Pilots of the Republic: The Romance of the Pioneer Promoter in the Middle West

by Archer Butler Hulbert

The age in our history to which our attention is turned on this subject is more particularly that lying between the beginning of the second and the ending of the third decade of last century. Much that was proposed before the opening of the nineteenth century, in the way of material national advance, was forgotten in the taxing days of 1811-1815. Chief among these was the Erie Canal proposition, and it is perhaps not too much to say that had the war with England not come as it did, possibly the Government would, by means of the money accruing from the sale of Michigan lands, have invested in the Erie Canal project; the Cumberland Road was one of the great works that went on despite the war. The moral effect of the victories of Perry and Jackson, one to the north and the other to the south, was very great; with the triumphant ending of the war the little victorious nation sprang into a strength and a passion for power that well-nigh frightened those acquainted with the policy and conservatism of the ante-bellum days.

We have touched slightly on one of the great questions of this most wonderful period of American history, that of the constitutionality of the appropriations for the Cumberland Road, and Henry Clay's championship of the measure. But this was only one of a score of propositions in a campaign of internal improvements, and Clay was but one of a hundred champions who assisted a weak nation to take on the elements of strength by encouraging agriculture and manufactures, and binding a far-flung land by means of communication and intercourse.

President James K. Polk

At the beginning of the second generation in the century the problem of internal improvements came to the fore as on no previous occasion, backed by the strongest men then in the public eye,—Clay, Calhoun, Adams, and Webster. The Cumberland Road had been making its way westward, but had not yet thrown its tawny length over the Ohio River and into the States beyond. But the argument for this great national work was not to be gainsaid, for the original compact with Ohio had been reiterated on the admission of Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, respectively, and a part of the sales of the public lands in those States was already pledged to this object. As one of the fruits of the much discussed "American System," championed by Henry Clay, the Cumberland Road was a popular success, though there was never a time when any measure concerning it could not secure a strong following in the House and the Senate.

The American System stood for a use of the public surplus for works of internal improvement; it was not a popular policy for a long time, but while in vogue it was of immeasurable benefit to the expanding country, its champions being veritable captains of the country's advance. The most interesting features of the history of this doctrine are the vehemence with which it was advocated for a few critical years when nothing else would have equally aided the national advance, the questionable basis on which the doctrine rested, and the readiness with which it was abandoned when its providential mission was effected. Even before the real internal improvement era came it was foreshadowed by the historic position of the two parties toward the object, as shown in Cumberland Road legislation. The bitterness of the struggle could not be shown better than by the repudiations of Congress in 1817 in its votes on this subject. In that year Congress passed the following inconsistent resolutions: (1) Congress has the power to build public roads and military roads, and to improve waterways; (2) Congress has not power to construct post roads or military roads; (3) Congress has not power to construct roads or canals to carry commerce between the States; (4) Congress has not power to construct military roads. "Thus we see," said a triumphant enemy of the so-called American System, "by the solemn decision of this House in 1817, all power over this subject was repudiated in every form and shape." Despite these inconsistencies the movement was ever a forward movement, until at last, in 1824, it assumed gigantic proportions, alarming to some degree the very men who had urged it forward.

The revenue of the Government at this time was about twenty-five millions, and the running expenses—including interest on the slight remaining debt—about half that sum. To what better use could the ten or twelve surplus million dollars be devoted than to the internal improvement of the land, as Gallatin and Jefferson had advocated twenty years before? Here the contest shifted to the tariff, a reduction of which would do away with the necessity of finding a way to employ a surplus. The drift of public sentiment, however, was largely in favor of turning the fostering care of the Government to works of improvement, either by direct appropriation, or by taking stock in local companies, or by devoting to their use the proceeds of the sale of public lands; in any way the result would be the same, and the nation as a whole would feel the benefit.

The policy swept a large part of the country like wildfire, and ten thousand dreams, many of them chimerical to the last degree, were conceived. As a rule the result was, without question, bitter disappointment; but amid all the dangers that were in the way, and all the possibilities of untold harm, an influence was put to work that did more for the awakening of the young land than anything that had ever preceded it. Over a hundred and twenty-five claimants for national aid were considered by squads of engineers sent out by the Government. In the sarcastic words of one of the opposers of the system (and on this subject there was a chance for sarcasm that seldom came to Congressmen) every creek and mill-race in the United States was being surveyed by engineers sent out by the chief executive. It was asserted, and not without some plausibility, that such surveying expeditions were used very craftily to influence votes, being sent to view rivers and roads in disputed regions where the information was circulated that, unless the champions of internal improvement were put in power, great local blessings would be lost to these districts.

But this was not by any means the chief danger in the campaign. As was most forcefully argued by the opposition, the influence of this paternal policy on the part of the Government would be to awaken hostility and set one part of the nation against the other, for in no way could the division of the surplus be made equal. It could not be made on the basis of population even if this were admitted to be constitutional, for some parts of the country needed help far more than others; a naturally impregnable harbor did not need a fourth of the money expended on it that a comparatively defenceless harbor did. Again, the division could not, for the same reason, be made on the basis of receipts; the States of the seaboard, in which the great part of the Government's revenue was raised, would then be almost the only beneficiaries; the West would receive nothing. The accusation of favoritism came with piercing force. Suppose, for instance, New York and Mississippi should come at the same time to Congress, the one asking for the improvement of the Erie Canal, and the other for the improvement of the Mississippi River. Which party would Congress listen to if the public treasury was not in a position to satisfy both applicants? It was urged that this procedure destroyed the whole principle of representative responsibility. Take the case of New York and her great canal,—the most important material improvement in the fifty years of the nation's life; New York came to the Government when the project was first broached, asking for aid. The cause was a good one; in peace it would be a benefit to at least six States, and in war it would be a national advantage of untold moment; in fact, as we have seen, the possibility of another war with England along the Lakes was the very argument that turned the scale and caused the canal to be built. The project was discouraged at Washington, and not a cent of Government treasure went into the undertaking. Why now, a score of years later, should New York representatives vote money from the national treasury for objects no less national or needful than the Erie Canal? Several neighboring States (Ohio, for instance) had declined to invest funds in the Erie Canal venture when it was first promoted; why now should New York representatives vote national funds (such a large part of which came from New York ports) for improvements in these States, whose delegates in Congress refused aid to the Erie Canal in its dark hours? On the other hand it was urged that even the Erie Canal, the most famous work of internal improvement promoted by any of the States, had done "nothing toward the extinguishment of its debt," up to 1830; if this great work did not reimburse the treasury which built it, though operated by a purely local authority well acquainted with all conditions and able to take advantage of all circumstances, how would it be with works promoted by the national Government, in distant parts of the country, with little or no knowledge of local circumstances or conditions? Another argument, more powerful than was realized at the time, was that which prophesied the swift advance of the locomotive and the railroad, and the consequent decay and disuse of the common road and the canal. Said a member of Congress in debate on the floor of the House, "The honorable gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Mercer, the father of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal], Sir, must hear the appalling, the heartrending fact, that this mighty monument [the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal] which, for years, he has been laboring with zeal and exertion to erect to his memory, and which, no doubt, he had fondly hoped would transmit his name down to the latest posterity, must fall, and must give place to the superior improvement of railroads."