History of turnpikes and canals in the United States

The history of turnpikes and canals in the United States predates the War of American Independence. The thirteen United States likewise controlled a greater area (from New Hampshire to Georgia) than any European nation since the fall of the Roman Empire.Fact|date=September 2008 Even as the country grew even larger with the admission of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio by 1803, the only means of transportation between these landlocked western states and their coastal neighbors was by foot, pack animal, or ship. Recognizing the success of Roman roads in unifying that empire, political and business leaders in the United States began to construct roads and canals to connect the disparate parts of the nation. [Harvnb|Cowan|1997|pp=94]

Early toll roads were constructed and owned by joint-stock companies that sold stock to raise construction capital like Pennsylvania's 1795 Lancaster Turnpike Company. In 1808, Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin's "Report on the Subject of Public Roads and Canals" suggested that the federal government should fund the construction of interstate turnpikes and canals. While many Anti-Federalists opposed the federal government assuming such a role, the British blockade in the War of 1812 demonstrated the United States' reliance upon these overland roads for military operations as well as for general commerce. [Harvnb|Cowan|1997|pp=98] Construction on the National Road began in 1815 in Cumberland, Maryland and reached Wheeling, Virginia in 1818, but political strife thereafter ultimately prevented its western advance to the Mississippi River. Nevertheless, the road became a primary overland conduit through Appalachian Mountains and was the gateway for thousands of antebellum westward-bound settlers.

Numerous canal companies had also been chartered; but of all the canals projected,only three had been completed when the War of 1812 began: the Dismal Swamp Canal in Virginia, the Santee Canal in South Carolina, and the Middlesex Canal in Massachusetts. It remained for New York to usher in a new era in internal communication by authorizing in 1817 the construction of the Erie Canal. This bold bid for Western trade alarmed the merchants of Philadelphia, particularly as the completion of the national road threatened to divert much of their traffic to Baltimore. In 1825, the legislature of Pennsylvania grappled with the problem by projecting a series of canals which were to connect its great seaport with Pittsburg on the west and with Lake Erie and the upper Susquehanna on the north. [Harvard reference |last=Johnson |first=Allen | authorlink=Allen Johnson (scholar) |title=Union and Democracy |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Company |place=Cambridge, Massachusetts |year=1915 |p=255-256 ]

Like the turnpikes, the early canals were constructed, owned, and operated by private joint-stock companies but later gave way to larger projects funded by the states. The Erie Canal, proposed by Governor of New York De Witt Clinton, was the first canal project undertaken as a public good to be financed at the public risk through the issuance of bonds. [Harvnb|Cowan|1997|pp=102] When the project was completed in 1825, the canal linked Lake Erie with the Hudson River through 83 separate locks and over a distance of convert|363|mi|km|0. The success of the Erie Canal spawned a boom of other canal-building around the country: over 3,326 miles of artificial waterways were constructed between 1816 and 1840. [Harvnb|Cowan|1997|pp=104] Small towns like Syracuse, New York, Buffalo, New York, and Cleveland, Ohio that lied along major canal routes boomed into major industrial and trade centers, while exuberant canal-building pushed some states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana to the brink of bankruptcy. [Harvnb|Cowan|1997|pp=104]

The magnitude of the transportation problem was such, however, that neither individual states nor private corporations seemed able to meet the demands of an expanding internal trade. As early as 1807, Albert Gallatin had advocated the construction of a great system of internal waterways to connect East and West, at an estimated cost of $20,000,000. But the only contribution of the national government to internal improvements during the Jeffersonian era was an appropriation in 1806 of two percent of the net proceeds of the sales of public lands in Ohio for the construction of a national road, with the consent of the states through which it should pass. By 1818 the road was open to traffic from Cumberland, Maryland, to Wheeling, West Virginia. [Harvnb|Johnson|1915|pp=256]

In 1816, with the experiences of the war before him, no well-informed statesman could shut his eyes to the national aspects of the problem. Even President Madison invited the attention of Congress to the need of establishing "a comprehensive system of roads and canals". Soon after Congress met, it took under consideration a bill drafted by Calhoun which proposed an appropriation of $1,500,000 for internal improvements. Because this appropriation was to be met by the moneys paid by the National Bank to the government, the bill was commonly referred to as the "Bonus Bill". But on the day before he left office, President Madison vetoed the bill because it was unconstitutional. The policy of internal improvements by federal aid was thus wrecked on the constitutional scruples of the last of the Virginia dynasty. Having less regard for consistency, the House of Representatives recorded its conviction, by close votes, that Congress could appropriate money to construct roads and canals, but had not the power to construct them. As yet the only direct aid of the national government to internal improvements consisted of various appropriations, amounting to about $1,500,000 for the Cumberland Road. [Harvnb|Johnson|1915|pp=257-258]

As the country recovered from financial depression following the Panic of 1819, the question of internal improvements again forged to the front. IN 1822, a bill to authorize the collection of tolls on the Cumberland Road had been vetoed by the President. In an elaborate essay Monroe set forth his views on the constitutional aspects of a policy of internal improvements. Congress might appropriate money, he admitted, but it might not undertake the actual construction of national works nor assume jurisdiction over them. For the moment the drift toward a larger participation of the national government in internal improvements was stayed. Two years later, Congress authorized the President to institute surveys for such roads and canals as he believed to be needed for commerce and military defense. No one pleaded more eloquently for a larger conception of the functions of the national government than Clay. He called the attention of his hearers to provisions made for coast surveys and lighthouses on the Atlantic seaboard and deplored the neglect of the interior of the country. Of the other presidential candidates, Jackson voted in the Senate for the general survey bill; and Adams left no doubt in the public mind that he did not reflect the narrow views of his section on this issue. Crawford felt the constitutional scruples which were everywhere being voiced in the South, and followed the old expedient of advocating a constitutional amendment to sanction national internal improvements. [Harvnb|Johnson|1915|pp=309-310]

In President Adams' first message to Congress, he advocated not only the construction of roads and canals but also the establishment of observatories and a national university. President Jefferson had recommended many of these in 1806 for Congress to consider for creation of necessary amendments to the Constitution. Adams seemed oblivious to the limitations of the Constitution. In much alarm Jefferson suggested to Madison the desirability of having Virginia adopt a new set of resolutions, bottomed on those of 1798, and directed against the acts for internal improvements. In March, 1826, the general assembly declared that all the principles of the earlier resolutions applied "will full force against the powers assumed by Congress" in passing acts to protect manufacturers and to further internal improvements. That the Administration would meet with opposition in Congress was a foregone conclusion. [Harvnb|Johnson|1915|pp=319-320]

ee also

* Technological and industrial history of the United States

References