United States of America*' 6 



so well selected that it has been rarely necessary to deviate from 

 it — and the completion of estimates, that have tallied more 

 closely with the actual cost of construction than, probably, ever 

 before happened in any similar work. The first two of these 

 results might, no doubt, have been attained by the employment 

 of skilful foreign engineers. Such, however, had been the 

 mistakes in estimate committed by those previously employed 

 in similar works, by which, in many cases, the objects had been 

 entirely frustrated, that a well-founded prejudice existed against 

 their employment ; and the commissioners were left to their 

 own resources, and the aid of the imperfectly-educated sur- 

 veyors of the country. The profession of a civil engineer was 

 then unknown ; and the means of obtaining knowledge, in that 

 direction, entirely wanting. The other members of the board, 

 however intelligent and active, gladly yielded to Mr. Clinton 

 the labour and responsibility; and, under his auspices the plan 

 assumed a form that stamped it, in the eyes of all reasonable 

 men, as practicable in itself and within the compass of the re- 

 sources of the State. In this Board of Commissioners, the 

 influence of Mr. Clinton was as paramount as that of Mr. 

 Morris had been in the former. The result, in the one case, 

 was a plan that was anxiously pressed into execution and found 

 practicable ; in the other, of an abortive and impracticable 

 scheme. 



We have been thus particular in dwelling upon the happy 

 influence exerted by Mr. Clinton in the plan of the Great New 

 York Canal, because many attempts, both direct and insidious, 

 have been made to deprive him of his merit. It is not in the 

 plan alone, but in the system of policy which he introduced, — by 

 which, for the first time in modern history, the whole resources 

 of a community, in revenue and credit, were brought to bear 

 upon a great public work, — that we can look for the most im- 

 portant of the services rendered by Mr. Clinton to his native 

 state, and to his country at large. 



Since the impulse has been given by the successful example 

 of New York, every portion of the United States has teemed with 

 plans of public works. Many of these are, in their very nature, 

 either impracticable or useless ; others, again, are of the utmost 



