Promoting America's Canals: Popularizing the Hopes and Fears of the New American Nation

Promoting America’s Canals: Popularizing The Hopes And Fears Of The New American Nation

By Carlos A. Schwantes

mericans in the Jeffersonian era formed corresponding associations for every conceivable purpose from fighting yellow A fever to publicizing agricultural reforms.’ Canal promotion was no

exception, and the literature which the promoters wrote and circulated represents the legacy of probably the largest, most concerted public campaign to stir Americans since the ratification struggle of 1787-1790.2

The mechanism of canal promotion was in many ways similar to that used in the campaign for Constitutional ratification. Proponents of canals were well organized, they shared information, and they learned to parry the thrusts of a disorganized and localized opposition. From 1811 to 1848 the influential Niles Weekly Register served as a clearinghouse for canal promotional information; the opposition had nothing similar. Finally, with the completion of New York’s Grand or Erie Canal in 1825, promoters could offer tangible rewards, much as the Federalists of 1788 had offered a tangible plan of government. Because theirs was a campaign that frequently relied upon manipulation of the themes and symbols that propagandists considered most likely to evoke a popular response in the New Nation, canal promoters created a body of literature that though written by a literate minority of Americans still reveals some of the conflicting concerns of the nation’s general citizenry during the formative years from 1789 to 1830.

The literature of canal promotion grew only randomly in the late eighteenth century, and often it consisted of little more than a few thoughts contained in a private letter or a memorial to a state legislature by an individual who wanted simply to construct a short canal around some troublesome rapids or waterfalls. Rare indeed was the American before 1800 who consciously sought to promote an inter-regional canal linking the Atlantic Coast with the Ohio Valley or Great Lakes. Gradually, however, conscious promoters emerged, men who were convinced that with the correct use of vivid themes and symbols they could appeal to the sentiments supposedly latent in the minds of the American people.

In the opening years of the nineteenth century the body of promotional literature expanded rapidly to include new pamphlets, new memorials to Congress, a favorable reference or two in a Presidential message and a n encouraging governmental study on internal improvements prepared in 1807 at the behest of the Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin. Even so,

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promoters still saw their plans stymied by a formidable opposition. They might derisively call their opponents men of “caution and limited views,’’ yet even Thomas Jefferson, a man sharing with George Washington the vision of a canal linking the Potomac and Ohio rivers, still considered it little short of madness to contemplate such a union any time before another century of national de~elopment .~

I t was in the process of planning and building their Grand Canal that New Yorkers effectively institutionalized canal promotion. The New York Legislature in 1810 created a seven man canal board to investigate and report on the subject. Other states, such as Ohio, followed New York’s example. These boards usually served more as pressure groups than as investigatory bodies. Early reports by the New York commissioners were filled not merely with technical information but also with declamatory promises of wealth, honor and glory attendant completion of the canal p ro je~ t s .~

Corresponding societies separate from legislative commissions were also established. Charles G. Haines, corresponding secretary of the New York Association for the Promotion of Internal Improvements, recommended that associations be established in every state to “interchange all useful intelligence and occasionally embody information and lay it before the pe~p le . ”~ Members of the various corresponding societies together with canal commissioners such as New York’s De Witt Clinton became veritable missionaries tirelessly promoting a myriad of canal projects throughout the Northeast and Midwest.

The correspondence exchanged by the promoters reveals some of the popular concerns they hoped to address. Ohio’s canal promoting governor, Ethan Allen Brown, commended Haines’ idea that “command of public opinion will be the command of public resources,” but he warned that such a task would require “proofs heaped upon demonstration.” Canal promoters had to hold out the promise of a better future, but more importantly they had to allay the suspicions of a public skeptical of the ability of water-filled ditches to bridge streams and climb mountains to tap the commercial riches of the West. One promoter attempted to counter such ignorance and prejudice by suggesting: “Let us discard this talismanic word ‘canal’ and call it a long mill race, and all its terrors will vanish. . . . ” Canal promoters were, in short, warned that they must possess the hardihood “to brave the sneers and sarcasms of men” who “condemn what they cannot comprehend.”6

What many Americans did comprehend was the prospect of increased stated debts and the attendant increase in taxes to support foolish projects not at all likely to be successful. Financial support for inter-regional canal projects would have to be voted by legislators responsible to a financially conservative and locally oriented electorate. Farmers in eastern New York asked why they should be taxed to enable farmers on the shores of Lake Erie to bring their produce to market for nothing. Newspapers in rural Pennsylvania contended that internal improvements in that state would most likely benefit only Philadelphia. Furthermore, those dependent on

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turnpikes and roads, previous recipients of state internal improvement money, wondered why the state should now subsidize their competition.7

Sometimes opposition revolved around specific issues. In the New York Legislature, for example, much of the opposition to the Erie Canal project stemmed from the political enemies of canal promoter and politician De Witt Clinton. In time, opposition to canals arose also from the advocates of another technological innovation, the railroad. By the time of the 1825 Pennsylvania debates on the subject of canals, railroad advocates were already marshaling opposition to spending any state money for canals when the introduction of the railway locomotive “has greatly changed the relative value of canals and railways.’’8 On the national level, Constitutional issues could be raised for any number of reasons to deny federal funds for canal construction.

“There may be local and natural obstacles to improvements; but where there are public spirit, enlightened zeal, and honorable ambition, it is idle to talk about such obstacles.” Such sentiments animated the propagandists who sought to picture canals as panaceas for every vexing problem, as offering something for everyone.9 Would not canals increase the value of real estate by promoting settlement and cultivation of the land as well as by facilitating commerce?’O Unproductive land could be irrigated and swamps drained to become (‘so many gold mines.”” Without doubt, averred the promoters, canals would supply cities with cheaper fuels.12 For communities too frequently plagued by fires, canals would supply the water necessary for adequate fire protection; canals would also make urban conflagrations less frequent by providing inhabitants with safer burning coal to replace the more readily accessible but supposedly more flammable wood.13 Canals would supply city dwellers with fresh water fordrinking, for street cleaning, for “cooling the air of the city,” and even for the private luxury of a bath.14 Depending on the promoter’s logic, canals could be portrayed either as excellent laborsaving devices or as instruments to provide expanded employment opportunities for the poor and unemployed.’

The theme which formed the bedrock upon which all other themes rested was that of the supposedly intimate connection between canal construction and local, regional and national growth. An English observer once described the American passion for growth as “a grasping, instatiate desire for more-more.’’ That observation was no more accurate than when applied to the urban rivalries and jealousies so exploited by canal promoters. One avid propagandist argued that if a canal were built to tap the commerce of the Great Lakes, Manhattan Island would be within a century covered with “the buildings and population of its city” and that New York’s only urban rival would be New Orleans. Most other propagandists for New York City would not even allow for a rival. They believed that if the Grand Canal were constructed, New York City would become one of the world’s “most splendid commercial cities,” possibly the “greatest commercial emporium on Earth.”l6

Citizens of Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and other East Coast

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communities might well have ignored the pretensions of New York City had they not possessed peculiar notions about the process of urban growth. Urban dwellers in the New Nation generally believed that community growth was desirable; indeed, such growth was synonymous with progress. Urban growth, however, was seen as a very fragile plant requiring constant nurturing and protection. A prospering commerce was vital to the hopes of every aspiring metropolis, and for that reason economic ties with the promising western hinterlands had to be developed and maintained. Few Americans, though, regarded the potential commerce of the “garden of the West,” as equally available to all. In fact, the prevailing notion held that trade “is like water; when it once passes in any particular channel, it is not easily diverted or drawn away into another.” The commerce of a new region had to be tapped or forfeited, and to forfeit commercial opportunity was to suffer the undesirable consequences of economic stagnation. Thus convinced that the first East Coast community to tap the Trans- Appalachian trade would most like aggrandize and preserve that trade, urban dwellers could not wait idly for rivals to draw away irrevocably the commercial riches of the hinterland^.'^

So long as no canal project actually threatened to tap the Trans- Appalachian trade, a rough commercial egalitarianism prevailed among East Coast cities that lessened the urgency of canal construction, but once New York appeared certain to accomplish the long-sought goal of providing cheap and easy transportation between East and West, urban and regional rivalries intensified. Frightened by the doomsday rhetoric of canal promoters, New York’s rivals betrayed a growing sense of panic. They were quick to perceive that New York’s technological daring would leave it “almost without competition.” Pennsylvanians were warned that their economic strength was ebbing away, and Baltimoreans were told that the “desert daily advances upon the city.”18

The imperative to develop commercial ties to the West or face economic stagnation could lead to bizarre results, as in Pennsylvania, where the legislature authorized construction of a “technological monstrosity,” a canal that would climb the mountains between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh by using a n incline railroad rather than water and locks to lift the boats.19 The growth imperative also led to an outpouring of boosterism from East Coast rivals. Each city’s publicists claimed for it a shorter route to the West, a more favorable climate and often better educational, scientific and commercial institutions than possessed by rival communities. Promoters dared anyone to doubt that “Charleston is better situated than New York” for commercial intercourse with the West, or that the rich valley of the Potomac, with the aid of a canal, would make Cumberland “the entrepct of the merchandise commerce of the west.” Only in the rare instance where one city had clearly established its supremacy over another was the booster spirit modified. Philadelphians, for example, were told that they need not be jealous of any advantages Wilmington, Delaware, might obtain from a proposed canal, for “after all, she is but the hard working servant of Philadelphia.. . .”20


‘ ‘me ‘technological monstrosity,’ a canal that would climb the mountains between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.. . .”


Hugh Williamson in 1807 had compared the western territory to a “handsome girl” being wooed by rival urban lovers. More accurately, perhaps, the Trans-Appalachian West could be described as the child bride of New Orleans, and urban rivals in the East, though they might contend jealously with one another, all agreed that a divorce must be effected. The literature of canal promotion reveals the ingenious efforts used to divert western trade from New Orleans to the commercial centers of the East. The themes and symbols used by propagandists also reveal something about the popular image held in the East regarding a vast and unknown territory.21

Supporters of eastern canal projects focused attention on New Orleans’ allegedly unhealthy climate and its deleterious effect on provisions, boatmen and traders. Altruistic New York publicists claimed that turning the western trade from New Orleans to New York would save the lives of “many of our most enterprising and useful citizens,” who would otherwise fall victim to disease. Supposedly as many as one in five boatmen who descended the Mississippi fell victim to disease. Publicists in some communities picked up and enlarged upon this theme by claiming some New Orleans-bound boats lost all their hands because of disease. New York, by contrast, was fortunate to be placed in “a happy medium between the insalubrious heat of the Mississippi and the severe cold of the St. Lawrence.” An English writer could not resist poking a little fun at New York’s propaganda attack on New Orleans: “The river is all shoals. . . . The situation is unhealthy. . .burning sun. . .it will be the grave of thousands:- whereas,-New York!-everything that is agreeable-New York!”22

The Trans-Appalachian West presented both a n exciting prospect and a nagging worry for Americans. The West had the potential to become a “boundless” garden “whose production shall far exceed the storied fertility of the Nile.” It might also become the site for a new commercial empire rising out of the basin of the Mississippi and an asylum for the foreign immigrants “exhausted by the wretched, tyrannic policy of the Old World.’Q3 Yet, internal improvements would be necessary to aid the “hardy husbandmen” to reduce a “wilderness to smiling fields,” to promote civilization among the mass of new settlers as well as among the Indian tribes, and to “redeem these unfortunate beings from that unhappy state of moral and intellectual degredation.” Surely, argued the promoters of internal improvements, constant commercial intercourse could “subdue the wild and unchecked propensities of the savage soul.. . .”24 But without improved communication and transportation, how could the settlers moving west “produce the very semblance of civil life?” How would they buy so much as a “bolt of ribands for their wives and daughters?” People “who regard for the morals of their children” would not likely settle in the unimproved regions, “for there is no stimulus to industry.” Only the civilizing influence of canal-borne commerce could prevent frontiersmen from degenerating into a “horde of unlettered, idle, drunken savages. . . . ”25

Inhabitants of the Trans-Appalachian West, civilized or not, seemed to some Americans living on the eastern seaboard to be notoriously


independent, their allegiance subject to little more than the dictates of personal interest. “The Western settlers,” observed George Washington, “stand as it were on a pivot; the touch of a feather would turn them any way.”26 He believed that unless the New West could be connected to the states of the East, its inhabitants would become “quite a distinct people; and ultimately may very troublesome to us.” The “cement of interest,” said Washington, would be necessary to join together all parts of the union by “indissoluble bonds.”27 In a letter to Henry Knox, Washington elaborated on his plan to strengthen the union: “I am now endeavoring to stimulate my Countrymen to the extension of the inland navigation of the rivers Potomac and James, thereby, and a short land transportation, to connect with Western Territory by strong commercial bonds to this.”28 President Thomas Jefferson continued to enunciate Washington’s concerns in his Sixth Annual Message (1806), in which he observed that the opening of new channels of communication between the states will cause “the lines of separation” to disappear and their union to be “cemented with new and indissoluble ties.”29 Washington and Jefferson, however, spoke only for a n articulate minority. Even after the purchase of the vast Louisiana Territory in 1803, the average citizen apparently worried little whether the inhabitants of the far reaches of the Republic had anything in common with Americans living on the East Coast.The War of 1812 changed that attitude.

That war evoked a new popular concern for national unity, and thereafter the theme of nationalism became a n increasingly important component of the literature of canal promotion. Americans became convinced that only internal improvements could unite the disparate regions and sustain national

Concern for national unity was voiced so frequently after the War of 1812 that the nationalistic outbursts characterizing the era appear to be little more than a sophisticated form of whistling in the dark. A nation haunted by the memories of the burning of Washington by the British and the separatism of New England was worried about the future, and its citizens were receptive to the argument that internal improvements could overcome national disunity by forging “chains more durable than adament.” In the great internal improvement debate of early 1817, the halls of Congress reverberated with reiterations and elaborations of arguments long advanced by internal improvement propagandists.31

In the literature of canal promotion, the assimilative power of internal improvements was expressed symbolically by propagandists who exhorted Americans to use canals to “cut down and level mountains” in order to subjegate mutual prejudices. Similar symbolism was used by Charles G. Haines who argued that “our mountains must be politically annihilated. Our sectional barriers must be swept away by a moral arm whose power is resistless. Our manners, our habits, our principles, our political maxims, our most pervading sympathies must wear a n aspect that is settled, uniform and constant.” So pervasive was the idea of a canal binding together the nation that it was used by a publicist after the Civil War to indicate how his


Southern canal scheme would aid in the work of restoring national unity.32 With unity would come the domestic commercial growth from which

would derive the national greatness so desired by Americans after 1815. With national greatness would come freedom from worry, for such a nation “is not likely to be plagued very long with questions relative to the rights of European sovereignty on any part of this continent.” The reference the need for national greatness, which is found so often in the promotional literature written after the War of 1812, reveals that though the nation reveled in Jackson’s victory over the British at New Orleans a number of Americans needed further confirmation of national greatness. Many seemed to wonder whether the British might yet seek to avenge her loss. Was further war “inevitable,” a promoter Robert Mills argued?33 Could the United States ever aspire to a station equal to that of Britain, France or even Holland? Many Americans were not sure. Mathew Carey, referring to American commercial difficulties in 1819, lamented that “other nations usually and naturally recover in peace from injuries inflicted by war. We rose in war- and alas! are sinking in peace!!!”34

The apparent lack of self-confidence on the part of many Americans convinced canal promoters to demonstrate that the “certain and more speedy road” to national greatness lay in the making of internal improvements. The Massachusetts commissioners observed that “as Empires have advanced in civilization, intelligence and wealth, the facilities for intercourse have been rapidly extended by roads and canals.” Americans were thus urged to seek national greatness by emulating the great nations of the world and thereby reap the manifold benefits brought by canals. Why, “the profits of canals in England have been so great as almost to exceed the limits of credibility.” Had not the population of the large cities of England, Scotland and Wales doubled and trebled following the introduction of turnpikes and canals?35

American promoters also reminded their fellow countrymen of the unique manner in which they could transform a mere instrument of national growth and prosperity into a symbol of republicanism. While the canals of other civilizations were intended more as “monuments of regal vanity,” those in America would be “of utility to mankind.” Canals “constitute improvements particularly fit for a republic. They contribute equally to the safety and opulence of the people and the reputation and resources of the government.”America’s canal achievements would bear testimony to future generations of “the genius, the learning, the industry and intelligence of the present age.” America’s unique contribution to world civilization was the subject of a song written to commemorate the completion of the Erie Canal:

[The glory of this canal-] ‘tis that genius has triumph’d-and science prevail’d Tho’ prejudice flouted and Envy assail’d It is, that the vassals of Europe may see The progress of mind, in a land that is free.36


America’s canals and later her railroads were seen by commentators as impressing “an indelible mark between the enterprising American and the plodding inhabitant of the other hemisphere.”S7

Promoters had popularized a number of themes and symbols, but their exhortations continued to ring hollow until their words could be made to leap from the pages of pamphlets into the minds of Americans, not to remain inert, but to goad them into action, to stimulate both the private citizen and the legislator to provide the capital needed for canal building schemes. That transformation did not happen in any significant way until New York built its canal linking the Hudson River with the Great Lakes.

Completion of the 364 milelong Erie Canal created the frenzy of activity known as the “Canal Craze” or “Canal Mania.” That was because the Erie demonstrated the viability of the symbols so long used in canal promotion. For years Americans had been told that the “utility of canal navigation is universally admitted,” but not until the Erie Canal actually dropped the cost of shipping a ton of wheat or flour from Buffalo to New York City from $100. to $10. or $12. did Americans readily agree. The Erie Canal, said one promoter, “has removed the doubts of skepticism itself, and stands as a splendid example to the world of what may be done in the way of internal improvements.”38

Before construction of the Erie Canal began in 1817, the United States possessed less than 100 miles of canals, the longest stretching not quite 28 miles. Hardly a year had elapsed following the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 when Niles Weekly Register reported no less than 102 canal projects under construction, in process, or completed. By 1840 Americans had constructed 3,325 miles of canals and by the end of the decade of the 1850’s they had completed a peal of 4,500 miles of canals. Ironically, perhaps, the demise of canal-borne commerce was probably hastened by the promotional activities of the canal promoters. Aside from the Erie Canal, most such projects did not meet the expectations and promises of promoters, and a disillusioned populace turned away from public support for canal construction and operation. Meanwhile, the themes and symbols which canal advocates had so patiently developed were being appropriated and used effectively by the advocates of a new and promising technology, the rai l r~ads.~g

Notes ‘David Hackett Fischer, The Revolution in American Conservatism: The Federalist

Party in the Era of Jeffersonian Democracy (New York, 1965), p. 60. 2The following is a representative sample of the book-length studies that deal with the

promotion and building of canals: Seymour Dunbar, A History of Travel in America, 4 vols. (Indianapolis, 1915); Carter Goodrich, et al., Canals and AmericanEconomic Development (New York, 1961); Carter Goodrich, Gouernment Promotion of American Canals and Railroads: 1800- 1890 (New York, 1960); Ralph Gray, The National Waterway: A History of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, 1769-1965 (Urbana, 1967); Alvin F. Harlow, Old Towpaths: The Story of the American Canal Era (New York, 1926); Louis Hartz, Economic Policy and Democratic Thought: Pennsyluania 1776-1860 (Chicago, 1968 [1948]); James W. Livingood, The Philadelphia- Baltimore Trade Rivalry, 1780-1860 (Harrisburg, 1947); Julius Rubin, Canal or Railroad:


Imitation and lnnouation in Response to the Erie Canal in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Boston (Philadelphia, 1961); Walter Sanderlin, The Great National Project: A History ofthe Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (Baltimore, 1946); Harry N. Scheiber, Ohio Canal Era: A Case Study of Gouernment and theEconomy, 1820.1861 (Athens, Ohio, 1969); Ronald E. Shaw, Erie Water West: A History of the Erie Canal, 1792-1854 (Lexington, 1966); Madeline S. Waggoner, The Long Haul West, The Great Erie Canal Era, 1817-1850 (New York, 1958).

“Elkanah Watson, History of the Rise, Progress and Existing Condition of the Western Canals in the State o fNew York.. .(Albany, 1820), p. 8; David Hosack, MemoirofDe Witt Clinton (New York, 1829). p. 347; Harlow, Old Towpaths, p. 56.

‘Harry N. Scheiber, “The Ohio Canal Movement, 1820-1825,” The Ohio Historical Quarterly, L X I X (July 1960), p. 231; [Charles G. Haines, ed.] Public Documents Relating to the New York Canals-(hereinafter cited as NYPublic Documents); (New York, 1821) pp. 293,333; Laws ofthe State of New York, in Relation to the Erie and Champlain Canals.. .(hereinafter cited as N Y Laws), 2 vols. (Albany, 1825).

”Charles G. Haines], Considerations on the Great Western Canal from the Hudson to Lake Erie. . .(Brooklyn, 1818), p. 49.

6NY Public Documents, pp. 45,453; Communication from Robert Fulton, December 8,1807, in William Duane Letters Addressed to the People of Pennsylvania Respecting the Internal Improuement of the Commonwealth.. .(Philadelphia, 1811), p. 36; Great National Object: Proposed Connection o f the Eastern and Western Waters by a Communication through the Potomac Country (n.p., 1822), p. 4 .

7Julius Rubin, “An Innovating Public Improvement: The Erie Canal,” in Goodrich et al., Canals and American Economic Deuelopment, p. 16; Peter Ploughshare [Samuel Beach?], Considerations Against Continuing the Great Canal West of Seneca.. .(Utica, 1819), p. 4; Hartz, Economic Policy and Democratic Thought, p.133; John Kilbourn, ed., Public Documents Concerning the Ohio Canals, (Columbus, 1832), p.76.

BRubin, “An Innovating Public Improvement,” p. 56; William Strickland, Reports on Canals, Railways, Roads and Other Subjects.. .(Philadelphia, 1826), p. 85. The issue of railway transportation had been raised as early as 1812 by John Stevens in his Documents Tending to Proue the Superior Aduantages of Railways and Steam-Carriages ouer Canal Nauigation (New York, 1812).

9Mathew Carey et al., To the Citizens o f the Commonwealth o f Pennsyluania (n.p., 1825), p. iii; “Internal Improvements of North Carolina,” North American Reuiew, XI1 (January 1821), 16- 17. Promoter William Hollins lists the specific classes to which canal propaganda was directed: merchants, manufacturers, mechanics, professional men, planters and farmers, millers, fishermen. Canal Gazette, August 20, 1825, p. 4.

’OThe idea of resource development appears so frequently in the literature that only a few examples need be cited “Resolution Passed at the Ontario County Meeting,” in Hosack, Memoir of De Witt Clinton, p. 425; Account of the Proposed Canal from Worcester to Providence.. .(Providence, 1825), p. 14; Hercules, A n Exposition of the Practicability of Constructing a Great Central Canal. . . Through the Southern Tier of Counties in the Stateof New York (Westfield, 1827), p. 27.

11“Canals,” Rees’ Cyclopaedia, VI (London, 1819). Previous editions of this article had an important influence on opinion formation in New York. Hosack, Memoir of De Witt Clinton, p. 502; A Treatise on Internal Nauigation (Ballston Spa, 1817). p. iii. See also Robert Mills, Inland Nauigation: Plan for a Great Canal Between Charleston and Columbia and for Connecting Our Waters with those of the Western Country (Columbia, 1821), p. 10.

’2Facts and Arguments Respecting the Great 1Jtility o f an Extensiue Plan of Internal Navigation in America (Philadelphia, 1805), p.24; Great National Object, p.5.

’3U.S. Congress, House, Report o f the Alexandria Canal, H. Doc. 71, 21st Cong., 2nd Sess., 1831, p. 1% Obseruations on the Importance of Improuing the Nauigation of the Riuer

Schuylkill.. .[Philadelphia, 18181, p.20 “Report of the Commissioners of the State of Massachusetts on the Routes of Canals from

Boston Harbour.. .(Boston,1826), p. 89 [Samuel Magaw], Address of the Committee of the Delaware and Schuylkill Canal Company to the Committees of the Senate and House of Representatiues.. .(Philadelphia, [1799]), pp. 16-17; Mills, Inland Nauigation, p. 10.

IsNiles Weekly Register, March 3,1814, p.171; Report of the [Pennsylvania] Commissioners


(n.p., 1824), p. 27; Hartz, Economic Policy o f the Democratic Thought, p.137. ‘6“American Canal Navigation,” The Literary Panorama and National Register, XXVII

(December, 1816), 371; “Hercules Essays,” in Hosack, Memoir o f De Witt Clinton, p. 332; Atticus [De Witt Clinton], Remarks on the Proposed Canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson River (New York, 1816), pp. 7,27; N Y Public Documents, p. 249. A representative sample of the studies of urban rivalries would include: Livingood, The Philadelphia-Baltimore Trade Rivalry; Rubin, Canal or Railroad; George R. Woolfolk, “Rival Urban Communication Schemes,” Mid-America XXXVIII (October 1956).

l i Hosack, Memoir o f De Witt Clinton, pp. 90, 270; Robert Moms, Memorial [to the Pennsylvania Legislature, 17911, in Samuel Hazard, ed., The Register o f Pennsylvania, September 6, 1828, p. 121; Christopher Colles, Proposals for the Speedy Settlement of the Waste and llnappropriated Lands. . .(New York, 1785), p. 13; Mills, Inland Navigation, p. 43; A Serious Appeal to the Wisdom and Patriotism o f the Legislature o f the State o f New York on the Subject o f a Canal Communication between thegreat Western Lakes and Tide Waters o f the Hudson (n.p. 1816). p. 12; John L. Sullivan, Remarks on the Importance o f Inland Navigation from Boston.. .(Boston, 1813). p. 7; “Report on the Chesapeake andDelaware Canal [ 18061,”in Reports and Draughts o f Surveys for the Improvement of Harbors and Rivers.. . I (Washington, 1839), 368; Gen. [Robert Goodloe] Harper’s Speech to the Citizens o f Baltimore. . .(Baltimore, 1824). p. 56. Internal trade would become increasingly vital to national growth if Americans agreed with John Melish, who argued in 1812 that the “exports of the United States have reached their zenith.” John Melish, Travels in the IJnited States o f America. . . I1 (Philadelphia, 1812), p. 47. See also Samuel Breck, Sketch of the Internal Improuements Already Made i n Pennsyluania (Philadelphia, 1818), p.80.

IRReport o f the [Pennsylvania] Committee Relative to the Subject o f a Board of Commissioners for the Purpose o f Improving the State (n.p., 1823), p. 3; Report o f the [Pennsylvania] Commissioners, pp. 11,44; Julius Rubin, “An Imitative Public Improvement,” in Goodrich et al., Canals and American Economic Development, p. 97; Livingood, The Philadelphia-Baltimore Trade Riualry, p. 62; Report o f the Commissioners. . .Massachusetts, pp. 151, 169. Rubin documents well the growing sense of panic in Pennsylvania, where the years of delay gave way to months of extremely hasty action: Canal or Railroad, p. 20.

IgRubin, Canal or Railroad, p. 57; and “An Imitative Public Improvement,” p. 113. ln Report o f the [Pennsylvania] Commissioners, p. 41; J.L. Sulliuan, Suggestions on the

Canal Policy o f Pennsylvania.. .(Philadelphia, 1824), p. 35; N Y Public Documents, p. xxi; Thomas Phenix, sec., The [Maryland] State Convention on Internal Improvements (Baltimore, 1825), p. 8; Mills, Inland Navigation, p. 21; Memorial o f the Internal Improvement Convention to the General Assembly o f North Carolina (Raleigh, [ca. 18381). p. 7; Letter from the Governor and Council o f Maryland Transmitting a Report o f the Commissioners Appointed to Survey the River Potomac (Washington, 1823), pp. 22,30; Great National Object, p. 3; Gen. Harper$ Speech,pp. 22, 30; Views Respecting the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal (Philadelphia, 1824), p. 16.

“Hosack, Memoir o f De Witt Clinton, p. 422. 22Kilboum, ed., Public Documents, pp. 20,21,30; NYPublic Documents, p. 461; Memorial to

the Citizens o f New York in Favor of a Canal Navigation between the Great Western Lakes and the Tide- Waters o f the Hudson (New York, 1816), p. 8; Facts and Arguments, p. 1 9 Great National Object, p. 36; “American Canal Navigation,” p. 371. This propaganda relied on the authority of travelers’ accounts a s well a s the prevailing idea that tropical climate had a deleterious effect on the Northern constitution. Melish, Travels, 11, 167; James Johnson, The Influence o f Tropical Climates on European Constitutions (New York, 1826).

Wadwallader D. Colden, A Memoir.. .at the Celebrationof the New York Canals (New York, 1825), p.74; Mills, Inland Navigation, p.55.

*d[Ph. Schuyler], Report o f Directors o f the Western Inland Lock-Navigation Company to the Legislature (Albany, 1798), p.7; N Y Public Documents, p.xlii; Duane, Letters, p.47; [Charles G.

Haines], Considerations on the Great Western Canal, p.17. ‘%Atticus, Remarks on the Proposed Canal, p.9; Duane, Letters, p.95; [Robert Morris], A n

Historical Account of the Rise, Progress and Present State o f Canal Navigationin Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1795). p.iii.

26George Washington to Benjamin Hamson, October 10, 1784, in John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings o f George Washington, XXVII (Washington, 1938), 475.


27Zbid.; George Washington to James Warren, October 7,1785, Ibid., XXVIII, 291. It is unclear whether Washington originated the term “cement of interest” to describe the purpose of internal improvements, but it was soon widely used by canal publicists.

28George Washington to Henry Knox, December 5, 1784, Ibid., XXVIII, 4, 28. 29Andrew A. Lipscomb, ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 111 (Washington, 1904), 423. ?“Debates and Proceedings, 8th Cong., 1st Sess., col. 34; “Hercules Essays,” in Hosack,

Memoir of De Witt Clinton, p.326; Duane, Letters, p.32; Facts and Arguments, p.53; Great National Object, p.21.

,’’For representative statements of the concern about national unity see Gen. Harper’s Speech, p. 44; Canal Gazette, August 20, 1825, p. 3; Great National Object, p. 31; Leonard M. Parker, A n Oration Pronounced at Charlestown, Massachusetts. on the Fourth o f July, A.D. 1816.. .(Boston, 1816). p. 12; W. Steele to Charles Haines. August 1, 1821. in N Y Public Documents, p.458; “Internal Improvements in South Carolina,” North American Review, XIZZ (July 1821), p. 148; Debates and Proceedings, 14th Cong., 2nd Sess., col. 854; N Y Laws, I, 396.

”Speech o f Mr. [George] McDuffie on Internal Improvements.. .(Columbia, 1824), p. 31; [Haines], Considerations on the Great Western Canal, p. 5; N Y Public Documents, p. xliii; [John A. Lynch], A n Address on the Subject of the Atlantic and Great Western Canal (Washington, 1873).

””The Second Crisis of America or a Cursory View o f the Peace Lately Concluded.. .(New York, 1815). p. 7; Mills, Inland Nauigation, p. iii.

,“Mathew Carey, The New Oliue Branch: or an Attempt to Establish an Identity of Interest Between Agriculture, Manufactures and Commerce.. .(Philadelphia, 1820). p. In .

:’”‘Hercules Essays,” in Hosack, Memoir of De Witt Clinton, p. 310; Report of the CommissionersMassachusetts, p. 157; Niles Weekly Register, May 14, 1814, pp. 169-171; NY Laws, I, 195; Mills, Inland Nauigation, p. 12; Report of the[Pennsyluania]Commissioners, p. 44; Carey et al., To the Citizens of the Commonwealth o f Pennsyluania, p. 18; Atticus, Remarks on the Proposed Canal, pp. 3-4; Facts and Arguments, p. 32.

3%. Woodworth, “The Meeting of the Waters of the Hudson and Erie,” (Boston, [ 18251); Facts and Arguments, p. 27; NY Laws, I, 296; Memorial of the Citizens o f New York, p. 18; NY Public Documents, p. 41.

37H.S. Tanner, A Description o f the Canals and Railroads of the 1JnitedStates. . .(New York, 1840), p. 11.

J8James Madison, Message to the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States, December 23,1811, in James Richardson, comp., Messages and Papers of the Presidents, I1 (New York, 1897), 482; Goodrich, Gouernment Promotion of Canals and Railroads, p. 55; Phenix, sec., The [Maryland] State Conuention on Internal Improvements, p. 15.

”Niles Weekly Register, July 1, 1826, p. 317; Taylor, The Transportation Reuolution, p. 52; Robert Payne, The Canal Builders; The Story o f Canal Engineers Through the Ages (New York, 1959), p. 162; Goodrich, Gouernment Promotion of Canals and Railroads, p. 61; Scheiber, “The Ohio Canal Movement,” p. 256; J.L. Ringwalt, Deuelopment of Transportation Systems in the 1Jnited States (Philadelphia, 18RR), p. 45; Basil Hall, Trauels in North America in the Years 1827 and 1828, I (Edinburgh, 1829), p. 174; Robert L. Ransom, “Canals and Development: A Discussion of the Issues,” American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, LIV (May 1964). 365-366.

Carlos A. Schwantes received his Ph. D. in American History a t the University of Michigan in 1976. My first book, a study in comparative Canadian-American history, is forthcoming: Radical Heritage: Labor, Socialism and Reform in Washington and British Columbia, 1885-191 7. (Seattle: The University of Washington Press, 1979).