CHAPTER XIII
Captains of American Expansion always to be found in the National Legislature.—Great National Advance in the Second and Third Decades of the Nineteenth Century.—Definition of "The American System."—The Doctrine that Public Surplus should be used for Internal Improvements held for only a Short Time.—Party Struggles regarding Cumberland Road Legislation.—Inconsistent Resolutions of Congress on this Matter.—The Drift of Public Sentiment toward putting Works of Improvement under the Care of the Government.—Numerous Competitors for National Aid toward Local Improvements.—Mutual Jealousy of Various Localities with Regard to the Distribution of Government Aid.—Disputes as to the Comparative Usefulness of Canals and Railroads.—Polk's Sarcasm on the Abuse of the Word "National" as applied to the Route of a Proposed Road from the Lakes to the Gulf.—Several Beneficial Measures passed by Congress in Spite of Strong Opposition.—Sums granted for Education, Road-building, and Canal-building.—Beneficial Influence of the Government's Liberal Gifts as Encouragement to States and to Private Investors.
PILOTS OF "THE AMERICAN SYSTEM"
As we have reviewed from a more or less personal standpoint some of the exploits which definitely made for the growth and expansion of the young American Republic, it may have occurred to the reader that here was another great power at work helping, encouraging, and guiding the movement,—Pilots of the Republic in the halls of national legislation at Washington.
Not that we refer specifically to any one man; some men, like Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, can be pointed to at certain periods as men who occupied this position, who in a sense fathered, against all opposition, great measures that we see now were of tremendous advantage; if the position was abdicated by one man it was filled by another; and so down through the century and a quarter of our national existence there has been a power at work in our councils that has been optimistic, and at the same time true to the genius of America's geographical position and her high calling among the nations of the earth. It is not because this has been marvellously illustrated since the outbreak of the Spanish-American War that reference is made to it here, though the illustration is apposite and fair; but if we look back down the decades from the day that Congress signed that contract with Rufus Putnam and his Revolutionary patriots, or the day when Jefferson dared to effect the Louisiana Purchase, we shall continually find men sitting in the Congressional seats at the capital who had the courage to try new paths, to assume common-sense views of the Constitution, and who believed in their country and wished to see it shirk no great responsibility. Such men as these were as truly captains of our expansion as was Putnam or Henderson or Astor.