XI

HOW OUR PURPOSIVE GOVERNMENTS HAVE BUILT AND AIDED INTERNAL

I

IMPROVEMENTS

N considering what our governments have done for the people we shall disregard all that the people

have done for themselves through private capital and efforts in building and operating roads, post routes, bridges, canals and railroads, and study only how far our national, state or local governments, in a purposive way, have built and operated, or assisted in building these means of internal transportation. We are not studying here the wonderful growth of our country and its resources; but only the direct aid which our governments gave to the people in bringing about that growth.

In applying purposive government to internal improvements, our people have not followed a well defined and carefully thought out and executed course, but have adopted and applied vacillating policies which have been frequently completely reversed. When at first the payment of the public debt was the chief object, all saw that the debt could be paid only by selling the public lands, and that the lands could be sold only by opening them up by internal transportation routes over which immigrants could take in their families and goods and send out their crops and products. Therefore every one agreed that extensive internal improvements should be carried out and paid for from the proceeds of the lands; but only one scientific plan for such development was

officially proposed, and that was neglected and soon forgotten. The water ways were pretty well known, and for a while people could settle along the river banks, but soon roads to the interior were required. In the lull in military operations between the battle of Yorktown and the final treaty of peace, Washington had carefully explored the Champlain Canal route and afterward followed the Erie Canal route by going up the Mohawk River to Oneida Lake, and then on to Oswego and Lake Ontario. He also went south along the Susquehanna. This, with his explorations in western Pennsylvania and along the Ohio, made him advocate a great system of internal navigation, to be built and owned by the Government, and more than any one else he foresaw the value and possibilities of our unappropriated lands and the Public Domain.

In 1808, at the request of the United States Senate, Albert Gallatin, as Secretary of the Treasury and the recognized authority on the Public Domain and its development, drew up an elaborate scheme for the improvement by the Federal Government of internal navigation and transportation, to cover the whole country, and involving an expenditure of $2,000,000 a year for ten years. He proposed (1) a series of canals from Cape Cod, Mass., to Cape Fear, N. C., giving interior and protected navigation along the coast; (2) a turnpike extending from Maine to Georgia; (3) the improvement of the Susquehanna, Potomac, James and Santee Rivers, and opposite to them and west of the mountains, of the Allegheny, Monongahela, Kanawha and Tennessee Rivers, with four great roads stretching across the Appalachians to connect these four sets of rivers; (4) a canal around the falls of the Ohio; improvements of roads to Detroit, St. Louis and New Orleans, and the completion of the Champlain Canal

and the Erie Canal, as proposed by Washington, and of a canal around Niagara Falls.

The Embargo of 1807 and the War of 1812 killed off all financial undertakings and sidetracked Gallatin's truly great plan; but the war itself greatly quickened the demand for comprehensive internal transportation. Land communication in the colonies had been by trails or dirt roads, which became practically useless in wet or frosty weather or with heavy traffic. We undertook the War of 1812 enthusiastically because we believed we could easily invade and capture Canada. Henry Clay boasted that "the militia of Kentucky are alone competent to place Montreal and Canada at our feet." No one had appreciated the difficulties of carrying on the war when there were no roads in Michigan, Ohio or northwestern or northern New York over which men, guns, ammunition and supplies could be transported. It cost $60 to send a barrel of flour from New York to Detroit, and $1,000 a ton for cannon balls and other ammunition; and this at a time when there was practically no currency in the country, but only barter. Canada could be invaded only over forest trails which were frequently cut by swollen rivers and which led through swamps laden with fever and filled with insect pests during the summer, which were treacherous in winter, and at all seasons infested by Indians. The loss of life, health and treasure arising from poor means of transportation during this war showed the nation, as nothing else could have done, the imperative need of internal improvements to be built in a purposive way, by the federal and state governments.

About this time, two political forces became arrayed against the too rapid development of the Public Domain. New England and New York felt its competition in sell

ing their own lands and in the constant drain to the West of some of their best citizens; and for a while opposed the opening of the Public Domain.

Secondly, when the United States Constitution was adopted, all sections agreed that slavery was not, upon the whole, an advantage to the country, and differed chiefly as to the best time and method of abolishing it. But thirty years later the South saw more clearly the value of the slaves in its economic development in competition with the free labor of the North and West, and realized that the formation of many new states in the West would eventually overturn slavery. Thereupon the South took the position that the admittedly indefinite words of the Constitution did not authorize the Federal Government to own, construct or aid internal improvements. Even as great a stickler for a strict construction of the Constitution as John C. Calhoun had at first formulated and actively advocated extensive policies for opening the Public Domain. But he became frightened and completely reversed himself when he found how this was playing into the hands of Henry Clay and other political opponents who believed in a strong nation and a strong national policy.

When Indiana was admitted in 1816, Mississippi in 1817, Illinois in 1818, and Alabama in 1819, all political parties realized how the new States in the West and Northwest might soon turn the balance against slavery. This swung the New England and Middle States to the support of the West, and to the same degree made the Southern States oppose its development. Presidents Madison, Monroe and Jackson vetoed appropriation bills to aid public improvements, but in some cases advocated amendments to the United States Constitution. This cut out federal aid to a large extent, greatly hindered the

growth of all purposive government, and threw the burden upon the States and local authorities until the North got control of the Government in 1861 and set about to develop the free soil Public Land States to overcome or offset the slaveholding South.

Government aid naturally falls under four heads: I. Roads, post routes, turnpikes and bridges; II. Canals; III. Railroads; IV. Public utilities. The aid may have been by the federal, state or local governments, and may have taken the form of actual construction, ownership and operation, or of some one of many forms of subsidizing or lending direct financial aid.

I. ROADS, POST ROUTES, Turnpikes and BRIDGES We need not repeat the statements of Chapters X and XI, showing how the Federal Government built and aided in building post roads and post routes in the older States, and then gradually pushed out into the wilderness to keep in touch with the advancing frontier. The Post Office had a large income and frequently a substantial surplus which it could spend in addition to direct appropriations to extend its successful and necessary work for the people. One continuing form of federal aid was formally adopted when Congress, in 1802, admitted Ohio as a State, reserving all existing rights to unsold public lands, but agreeing that one-thirty-sixth of the proceeds of these lands, as sold, should be given for schools and five per cent. should be applied toward building roads to the Ohio River from navigable waters flowing into the Atlantic, and afterward to roads within the State; such roads to be laid out under the authority of Congress. It was felt that these roads would contribute

"toward cementing the bonds of the Union