Although the Government had changed its policy, the political education of the people had been such that many good citizens had little or no desire for changes or improvements that might destroy or disregard the sanctity of the constitution; nor could it be claimed they were much in favor of improvements of any kind—things were good enough. They did not expect to have every thing in the world, and were satisfied if things would remain as they were; they did not want any thing better than the easy routine in which they had spent much of their lives. The New York Canal was talked of as a private enterprise; but for what purpose above the cost of labor could not be stated, as there were no surplus productions in the country calling for a market, and so far Ohio people were “high protectionists of home industries,” and did not favor the introduction of “cheap foreign goods, nor imported labor.” They raised flax and wool, and, with the spinning-wheel and loom, manufactured the wearing apparel and household goods, and so sure as

“Man wants but little here below,

Nor wants that little long,”

the average citizen felt amply supplied with the necessaries of life, and could not well ask for more. He plowed his little piece of cleared ground with a “bull-plow,” having a wooden mold-board and cast-iron share; harrowed in his wheat, rye, oats, and turnips with a wooden-toothed harrow; dropped his corn by hand, and covered it with the hoe. Every spring he made enough maple-sugar for home consumption, and to exchange for tea, coffee, and salt; and if he had a few spare bushels of grain, they were taken to some one of the many copper-stills scattered over the country. And to him there was no encouragement for the improvement in wealth of state by establishing a commerce or trade that would sap the foundations of its home industries. And he feared for the future prospects of the North-west should the existing prohibitory tariff be removed between the East and West by cheap transportation, believing it would destroy home manufactures, diminish the price of labor, and produce “panics and paupers” beyond state ability and charity to maintain. The “flax-breaker’s” occupation would be gone; carding-machines, spinning-wheels, and looms, would no longer be manufactured or used, and the vast multitude of laborers carrying on these “infant industries” would be thrown out of employment and be “obliged to steal or starve.” Even the young woman, who makes an honest living by spinning sixteen “cuts” daily, at fifty cents a week and boarded, would be thrown upon the cold embraces of the world, and thousands of other honest poor would be ruined for want of protection against such an influx of “pauper labor and foreign manufacture.” And the man of one idea considered the condition of “home industries,” under contemplated internal improvements, as discouraging, as a “prospective repeal of a protective tariff.”

As early as 1807, Jesse Hawley conceived the idea of a canal from the Hudson river to Lake Erie—a distance of three hundred and fifty miles—believing it would be a profitable investment for the state and nation, that it would populate the North-west and establish important commercial relations with western states. But the newspapers pronounced Jesse “a crank,” and refused to make public his thoughts upon the subject. But this did not change the opinions of practical business men, whose talk of canals and intersecting canals did not meet with much favor among legislators, which, perhaps, represented the sentiments of their constituents. And it took nearly half as long as it did the people of New York to build the Erie canal, for those of Ohio to understand that a canal, commerce and free trade, would increase labor and enrich a state. And for the timely commencement of the great work the people of Ohio are much indebted to W. Steele, of Cincinnati, for his trial surveys and intelligent letters upon the subject at an early day, when few persons entertained the practicability of such an undertaking.

The following extracts from a letter published in the Olive Branch, February 27, 1821, on the “Project of a Canal,” is but a fair specimen of the philanthropy of the times, and says:

“Nothing can be of more importance to the State of Ohio than the making of a navigable canal from Lake Erie to the Ohio river. That it is practicable to make such canal admits not of a doubt. Were it made, and the Hudson and Erie canal finished, we should have an easy and cheap highway on which to transport our surplus produce to the New York market. I have had the level between the Scioto and the Sandusky bay at Lower Sandusky. From the summit level on the most favorable route for a canal that I am acquainted with, to Lower Sandusky, the descent, agreeable to the report of Mr. Farrer, whom I employed for the purpose of taking the levels, is 318 feet.... And by the report of the engineers employed by the State of Virginia, they make the Ohio river at the mouth of the Great Kanawha river 83 feet lower than Lake Erie. If those levels are to be relied on, and we ascertain what is the amount of descent in the Ohio river from the mouth of the Great Kanawha to the point where the canal is intended to communicate with the Ohio, we will then know what will be the whole amount of lockage required. If we allow 50 feet for the descent, the lockage will be as follows: From Lake Erie to the summit level, 318 feet; and from summit level to Ohio river, 433 feet; making the whole amount, 751 feet. I do not know how near this estimate is to the truth, but I am satisfied in my own mind the lockage would be between seven and eight hundred feet.

“The estimate of the commissioners for making the New York canal is $13,800 per mile. Owing to the reduction in the price of labor it is found it can be made for much less money. The ground for making a canal across the State of Ohio is much more favorable than that over which the New York canal is now making. Although there would be more lockage on the Ohio canal than on the New York, yet it is believed it can be made at less expense than an equal distance of the New York canal. When we take into consideration the low price at which labor can be had, and the advantage to be gained by the employment of experienced engineers now employed on the New York canal, I think I hazard but little in saying that a canal can be made across this state for $12,000 a mile.”... “I am aware that some will say that ‘the State of Ohio is too young and too poor to undertake this mighty project.’ But I deny that the State of Ohio is either young or poor. She contains at this time more than 500,000 souls, and ranks fourth or fifth state in the Union. Can a state with such a population (of industrious people, too) be poor? It has been justly remarked, ‘That population is power; and industry is wealth,’ so I contend that we are both powerful and rich.

“The inquiry of some will be, how is the money to be raised to dig this ‘mighty ditch?’ Raise it in the same way New York does—borrow it on the credit of the state. Many there are, I have no doubt, who will doubt whether money can be borrowed on the credit of the state. To such I would say, go and try. If we stand at the base of a hill and look up, without making an effort to ascend, we will never reach its summit....

“Although it cost $2,400,000 (to make 200 miles), it might not be necessary to borrow any thing like that sum. The distribution of the sum required would go to the people of the state, and give more relief from their present pecuniary embarrassments than can be had from any laws enacted for that purpose. As the lands in the vicinity of the canal belonging to the general government would be greatly enhanced in value, I think it not improbable that Congress will make a donation to the state of a body of land in the vicinity, so far as it passes through their territory; if so, it would aid very much in making it.

“A member of the House of Commons once asked an eminent engineer for what purpose he apprehended ‘rivers were made.’ His answer was ‘to feed navigable canals.’ Such was the opinion of a great man, and such indeed must have been the opinion of many others, for we find canals in Great Britain in many places running parallel with navigable rivers. Persons unacquainted with the cheapness at which goods are transported on canals, are surprised when they learn that a ton weight can be transported at the rate of one cent a mile. The illustrious Fulton, but a short time previous to his death, gave it as his opinion that goods could be transported on the New York canal, when completed, at the rate of one cent a ton per mile. We find him supported in this by Col. C. G. Haines, corresponding secretary to the New York association for the promotion of internal improvement.

“Mr. Phillips, in the preface of his history of ‘Inland Navigation,’ says: ‘All canals may be considered as so many roads of a certain kind on which one horse will draw as much as thirty horses do on ordinary turnpike roads, and the public would be great gainers were they to lay out upon making every mile of canal twenty times as much as they expend upon making a mile of turnpike road.’ And Sutcliff, in his treatise on canals, says: ‘That within the last twenty-five years there has been expended on canals in England more than one hundred and thirty million dollars.’ A country is never made poor by making internal improvements, even if the people are taxed to make them. If money be taken from the people, it is again paid out among them, and kept in circulation.

“When the canals through Ohio and New York are finished, I have no doubt but that two-thirds of the surplus produce of all the country watered by the Ohio and its tributary streams above the falls, would pass through them to the New York market. That it would be to the interest of every shipper to give the preference to New York is obvious.... The amount of produce that perishes on the way and at New Orleans every fifteen years, would itself more than pay for building a canal across the State of Ohio. During the spring tides, when the principal part of the produce of the western country is carried to New Orleans, that market is glutted, and the shipper is very often pleased at being able to return home with half the money his cargo cost him.

“If Mr. Fulton’s estimates as to the expenses at which goods can be transported on canals be correct, the expenses of transporting a barrel of flour to the City of New York (allowing ten barrels for a ton), will be as follows:

From Ohio river to Lake Erie, 200 m.20c
Down the lake, 260 m.20c
New York canal, 353 m.35c
Down the Hudson, 160 m.15c

“Total nine hundred and seventy-three miles for ninety cents. To this must be added the tollage of both canals. The lowest rate at which flour at present is freighted to New Orleans from the falls is $1.25 per barrel. Nor is it probable that the price will be reduced, as the boat which cost $100 to $150 is generally thrown away at New Orleans, or sold for a sum not exceeding the tenth part of their cost.

“It will be recollected, that while our produce is carried to New York at the cheap rate quoted above, that our foreign goods can be brought through the same channel at the same rates, from sixty-seven cents to one dollar and twelve cents per ton. More or less of these goods the people will have, and the cheaper the rates at which they can be furnished, the better for the country. And besides, it must be recollected if they are brought across the mountains, by way of Pittsburg, or from New Orleans by way of the Mississippi and Ohio, that the expense of transportation is paid to citizens of other states; if brought over the Ohio canal, the money saved in the state thereby, would, in twenty five years, amount to more than the whole cost of the canal.

“It must be admitted that the risk on the canal and lake is much less than on the Ohio and Mississippi, and the time required to carry the produce that way much less. By turning the trade from New Orleans to New York, we would save thereby the lives of many of our most enterprising and useful citizens, who would otherwise fall victims to the diseases of the lower Mississippi. The State of Kentucky has lost more of her citizens by the New Orleans trade within the last fifteen years than she lost by the late war, and it is known she bled at every pore.

“Lateral canals may be made from the main canals in many places, which will serve to collect to the main canal the rich products of the soil through which they pass, and at the same time afford means of furnishing the country with many of the necessities of life at prices greatly below what they now cost without the canal. I will only name the article of salt, which by means of the canal may be furnished to people in the interior of the state from the salines of New York at a price but little, if any thing, exceeding fifty cents per bushel. It is impossible to calculate the benefits that may be derived to the people of this state by the making of the canal. In its progress it will, no doubt, lay open rich beds of minerals. It will lay us, as it were, alongside the Atlantic. It will, in short, elevate the character of the state, and put it half a century in advance of her present situation....

“It only remains for the legislature of Ohio to apply the means within their reach to accomplish this desirable object. When accomplished, there can be no doubt but that it will produce a sufficient revenue to defray the expense’s of the state government.

“W. Steele.
Cincinnati, Ohio, 1820.”

The arguments made for internal improvements were good; but to the child of nature such talk became a source of alarm. To destroy the forests would diminish the game supply, and he soon began to feel the country was becoming too highly civilized for good and easy living; that buckskin breeches and tow trowsers were already being discarded for imported goods. And when the spirit of advancing civilization came within sight, he who had no fence around his cabin, or little else besides sunflowers or a peach tree to indicate manual labor near the unbounded premises, sold his land at a small advance, and, with family and dogs, moved out to “Ingianny.”