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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 By John R, Hoffmann, A. B, Denton, Texas August, 1969 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS iv Chapter I. EARLY IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS . 1 II. WESTERN DEMANDS FOR FEDERAL AID 20 III. MADISON, MONROE AND CONSTITU- TIONALITY 45 IV. ADAMS' FRUSTRATED NATIONALISM 6 8 V. CONCLUSION. 06 APPENDIX 102 BIBLIOGRAPHY 10 3 111 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure Page 1. Principal Roads and Canals, 1785-1830 102 CHAPTER I EARLY IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS It was obvious from the beginning of our nation that development of communications would be among the chief prob- lems of so large and sparsely populated a country as the United States. Colonial leaders had talked of canals along the Atlantic seaboard, of a waterway from the Hudson to the Great Lakes, of improving the principal rivers flowing into the Atlantic and of connecting them with the western waters by roads across the most convenient portages. In the last two decades of the eighteenth century, state and private enterprise, promoted by George Washington and other land speculators and politicians, attacked all these tasks. On the whole, they failed. Scarcity of capital, local jealousies and conflicts of state interests put the more ambitious im- provements temporarily beyond the power of any American agency less well-financed than the federal government,^" Following the American Revolution, capital was scarce in the new American states. Such wealth as did exist was chiefly invested in land or ships. Until December, 1780, ^Balthasar Henry Meyer, editor, History of Transportation in the United States before 1860 (Washington, 1917), pp. 147, 159-160, 170-171, 210? 217-218; Alexander C. Brown, The Dismal Swamn Canal (Hilton Village, Va., 1945), pp. 5-9; Douglas Southall Freeman-•George Washington. A Biography (New York, 1951) , III, 101-103. when Robert Morris persuaded Congress to create the Bank of North America, there had been no such institution in the Western Hemisphere. Obviously, internal improvement ? projects would require some form of government support. The states, or the more solvent among them, might give their support in any of three ways. They might undertake the construction and maintenance of important and costly improvements themselves.. They might grant subsidies of money or land to individuals or chartered companies under- taking such works for private profit. Finally, state governments might become shareholders in improvement enter- prises, helping to finance them but partially controlling them as well. As the struggle for independence receded, as westward migration accelerated, and as the postwar search for private gain intensified, all of these methods were tried. State and private projects burgeoned; state and local interests were, if not adequately served, at least discussed and defined.^ The demand for roads and canals gave rise to a ? ^William Graham Sumner, The Financier and the Finances of the American Revolution (New~Yorlc, T8lTT")*, Tl, T •'Louis Hartz, Economic Policy and Democratic Thought: Pennsylvania, 1776-TTSlTliramBridgT, Hass . /TUlirTT pp. S^TF; reonar<f"TJ7H7hite ,™The Je f fersonians : A Study in Adminis - trative History, 1 BUT-ITOH^eiTYork, T95Ty7"p7"~4wr~—~ ^Joseph Dorfman, The Economic Mind in American.Civili- zation (New York, 1946) , IT, b4D-lT4TT number of questions. Were any other promotional agencies available? To what degree was the general public interested in improved transportation? Could anything be expected of Congress? The first suggestion of a general American interest in internal improvements came from George Washington. The story of its origin could serve as a nationalist parable; it is one of private interest sublimated to state interest and that, in turn, enlarged to national proportions. Un- fortunately, such broad vision was rare among early Americans. Washington's youthful hunger for wealth and glory had made him a land speculator almost as soon as he was a sur- veyor, and a soldier almost as soon as he was a man. His services in the Great War for Empire had netted him sub- stantial claims, later augmented, to lands beyond the Kanawha and Ohio rivers. Washington's desire to increase the value of these had made him, before the Revolution, the chief Virginia proponent of a company to develop navigation on the upper Potomac. He was eager to resume this under- taking upon his retirement at the close of the war."* •'Charles Henry Ambler, George Washington and the West (Chapel Hill, N. C., 1936), pp. 173-174. Here Washington's landholdings beyond the Alleghenies, amounting at the close ,of the Revolution to approximately 58,000 acres, are item- ized. See also, James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, January 9, 1785, in Gaillard Hunt, editor, The Writings of James Madison (New York, 1901), II, 109. ~~ Plans for the development of the Potomac necessarily hinged upon the cooperation of Maryland, and the importance of this or any other route to the Ohio River could hardly be separated from the development of the western country as a whole.^ Such considerations were recognized in a carefully written letter which Washington, after a personal inspection of his western lands, sent on October 10, 1784, to Governor Benjamin Harrison of Virginia. He estimated that the "shortest, easiest, and least expensive communi- cation with the invaluable and extensive Country back of us, would be by one, or both of the rivers of this State which have their sources in the Apalachian [sic] mountains." Washington was pessimistic about the possibilities of convincing fellow-Virginians to take action on his proposal. He deplored "the unfortunate Jealousy, which ever has and it is to be feared ever will prevail, lest one part of the State should obtain an advantage over the other part." In addition, he considered the objection that the Potomac route traversed other states, which Virginia could not control.8 In the game of interstate rivalry, Washington was cap- able of shrewd calculation. He was not afraid of Pennsylvania ^Washington to Madison, November 30, 1785, in John C. Fitzpatrick, editor, The Writings of George Washington from the Original ManuscripT"SoTHFc Ss7~l7T5(RasKxnSt'on"."TSTS) . XWlTT7~TS3^33r. ^ ~ ' ' 7 Washington to the Governor of Virginia [Benjamin Harri- son] , October 10, 1784, ibid., XXVII, 472-474. 8Ibid. blocking the route from the Ohio to the Potomac, because of the existence of "at least 100,000 souls west of the Laurel Hill, who are groaning under the inconveniences of a long land transportation." Unless these pioneers could be given easy access to Philadelphia, that city would risk the loss of their trade. As for rivalries within Virginia, he tactfully concluded that it would be "of equal impor- tance to improve both the Potomac and the James, Governor Harrison apparently concurred, for he sub- mitted Washington's letter to the Virginia Assembly for consideration.^ Through legislator Thomas Johnson, Washington was able to bring the Potomac project before the Maryland legislature at the same time. But, while waiting for these bodies to act, his mind kept turning to the Con- federation Congress. Although he deplored its "want of energy," he felt this agency could hardly be indifferent to the future allegiance of the West.*^ In a letter to Richard Henry Lee, the newly-elected president of Congress, Washington suggested that the central government actively promote an East-West connection: Would it not. .be worthy of the wisdom and attention of Congress, to have the western waters well explored, the navigation of them ^Ibid.s pp. 478-479. ^Ambler, Washington and the West, p. 185, j •'••'•Washington to Thomas Johnson, October 15 , 1784, Fitzpatrick, editor, Writings of Washington, XXVII, 481. fully ascertained, accurately laid down, and a complete and perfect map made of the Country; at least as far westward as the Miamies running into the Ohio and Lake Erie? . H Thus the question of federal aid to internal improve- ment projects was early associated with public land policy and cast in the form of a proposal for surveys. But Lee's reply merely assured Washington that "your ideas concerning the western country are wise and just," and that they would "certainly have great weight when that business shall be 13 discussed in Congress." With the finances of the Confeder- ation at a low ebb, the-matter ended there, at least for the time being. Not until the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 was a new proposal for action by the federal government forthcoming. Meantime the- states, led by Maryland and Virginia, had begun to act. The former had chartered the Susquehanna Company in 1783 with a capital of $55,000 and assumed an obligation to construct, within seven years, a canal which would parallel the Susquehanna River from south of the 1 7 x Washington to the President of Congress [Richard Henry Lee], December 14, 1784, ibid., XXVIII, 11, *^Richard Henry Lee to Washington, December 26, 1784, in James Curtis Ballagh, editor, The Letters of Richard Henry Lee (New York, 1914), II, 3l"7. Surveys m the North - west "Territory were begun by Thomas Hutchins, after passage of the Land Ordinance of May 20, 1785, But Hutchins and his men were surveying townships; they were not mapping the Ohio River system, Merrill Jensen, The New Nation: A History of the- United States During tile" Confederation, T7¥rT789~(?7Sw YorF7~"l 5T0T7"ppTTST- 1ST. —- Pennsylvania line to Port Deposit, at the head of tidewater.14 This was primarily a Baltimore project, but the merchants of that city were unable to defeat the pressure for creation of a Potomac Company.
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