands and no power to
tax them until they became private property, the new western
states resented the presence of the federal government in a
landlord capacity.^ Western settlers wanted to own their
lands and acquire them cheaply. Early in 1826, administra-
tion foe Thomas Hart Benton proposed a bill providing for
sale of the public domain at a graduated price and reducing
the price of any land left unsold after three years.
Governor Ninian Edwards of Illinois supported such legisla-
tion at first, but within two years he began advocating
immediate cession of all Illinois lands held by the federal
^Adams ed., Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, VII, 59: ibid. , VII, 444.' . —
•t -t
'American State Papers . Publie Lands . V, 88; Roy M. Robbins, Our. Landed Heritage: The Pub lie,. Domain, 1776-1936 (Princeton, N. J., 1942) , pp. 185-189,
•^Register of Debates. 19th Cong., 2d Sess. (April 2, 1826), pp. 731-740".
86
government. By 1828 his state had become deeply involved
in a campaign to secure funds for the Illinois-Michigan
Canal. In the governor's annual message o£ 1828, Edwards
denied the right of the federal government to exercise
authority over any territory within a state. Another
western leader, Senator James Hendricks of Indiana, ex-
pressed the sentiments of many western farmers in proposing
cession of the public domain to the states as their right-
ful heritage. Although the majority of western congressmen
favored such a scheme, overwhelming opposition came from
New England and the middle states, as well as a strong
minority in the old South.^
Sectional leaders John C. Calhoun and Robert Y. Hayne
of South Carolina, now alarmed over the possibility of an
alliance between the expanding West and the industrial,
pro-tariff North, asserted that the public lands had been
ceded to the United States under a compact providing that
proceeds from their sale ivould be utilized for payment of •Z7
the public debt. New England and Middle Atlantic state
^Illinois House Journal, XII (December 12, 1828), 12-39 , 53;~Way, nThe TTxssissippi Valley and Internal Improve-ments," p. 172; John H. Krenkel, Illinois Internal Improve-ments , 1818-1848 (Cedar Rapids, la., HUnT)7" P
•^Register Qf Debates, 20th Cong., 1st Sess. (December 20 , 1827"an^^nuar)TT57~T828) , 15, 151.
"^Ibid., 20th Cong., 2d Sess. (December 23, 1828 and January~n~" 1829), pp. 10-11, 198-199; Glyndon G. Van Deusen, Economic Bases of Disunion in South Carolina (New York, T w r T p r i w r ~~ * — — — —
87
leaders also opposed any attempt to alter the theoretical
contract binding the old and new states together. Debts
incurred by internal improvement projects in Pennsylvania
and other eastern states made their representatives insis-
tent that the public domain should benefit everyone. On
May 20, 1826, disgruntled southern politicians decided to
embarrass the administration by advocating outright cession
of the publie lands, 1 hey realized that President Adams
favored the continuation of existing land policies, not only
for revenue purposes but to satisfy the rapidly industrial-
izing Noi tlieast, which feared that cheap land would encour-
age westward migration.38
Although the public land question rapidly developed
into a contest of sectional rivalries, the tt\ro political
factions never succeeded in aligning themselves on the
issue. Administration supporters met with opposition in
the West because their land grant policies did not go far
enough, but their political opponents did not unanimously
oppose a cession policy. While the Jacksonians lacked unity
on either the public land question or the internal improve-
ment issue, Thomas Hart Benton proclaimed that Andrew Jack-
son, when elected, would distribute public lands among the
western states to whom they rightfully belonged. Coming at
38 American State Papers, Public Lands. V. 331* Reaiqtpr
Si Long. , 2T~S"ess7HTiary 20 , 1826) , p.TsTj KobFins/^ur Landed Heritage, p. 200. F
88
a time when western leaders such as Edwards of Illinois and
Hendricks of Indiana advocated outright cession of the public
domain, this promise provided a clever method of outbidding
Adams for western political support.^
Meanwhile, Adams characteristically insisted upon par-
ticipating in a losing cause, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.
Despite the counsel of Henry Clay, this canal became Adams'
favorite project. Clay warned Adams of its impracticality,
for it would not divert western trade from New York and
Pennsylvania. The canal route had been surveyed under the
General Survey Act of 1824, but when its board of engineers
published an estimate of its projected cost in 1826, the
stockholders decided to modify the original plans. The
total estimated cost came to $22,000,000, an unfathomable
amount since the entire capital stock of the Chesapeake
and Ohio Company amounted to only $6 ,000 ,000 . 4 0 In May,
1828, Congress appropriated $1,000,000 for the Chesapeake
and Ohio Company, heir to Washington's Potomac Company. In
addition to financial difficulties, engineering problems
7(]
Ernest L, Bogart, Injternal_ Improvements and State Debt in Ohio: An Essay in lieon'omi c~H is t ory~TNew York. 1924"). p- 59; Joseph Dorfman, lhe Economic Mind xn American Civili-zation (New York, 1949)7"TIT7~T357^nTTanT"toT^TTamFers7~TJT3" FinTio'n Benton: Senator from the New West (Boston, 1956} ,
^Memorial of the Central Committee of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Convention (Baltimore1826) ,~p.~ 23; Adams,
, Memoirs, of John 0uinc£ M a m s , VII, 189-191; Turner, Rise of the New West. pp. 290-291.
89
led to a waning of enthusiasm for the canal in Maryland,
Virginia, and the District of Columbia. Baltimore had
been opposed to the project since its inception. Blessed
with turnpike connections to the Cumberland Road, the city
shared with Philadelphia in the lucrative wagon trade to
the Ohio River. While lobbying against the possibility of
their rivals on the Potomac securing western connections,
Baltimore merchants had become interested in another poten-
tial threat to the canal, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
In a symbolic ceremony on July 4, 1828, President Adams
removed his coat and thrust a spade into the ground to
symbolize the beginning of construction of the Chesapeake
and Ohio Canal. But on the same day a rival celebration
took place in Baltimore, where Charles Carroll of Carroll-
ton, only remaining signer of the Declaration o£ Indepen-
dence placed a foundation stone to signify establishment of
the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, first railroad link be-
tween East and West. Although Carroll was a man of the past,
destiny worked on the side of the movement which lie repre-
sented. During the next two decades in the field of trans-
portation, the initiative of individuals and corporations
^Walter S. Sanderlin, The Great National Project: A History of the Chesapeake ancTHShio Canal, Johns Hopkins University" StTTdies inUistorfcaf"and Political Science (Baltimore, 1946), pp. 68-75; Adams, ed., Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, VIII, 32, 452-453, " i
90
in their support of railroads proved far superior to that
of the federal government in aiding roads and canals.^
While Adams ineptly contributed to the downfall of his
internal improvement program, the Jacksonians skillfully
isolated separate projects from the taciturn New Englander's
proposed system and openly favored those demanded by sec-
tions whose support they needed most. When Ohio initiated
a state system of canals connecting the Ohio River with
Lake Erie in 1827, congressional supporters of both Adams
and Jackson introduced land grant legislation designed to
conciliate political interests in Ohio. Each faction pushed
its own bill in Congress, with administration supporters
advocating a land donation to the Cleveland-Portsmouth Canal
and the Jacksonians favoring a grant to the Miami Canal.
With each group fearing that the other would secure politi-
cal gain, both bills passed. As a result of this comedy of
errors, Ohio received double the amount originally asked.
Immediately Indiana, Illinois, and other western states
petitioned Congress for aid in their own canal programs, but
the election campaign of 1828 intervened, and their demands
met with little response.
42 George W. Ward, The Early Development of the Chesa-Project, J o n nsTTopKins University peake and Ohio Canal
Studies inHTIsft orica 1 arT3nTo"litical Science (Baltimore, 1899) , pp. 66-74; Turner, Rise of the New '.Vest, pp. 291-292.
^Register of Debates, 20th Cong., 1st Sess. (May 19, 20 , 182TTJ7"~T<f ~ 2773~2T r3~; ftenton, Thirty Years' View, I, 197
91
As his political opponents attempted to break the ranks
of the internal improvement bloc, Adams succeeded in aliena-
ting the South completely by the end of his administration
in 1829. Southerners feared that Adams' loose construction
policies might ultimately enable Congress to abolish slavery.
Undercurrents of opposition to federal aid fan understand-
ably strong in the South, since it stood to receive little
benefit from Adams' program except for three canals near
its upper edge. These were the Chesapeake and Ohio, Louis-
ville and Portland, and Dismal Swamp Canals.44 Congressional
appropriations for internal improvements during Adams' term
amounted to only $152,000 in the Southwest and $37,000 in
the South Atlantic states. Except for the Dismal Swamp
Canal, for which Congress appropriated $200,000, only $80 of
federal money reached Virginia for use in its state improve-
ment program. South Carolina did not receive a single dol-
lar of federal tax money for internal improvements. In
sharp contrast, Congress allotted $251,000 for road and canal
improvements in the Middle Atlantic states, $318,000 for New
England, and $586,000 for use of the Ohio Valley states.45
To southerners, sectional opposition to a national program
of internal improvements seemed extremely well-founded.
44IIouse Journal, 20th Cong., 1st Sess. (May, 1828), pp. 18 8, 2~8T,~(5"XT. u
45Report of the Committee on Internal Improvements, No.^77,"~ppr~$7"(77TB'cmis, JolTn ^incy"7£[anrs~7I7rTTKF"T7nion,
92
With the exception of a few unsystematic appropriations
to specific road and canal projects, the basic aspects of
Adams' nationalistic program remained untouched by Congress.
Conflicts of state and sectional interest clearly prevented
Congress from complying with Adams' requests for extensive
federal aid. In spite of this shortcoming, by 1829, pro-
moters had completed a number of internal improvement
projects without federal assistance. New York had finished
the Erie Canal, linking Lake Erie with the Hudson River,
without federal aid of any kind. Pennsylvania had con-
structed a complex transportation system to join the Susque-
hanna lliver with the Ohio. With the assistance of federal
land grants, Illinois was digging a canal to connect Lake
Michigan and the Illinois River; and Ohio had nearly com-
pleted two canals linking the Great Lakes with the Ohio
River. With Ohio's cooperation, Indiana had initiated a
canal project between Evansville and Toledo. Kentucky had
already built a canal around the Ohio River falls at Louis-
ville with only a minimum of federal subsidization. Each of
these projects reduced transportation costs, stimulated
western trade, and contributed significantly to the develop-
ment of the regions that they served.^ Iloivever, excessive
competition prevented formation of a comprehensive, integrated
^kjames W. Putnam, The Illinois and Michigan Canal: A Study in Economic History ("CUTcago, 1718~)7~pp. TS"4-JTFBT Hog a F t I h T b rn a f""I ihp rovenicats and State Debt in Ohio, pp. 168-170.
93
transportation system. It also encouraged \vestern states to
spend more money than they could afford, thus intensifying
an inflationary trend which led eventually to the panic of
1837.47
Although many Americans eventually viewed Andrew Jack-
son's Maysville Road veto of May 27, 1830, as the act which
dealt a death blow to federal improvement legislation, the
Maysville veto merely supplied an anti-climax, for the real
ending had been provided by the reaction to Adams' first
annual message. To the end of his life, John Quincy Adams
believed that the source of his program's defeat came from
"the Sable Genius of the South, that had seen the signs of
his ox«m downfall in the unparalled progress of the North,
and had therefore fallen to cursing the tariff and internal
4 S
improvements." With confidence in their willingness to
share his ideals, Adams had informed his fellow citizens that
they would eventually get what they wanted through his nation-
alistic policies. He had announced that his major objective
would be to improve the social condition of the nation, but
his actions seemed to suggest that progress would be achieved
by improving the lot of the more substantial citizens, He 47 • William J. Duane, Jr., Letters Addressed to the People
of Pennsylvania Respecting theHTntcrnai Tmprovement oT tTie Co ram o n w e a 1 tin oy Means of Ifoads ancT Canals, R e p r i n t (Hew York .
nre-JTr^FtteTtrTanr-GTlil^in Aid of Canals " pp. 167 -, 171, 177.
AO
Adams to Rev, Charles Upham, February 2, 1837, quoted by Brooks Adams in his introduction to Henry Adams, Degradation of the Democratic Dogma, p. 25.
94
had hoped that the federal government would become a dis-
penser of contracts, carrying out its obligations in an
equitable and implacable manner. However, it proved impos-
sible for a President who could not command the respect of
49
the nation to administer such a carefully regulated program.
Underlying the political and public reaction to Adams'
advocacy of federal aid to internal improvements lay a
degree of suspicion as to the real purpose of such a pro-
gram. The South feared that the federal government intended
to aid industrialists with protective tariffs and specula-
tors x ith subsidies to internal improvement corporations.
Adams had mentioned tariffs only indirectly in his first
annual message, but he later declared that Secretary of the
Treasury Richard Rush had been authorized to formulate ad-
ministration policies in this r e a l m . R u s h ' s Treasury
Report of 1827 recommended a program of protection for
manufacturing interests which characterized the pioneer as
a drain on the eastern labor market. The report was badly
received. The agricultural South feared the tariff and
therefore objected to Adams' nationalistic policies as a
threat to economic stability. Western politicians, on the
other hand, faced with the financial weakness of their sec-
tion, advocated federal aid on the ground that speculation
DangerfieId, Era of Good Feelings, pp. 351-352. rn Adams, ed., Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, VII, 365;
Powell, Richard RusHl" "*Rep"utTTican Diplomat7 p. 2 20.
95
in. internal improvements by large companies and resulting
high toll costs might actually deter settlement of the West.
The lower classes would then be "forced into a pool of cheap
labor in the East, where they would lie at the mercy of the
industrialist." By the end of his administration, John
Quincy Adams had unwittingly become not a man of the whole
nation, but the champion of its industrial and financial
classes. His nationalistic policies, although basically
sound, seemed far too bold for a nation which desired not
consolidation and control over individual enterprise but
economic independence and equal rights. The average citi-
zen wanted social improvements such as free public education,
abolition of imprisonment for debt, and prohibition of
r j
special privileges for private corporations. Above all
else, almost every man longed to be his own master. John
Quincy Adams had no sympathy for such goals, and as a re-
sult his idealistic nationalism proved unacceptable to the
simple and pragmatic society of the 1820's.
^American State Papers, Finance, V, 638; Dangerfield, Era of (TooHHree'lings, p. 3*5T.
^Arthur m. Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Jackson (Boston, 1945), pp. 510-515.
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION
By the end o£ the administration of John Quincy Adams,
twenty years after Gallatin's Report and more than a decade
after the close of the War of 1812, the movement for a sys-
tematic program of federal aid to internal improvements had
lost its momentum. It is unnecessary to review the consti-
tutional arguments repeated in these debates or to attempt
to reinterpret the relationship between conflicting philos-
ophies of government. The constitutional issue turned solely
on the respective rights of federal and state government.
For the purposes of the present discussion the essential
point is a simple one--the interests of certain sections
would be furthered by a maximum or minimum of federal action.
Whatever the role of states1 rights in the abstract, con-
flicts of state and sectional interests played the paramount
role in opposition to national promotion. Protective tariffs
antagonized the interests of the South and opponents linked
them with internal improvements, both in the politics of
Henry Clay's American System and as a source of funds with
which improvements might be constructed.1 Southern leaders
1Aimal£, 18th Cong., 1st Sess. CJanuary 30 , 1824)[ p. 130 8 ; "TCegis ter of Debates, 18 th Cong,, 2d Sess. (February . 23, 1825) ~ppr~5T7-(r5r: 7-
97
quickly discovered how little their section would benefit
from improvements, since most of the projected facilities
would strengthen trade connections between East and West.
But the North-South cleavage did not remain consistent
throughout the discussions nor did it mark the only line
of division.
In the early development of the controversy, the con-
flict often appeared to be that of West against East.
Advocates of improvements urged them as due recognition
of the interests of western farmers, cither as a counter-
balance to favors shown to manufacturers or to offset
measures for the protection of seaboard commercial interests.*'
Another important alignment divided states which had already
spent substantial funds on improvements from those which had
not. Representatives from New York, who had favored national
improvement legislation while lobbying for federal aid to the
Erie Canal, discovered objections to national action after
their state had completed the project using its own resources.
If sectional jealousies could not be resolved, the obvious
recourse seemed to suggest leaving the matter to the states.4
7 Memorial of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Conventiont
3Annals, 15th Cong., 1st Sess. (March 7, 1818), p. 1117; ibid., i/th Cong., 1st Sess. (April 6, 1822), pp. 1479, 1485.
^Charles L. Bearing, American Highway Policy (Washington, 1941), p. 35; Duane, LetterTTcTWenPeopTe oFTennsylvania Respecting the Internal rinpravement" oT tile Com momveaTni"7~"P. 23,
98
The case for state action rested on positive as well as
negative grounds. Congressional orators frequently declared
that the states could select and manage improvement projects
more judiciously than the federal government. Jared Sparks,
editor of the influential North American Reviewt made essen-
tially the same point: "The compass of each state is suffi-
ciently narrow, and its legislative power sufficiently
diffused, to render knowledge of its internal condition,
wants, and resources easily attained."•* The federal govern-
ment seemed to accept this vieitf during the Adams administra-
tion, as evidenced by its subscriptions to the stock of
state-chartered improvement companies. This form of part-
nership \\rith private enterprise appeared to offer a way to
circumvent constitutional objections. Since a company's
authority to construct a project derived from a charter
issued by the state, questions regarding the constitution-
ality of federal aid would not arise, for the national
government could base its actions on the appropriation power
alone. In addition, many congressmen believed that stock
subscriptions represented the wisest method of federal action.
They argued that the addition of private money would make
that of the federal government go farther, since individual
and local enterprise would be expected to share the cost.
^Jared Sparks, "Internal Improvements of North Carolina," Nortli American Review, XII (January, 1821), 20 ; see also John IT. "Sullivan, ""internal Improvements in South Carolina," ibid., XIII (July, 1821), 144.
99
In the closing years of the debate, however, objections to
federal subsidization began to develop. Senator Benton of
Missouri questioned "the propriety of associations between
this Government and the people of the United States,"^
This statement illustrates a tendency which ultimately led
to President Jackson's denunciation of the mingling of
private and public money in the Maysville Road bill. While
the Jacksonians argued that the internal improvement problem
should be removed from the field of federal action, the
majority of improvement advocates remained convinced that
public interest would be enhanced by a partnership between
private enterprise and the federal government.^
The distinction between public spirit and private inter-
est in internal improvements often proved difficult to
determine. Groups of leading citizens in local communities
typically initiated specific construction projects, combining
their desire for profit with a promise to promote economic
progress. When a project ran short of funds, memorials sent
to Congress or the respective state legislature emphasized
the civic purposes of its promoters. Supporters of the
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal pointed out that their enterprise
6Register of Debates, 18th Cong., 2d Sess. (January 20, 1825), p. (TooHricTi, "National Planning of Internal Improvements," pp. 40-41.
7 Register of Debates, 18th Cong., 2d Sess. (February 24,
1825), p. oTo; lb iHT, 1 S tH" Cong., 1st Sess. (March 11. 1826). pp. 1613-161.
100
stemmed from a study made in 1769 by a committee of the
American Philosophical Society composed of Benjamin Franklin
and other far-sighted men "whose views, extending beyond
themselves, were employed upon objects of general benefit O
and utility." In spite of such pronouncements, individual
and collective self-interest rather than civic pride lay
behind most internal improvements schemes, for a successful
road or canal would obviously benefit those who owned land
along the route or would use it in their trade. Since
neither states nor private corporations possessed the finan-
cial resources to accomplish major projects unaided, internal
improvement advocates viewed federal aid as a practical nec-
essity. But the rise of private improvement corporations
soon created problems of control for the federal government,
and reckless construction beyond all demand helped to bring
on the panic of 1837.
Although improved roads and canals made a definite con-
tribution, they were not entirely effective in loosening the
bonds which fettered the agrarian, merchant-capitalist
economy of the early nineteenth century. Western advocates
^Annals. 9th Cong., 2d Sess. (February 7, 1807), pp. 55-56; ibid., ilth Cong., 1st Sess. (February 6, 1816), p. 108; I'lemoriaT of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Conventiont p. 16.
^Carter Goodrich, "American Development Policy: The Case of Internal Improvements," Journal of Economic History, XVI (1956), 449-460 ; Goodrich, "TTTe fie vuTsfion Against Inter-nal Improvements," ibid., X (1950), 145-169. 1
101
o£ internal improvements had discovered that they could not
place their chief reliance on the federal government. Thus
the western states, forced to depend primarily upon their
own resources in aiding internal improvement projects, un-
doubtedly learned something about the relative merits of
self-reliance. In the final analysis, western roads and
canals failed to survive the competition of a new means of
transportation--the railroad. The United States encompassed
vast distances, difficult mountain barriers, and sparsely
settled plains. Only a cheap and flexible form of land trans-
portation could meet the pressing needs of agriculture and
industry. The steam railroad, surely one of the most
revolutionary inventions of all time, provided the solution.
APPENDIX
« u> "
<C O te
Figure 1
i n?
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Miscellaneous
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