Franklin's World Time Warp Thoughts
What made the canal all that much
different than the National Road or “Old Pike” project of just a few years
prior? The National Road Bill passed in
1806, was re-contracted in 1811 and completed in 1818, connecting the new state
of Ohio to Wheeling, Virginia via Pennsylvania and Maryland at a cost of $1.5 million
dollars (nearly $28
million today). There were originally
no tolls placed on it, and over the course of about a decade the maintenance of
the road and its expansion west cost the federal government an additional $7
million dollars. However, by this time
sections of the road had been handed over to the state governments to collect
tolls for continued upkeep.
Often internal improvements of
this era were privately funded through stockholding companies, but with a
rapidly expanding nation and rising costs of infrastructure development, state
governments gradually took on the burden – most of the time with little to no obvious
financial return on investment. Even
stockholders rarely saw greater than a 2% return.
Federal government assistance
began slowly and at first it was most often in the form of land grants for
state bonds. Public funds raised by over
4 million acres of federally doled out land assisted in projects developing the
early republic and greatly help fund the entire Wabash & Erie Canal
in Indiana.
The idea of the federal government
at that time organizing a grand interior improvement project may have splintered
the tenuous bonds of union. The Erie
Canal’s success strengthened those political and especially economic ties… But
yet, let’s think how in retrospect – even those bonds tested at such success an
economic and social divide grew regionally as the approach of the 1850’s moved
along.
One view on the way federal
government money may have impacted the Erie Canal and its success was touched on by Janice during
her response. Condensing a great deal of
political ideology into the answer, simply put that Gallatin’s plan would
assuredly have been implemented in an inner state manner with federal
regulation and authority. Tolls that
funded New York State’s rise to economic zenith, and created New York City as
the pre-eminent global economic capital would have channeled instead into
federal coffers.
While simply put, the idea of states’
rights and federal authority has always remained contentious in the United
States. It may be easy to say that
Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and even George Washington would never sign a
bill to fund a canal only within New
York – with vested interests in Potomac region development – the bigger issue
may have just as easily been the U.S. Constitution and when and how it can be
worked around, er..hm...interpreted.
The regulation of commerce is a
fine example of that ever American philosophy of Constitutional
Interpretation. In the 1820’s the Supreme
Court of the United States was hashing out more concrete definitions of
commerce and the government’s role within the economic system of the
country. In essence, a matter pre-dating
the Revolution and one that remains today; but at that time, the growth of
population, territory, economy and technology was blistering.
A great case to look at in terms
of understanding the impact the federal government could have if they
financially funded and asserted authority may be the slightly related Gibbons v. Ogden (1824). The decision and subsequent rulings based on
its precedent have expanded federal regulatory authority over commerce in
general. For all intents and purposes,
the federal government – while not funding the construction of the Erie Canal has all the Constitutional
right to regulate it.
More on that in the next post…CLICK HERE
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