THE PIONEERS OF AMERICAN INDUSTRY 9 



Not to mention the promptness with which our people 

 turned from the free trade ideas of the revolution to the pro- 

 tective policy, when conditions seemed to require the develop- 

 ment of manufactures, consider the action of both the federal 

 and state governments towards the early transportation and 

 banking enterprise of the country. Before any European gov- 

 ernment had projected a comprehensive system of state canals 

 and roads, President Jefferson had called the attention of con- 

 gress to such a policy, and Gallatin had submitted his famous 

 report which outlined a complete system of roads and canals, 

 and recommended that the federal government construct 

 them directly or subsidize corporations for that purpose. 

 Work was actually begun by the federal government on the 

 Cumberland road in 1806; and it was ultimately prevented 

 from carrying out Gallatin's plan, not so much by the oppo- 

 sition of the majority of the people as by the accident of 

 hostile executive vetoes. As it was, the government for 

 many years made liberal appropriations of money and pub- 

 lic land to assist in the construction of the chief works recom- 

 mended by Gallatin. To the adoption of a policy of internal 

 improvement by the states there was no such obstacle, and 

 here we find the movement working itself out without ob- 

 struction. Something was done by the states in the last 

 decade of the eighteenth century to aid transportation enter- 

 prises. Virginia, Maryland, and New York voted money to 

 assist in extending canal communication from the Potomac 

 and Hudson into the interior. Pennsylvania voted a consid- 

 erable revenue to improving the navigation of rivers and to 

 subsidizing turnpike and bridge companies. But it was after 

 the close of the second war with England that the states took 

 up the work of internal improvement on a large scale. New 

 York led the way with her Erie canal in 1817, and soon after 

 expanded this into an extensive system of canals, reaching all 

 parts of the state. Pennsylvania followed in 1825 with an 

 equally extensive system of canals; Maryland, Virginia, and 

 the federal government began the Chesapeake and Ohio canal 

 in 1828; and Virginia as early as 1816 projected a canal to 

 connect the James river with the Ohio, and after 1820 pushed 

 its construction vigorously. A little later a number of railway 



