A few berths are fitted up for their reception without bedding. Provisions must be provided at their own expense, and also a mode of preparing them. Sometimes numbers are huddled together on board without having room to move, or stretch themselves out for rest; the inconvenience of this mode of traveling can hardly be appreciated without being experienced.
It is also stated that steamboat traveling was dangerous because of the explosions. It is true there were a number of boiler explosions. Mark Twain mentions one of the very worst,[75] the explosion of the Pennsylvania. He also discusses the subject of racing, which after the Government rules regarding steam pressure went into effect, he claims not to have been dangerous. One of the later races, that between the Robert E. Lee and the Natchez in 1870 was an event of national interest. The time of the Robert E. Lee from New Orleans to St. Louis was 3 days 18 hours and 14 minutes from dock to dock. Mark Twain claims the fastest long-distance running was made by the Eclipse in 1855 when she made the trip from New Orleans to Cairo at an average speed “a shade under fourteen and three-eighths miles per hour.”
An idea of the rates charged for passenger fare and for freight traffic on steam-boats may be obtained from the following.
In 1816 from New York to Albany the fare was $7, about 4 cents per mile. For way stations between about 5 cents per mile, but no charge less than $1.[76]
Steamboat Fares
| Date | Between | Distance | Fare | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | Per Mile Cents | |||||||||
| 1816 | New York and Albany | 145 | $7.00 | 4 | ||||||
| 1817 | New York to Providence | 200 | 10.00 | 5 | ||||||
| 1825 | Boston to Portland | 160 | 5.00 | 3 | - | With meals | ||||
| 1825 | Boston to Bath | 6.00 | ||||||||
| 1825 | Boston to Augusta | 7.00 | ||||||||
| 1825 | Boston to East Port | 275 | 11.00 | 4 | ||||||
| 1848 | New York to Albany | 145 | .50 | .3 | - | [77] | ||||
| 1848 | New York to Erie | 600 | 7.50 | 1 | .3 | |||||
| 1848 | New York to Detroit | 825 | 8.50 | 1 | ||||||
| 1848 | New York to Chicago | 1520 | 12.50 | .7 | ||||||
| 1848 | Baltimore to Richmond | 378 | 10.00 | |||||||
| 1848 | Tuscaloosa to Mobile | 675 | 12.00 | |||||||
| 1848 | Boston and New York to New Orleans | Sailing Packet | - | 40-50 | ||||||
In 1817 from Rhode Island to New York, $10, approximately 5 cents per mile.
The Government’s Attitude Toward River Improvement.
—The individual states had been encouraging turnpikes, canals, and other interior improvements by subscribing and underwriting stock in private companies authorized to build and operate the improvements. Frequently monopolies were granted to operating companies.[78] States were jealous of each other and hesitated to appropriate money for improvements which would inure to the benefit of another state, and frequently an improvement in one state was worthless unless joining improvements could be made in neighboring states. Many men, believing in a large and unified nation rather than a confederation of several small nations advocated governmental action. Strict constitutionalists and states’ rights men objected. President Madison had vetoed Calhoun’s Bonus Bill for roads and canals upon the ground that the constitution did not vest Congress with power to undertake such improvements.[79] Calhoun had used all the power of his great eloquence based upon the “common defense and general welfare” clause of the constitution in favor of such improvements. He considered it the duty of Congress to “bind the republic together with a perfect system of roads and canals.” He exclaimed that the very extent of the country “exposes us to the greatest of all calamities,—next to the loss of liberty,—and even to that in its consequences—disunion. We are great, and rapidly—I was about to say fearfully growing. This is our pride and our danger; our weakness and our strength. We are under the most imperious obligation to counteract every tendency to disunion.... Whatever impedes the intercourse of the extremes with this, the center of the Republic, weakens the Union.”[80]
Monroe’s first message indicated that he followed Madison in the belief that Congress was not empowered by the constitution to establish internal improvements; and later he vetoed a measure to authorize the president to erect toll houses along the Cumberland Road, appoint toll gatherers and otherwise regulate its use, on the ground that it exceeded the power of congress. He favored internal improvements but thought a constitutional amendment necessary.[81]