National Promotion Op Western Roads Amd Canals3

NATIONAL PROMOTION OP WESTERN ROADS

AMD CANALS3 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

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 improvements 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 undertaking such works for private profit. Finally, state governments might become shareholders in improvement enterprises, 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")*, Tl, T •'Louis Hartz, Economic Policy and Democratic Thought: Pennsylvania, 1776-TTSlTliramBridgT, Hass . /TUlirTT pp. S^TF; reonar

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 substantial 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 undertaking 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 communication 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 importance to improve both the Potomac and the James,

Governor Harrison apparently concurred, for he submitted 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 improvement 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 influence helped force the incorporation act through the legislature.^ A corresponding act was immediately introduced in the Virginia Assembly and passed without opposition.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 navigation 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 appropriating $3,333 each for opening a road between the headwaters 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 appointed 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 consequence, 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, however, 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 possibilities of inland navigation were extensively publicized by the Irish-born engineer and entrepreneur, Christopher

Colles. In 1785 he obtained from the legislature an appropriation 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 importance 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 improvements 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 opposition 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 government 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 productive 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 seaboard 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~ — — — (

7C 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 practicable." 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 investing 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 heritage 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, "Zane1 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 possibility 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 continued 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 necessarily devolve upon the federal government after the precedent 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 progress. But when the National Road commissioners reported to

Jefferson in December, 1806, they noted as one of the difficulties 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 recommended 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 .

47g^ •^America. _ n Stat_ e Papers, _Miscellaneous_ _ , I, 419-456, 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 improvements 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 obtain positive action on specific projects. One month after

Adams' proposal, Senator Thomas Worthington of Ohio introduced 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 statement 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 construction 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 extending southward through the Dismal Swamp of Virginia,

Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds to the protected natural waterway 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 establish 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 seaboard 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 estimated cost of all these national projects was $16,600,000. Gallatin realized that objections would be raised from sections 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 apportionment 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 dollars 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 surveys 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 combined 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 consideration, 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 phraseology. 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 constructed 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 discussed 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 expenditures. Unfortunately, Congress adopted the Embargo Act in

December, 1807, and the years that followed were characterized by trade interruptions, creation of a military establishment 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 considerations. 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 proposed 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 committee 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 transportation 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 territory 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 manufacturing 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 canal.In 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 problem 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 population 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 demonstrated 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 lands.The 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 representatives 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 improvements. 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 importance 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 improvements. His seventh annual message advised establishment 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 message 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 presidency amounted to $568,800, Most of this money went to the

National Road, to which the federal government stood committed 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 constitutionality of them must be tested by the bona fide object of the particular roads.* Though he denied the right of federal ^James D. Richardson, editor, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of _th e President—— s (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 suggestions 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

fi 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 improvement 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 communication 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 responsibility 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,

•^Annals, 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 committee 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 construction 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 question, 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. ^American state Papers, Miscellaneous, II, 533-534; U. S. Statute's"at Large7~ITT, TbUHTSW;— 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. 17347~— 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 position taken in his first annual message. He was willing to modify his earlier position and allow a flexible constitutional 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 congressional authority to promote internal improvements, he concurred with the opinion of the house in 1818 on the important 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£ projects 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 constitutional 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 jurisdictional 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 suggestions 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 Company.While Monroe had not explained how major improvement projects would be constructed, 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 government 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 decided to initiate new tactics on the eve of the presidential 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 surveys 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 lighthouses 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 commerce 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 support 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 interpretation ; 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 improvements. 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 importance 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

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 president 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 on*. 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 similar 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 presidency. 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 cautious 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 protective 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

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. 6

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 Mams^d^eTJnTon, pp. 25, Roseboom, PresideITmi-7T^T.i5Tr~pr~8'5:; —i. ***

^Fitzpatrick, ed., Autobiography of Martin Van Buren. II, 199-200 ; Robert V. Rem^^IartTn 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 support 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. VI, 447-469; 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,~pp43-44; Bennett Champ'cHW,: jJhir0uiTaT7 X3S5r«—oTrWn Eloquent Boston, 19 32), p. 312?™ " ~ ~~~ -—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 millions of our posterity . . . will derive their most fervent gratitude to the founders of our Union.Adams 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 administration, 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 construction. 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, IV, 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 additional 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 another for local favors, corporations competed for subscriptions 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 improvement 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 adequate," 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

Ocean.With 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 prevailing 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' predecessors 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 opposition 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 navigation, 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 transportation 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 appeals 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" pp140bVtinor, 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 assistance 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 fs 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 appropriations and might result in more careful spending, for

the judgment and zeal of private investors ivould be involved. 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 improvements rapidly degenerated into a program of logrolling in

Congress. That body made a number of unsystematic investments, 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 feeling 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 improvements 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, administration 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 legislation 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, expressed 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, TwrTpriwr ~~ * — — —— 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 improvement 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 .40 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~His 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£ Mams, 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 sections 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 political 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- peake and Ohio Canal Project, J o n nsTTopKins University 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

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 improvement 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, promoters 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 FtIhTb 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, Reprint (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 program. The South feared that the federal government intended to aid industrialists with protective tariffs and speculators 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 administration policies in this realm.Rush'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 section, 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 result 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 essentially the same point: "The compass of each state is sufficiently narrow, and its legislative power sufficiently

diffused, to render knowledge of its internal condition, wants, and resources easily attained."•* The federal government 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 partnership \\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, undoubtedly 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 transportation 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> "

Figure 1

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Eaton, Clement, Henry Clay and, the Art of American Politics. Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1957. Freeman, Douglas Southall, George Washington. A Biography. 7 vols., New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1948-57. 'Gaines, William H. , Jr., Thomas Mann Randolph. Jefferson's Son-in-Law P Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1966, 114

Gilman, Daniel C., James Monroe, American Statesman Series, edited by John T" Morse"7~"Tr., Boston, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1883.

James, Marquis, Andrew Jackson: Portrait of a President, New York, Grosset § Dunlap, Inc., 19*37.

Jervey, Theodore G., Robert Y. Ilayne and His Times. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1909,

Lipsky, George A., John Ouincy Adams: His Theories and Ideasf New York, Thomas Y. Crowe11 Company, 1950, Meigs, William M,, Life of John Caldwell Calhoun, New York, The Neale Publishing Company, 11H.7T ~~

Morse, John T., Jr., John Quincy Adams, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 189 8, ~

Parton, James, Life ojF Andrew Jackson. 3 vols., New York, Mason Brothers, 1961.

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Quincy, Josiah, Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams, Boston, Phillips, Sampson* ancT Uompany.

Remini, Robert V., Andrew Jackson, New York, Twayne Publishing Company, IIHjB.

Schurz, Carl, Life of Henry Clay, 2 vols,, Boston and New York, HougFt-onT^iUlTrrn-^ Company, 1887,

Seward, William H,, Life of John Quincy Adams, Sixth Presi- dent of the United States, PhFlaSe 1 pH*ia™7 Porter IT" Coates, lJTS^.

Shepard, Edward M,, Martin Van Buren, Boston, Houghton Mifilm Company, fSW,

Shipp, E. D., Giant Days, or the Life and Times of William 11* Crawford, Americus, Ga., privately printed", 1909. Smith, Elbert M., Magnificent Missourian: The Life of Thomas Hart Benton. Philadelphia, J. B. LTppincott Company - 1958."

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Articles

Albjerg, Victor L„, "Internal Improvements Without a Policy (1789-1861)," Indiana Magazine of History, XXVIII (December, 1932), 168-179.

Bell, John Rae, "Federal Land Grants in Aid of Canals," Journal of Economic History, IV (November. 1944), 167-177.

Burns, Lee, "The National Road in Indiana," Indiana His- torical Society Publications. VII (1923) , 209-237.

Callender, Guy S., "The Early Transportation and Banking Enterprises of the States in Relation to the Growth of Corporations," Quarterly Journal of Economics. XVII (November, 1902), 111-162.

Carroll, Eber iM,, "Politics During the Administration of John Quincy Adams," South Atlantic Quarterly, XXIII (April, 1924) , 141-154.

Colgrove, Kenneth IV., "The Attitude of Congress Toward the Pioneers of the West from 1789 to 1820," Iowa Journal of History. VIII (January, 1910), 3-129.

Comstock, Howard P., "History of Canals in Indiana," Indiana Magazine of History. VII (March, 1911), 1-15.

Cottman, George S., "The Internal Improvement System of Indiana," Indiana Magazine of History. Ill (September.. 1907), 117-124. ~~~ —— ^ , "Internal Improvements in Indiana," Indiana Magazine of History, III (March-December, 1907) ,~12~-"20, 58-73, 101-10 7, 149-181.

Coulter, E. Morton, "The Genesis of Henry Clay's American System," South Atlantic Quarterly. XXV (January, .1926), 45-54.™

Donald, W. J., "Land Grants for Internal Improvements in the United States," Journal of Political Economy. XIX (May, 1911), 404-410. 116

Duden, Margaret, "Internal Improvements in Indiana, 1818- 1846," Indiana Magazine of History, V (December, 1909), 160-1707" Ford, Worthington C., "A Lost Opportunity--Internal Improve- ments," Ohio Valley Historical Association Proceedings, X (1917)7~3r-BTT - ——— - —- ~ — —

Goodrich, Carter, "American Development Policy: The Case of Internal Improvements," Journal of Economic History. XVI (1956), 449-460. n , "National Planning of Internal Improve - mentTTTr"T?oTitical Science Quarterly. LXIII (March, 1948), 16-44.

, "Public Spirit and American Improvements," *"7Vni iTfTcnn^irilosor>hica.l Society Proceedings t XCII (1948), 305-309.

' , "The Revulsion Against Internal Improve- ments ,vr~"Journal of Economic History, X (1950) , 145-169.

Goodwin, Frank P. "The Rise of Manufactures in the Miami Country," American Historical Review, XII (July, 1907), 761-775. "" " Hale, William B., "The Old National Road," Century, LXXXIII (December, 1911), 163-172.

Hinshaw, Clifford R., Jr., "North Carolina Canals before 1360 ," North Carolina Historical Review, XXV (January, 1948), Hirsch, Arthur H., "The Construction of the Miami and Erie Canal," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, VIII (Novembe77nr9TIT7 34Lrr3(727

Martzloff, Clement L., "Zane's Trace," Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society Pub lie ation's, "X IT! (1IFUTJ7 "287-331. _____

\ Nelson, E. C«, "Presidential Influence on the Policy of Internal Improvements," Iowa Journal of History and Politics. IV (January, 190oJ, 3-69. v Nettels, Curtis, "The Mississippi Valley and the Constitu- tion, 1815-29," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XL (December, 19T4T7~S"3T~357~ — — —1— 117

Phillips, Ulrich B., "Transportation in the Ante-BeHum South: An Economic Analysis," Quarterly Journal o.£ Economics, XIX (May, 190S) , 434-4517"""

Rae, John Bell, "Federal Land Grants in Aid of Canals," Journal of Economic History f IV (May, 1944) , 167-177.

Sparks, Jared, "Internal Improvements of North Carolina," North American Review. XII (January, 1821), 16-37.

Sullivan, John L., "Internal Improvements in South Carolina," North American Review, XIII (July, 1821) , 143-154.

Trescott, Paul B., "The Louisville and Portland Canal Com- pany* 1825-1874 ," Mississippi Valley_ Historical Review. XLIV (March, 1958), 686-708.

Way, R. B., "The Mississippi Valley and Internal Improve- ments, 1825-1840," Proceedings of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, IV (1910-11) , 153-180.

Miscellaneous

Ford, Worthington C,f "Adams, John Quincy." Dictionary of American Biography. Vol, I, New York, Charles Scrib- ner rs" Sons, 192 8 .

Fortson, Blanton, "Clay, Henry," Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. IV, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 19 30,

Muzzey, David S., "Gallatin, Abraham Alfonse Albert," Dictionary of_ American Biography. Vol. VII, New York, Charles" Scribner1 s Sons , 1931.

Perkins, Dexter, "Monroe, James," Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. XIII, New YorJc, CliarTes Scribner's Sons, 19 34.

Pratt, Julius W., "Madison, James ," Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. XII, New Yorkf Charles Scribner's Sons, 19 33.