PART IV.

RAILROADS AND CANALS OF THE UNITED STATES.

As a report upon the inland commerce of the United States, or of any important portion of it, would be imperfect without reference to the various works constituting its channels, to which in some degree it owes its direction, the following notice of the railroads and canals of the United States has been prepared.

The peculiar characteristics of this country, in regard to its geo-graphical and topographical features and to the industrial condition and relations of the people of the different regions, render works of internal improvement necessary to the development of the resourcas and progress of every portion. With us such works are chiefly com mercial enterprises, their principal object being to cheapen and facili tate the movement of persons and property. Generally, the means for their construction have been furnished by incorporated associa tions, and consequently the construction and management of themhave been intrusted to such companies.

The opposition by many of the prominent and influential statesmen, of the United States to the interference of the federal government in aid. of such works, on the alleged ground of absence of constitutional power, has hitherto prevented the rendering of such assistance except in the case of the Cumberland road, and one or two other instances.. Many intelligent men doubt if this opposition has not been advantageous. Wherever the respective States have aided such works, they have fortunately, in most instances, committed the control of them to private hands and private interests. Considerations apart from commercial objects have had but little influence in their constraction or management. These works, therefore, constitute the best expression: of the commercial wants of our people, and their immense cost, the best: illustration of the magnitude and value of this commerce.

The early settlements in this country having been made upon the seaboard, manufacturing and commercial communities first, grew up. at favorable points near the coast. The extension of the settlements into the interior necessarily involved the construction of outlets. for them to markets upon the seaboard. So long as this population was confined to the Atlantic slope, public highways were not of great magnitude nor importance. When, however, settlers had crossed the Al leghany mountains and peopled the regions beyond them, the public mind was turned to the subject of constructing channels of commercial intercommunication adequate to their wants.

The natural outlets of the great interior basin-the rivers Mississippi and St. Lawrence-are not in all respects adequate and convenient

outlets. The first person to present a definite project for an artificial work, on an extensive scale, was General Washington. That great and wise man foresaw the future importance of the country beyond the Alleghanies, and the magnitude of its prospective commerce, which he proposed to secure to his own colony. Before he reached the age of twenty-one years he had crossed the mountains, and the subject of a canal from the tide-waters of the Chesapeake to the waters of the Ohio received his careful attention. At subsequent periods he visited the Ohio valley and presented the results of his examination and observation to the House of Burgesses of Virginia, from which body he received a vote of thanks. The plan of a canal proposed by him was eagerly embraced, and has now so long remained a favorite object that its importance and ultimate consummation have become traditional ideas with the people of Virginia.

The merits of a general plan for a commercial channel, by which to connect the East and West, suited to the wants of the two different sections of the country, were not involved in the question of route. Virginia, prior to the Revolution, was the richest, most populous, and most central of the colonies, and her tide-waters most nearly approached the navigable waters of the Ohio. It was taken for granted that the appropriate route for such a work lay through her territory; but at that time our people had neither the engineering skill nor the experience, nor were they sufficiently acquainted with the topography of the mountain ridge separating the great western valley from the Atlantie slope, to decide upon the question of route. As they became better acquainted with the country, it was ascertained that the best route for a canal connecting the navigable water-courses separated by the Alleghanies lay farther north; and it was reserved for New York first to realize the idea of General Washington, and thereby secure to itself the vast benefits the result of which he foresaw, and which, before the Revolution, he sought to secure to Virginia. For years after General Washington proposed his plan, our western settlements did not extend beyond the Ohio; and, in fact, all the country west of the Mississippi was claimed by a foreign power. The vast regions now filled with a numerous and thriving population, comprising the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, and Wisconsin, were not only a wilderness, but the idea that they would ever be densely occupied by civilized man was regarded as chimerical. The principal settlements beyond the mountains were those most contiguous to Virginia, and what is now Kentucky was then a part of the "Old Dominion." The rapid settlement of Ohio and the adjacent States, after the war of 1812, changed the aspect of affairs in the West. The preponderating interest and influence extended northward of the first settlements, and the State of New York was the first to open an improved line of commercial communication between the Atlantic and the Great West. A canal was discovered to be practicable through her territory, and the gonies and public spirit of her statesmen stimulated her legislators to make use of this advantage, securing to her the chief interior trade.

It was not until after the completion of the Erie canal, in 1825, that the adaptability of railroads to the uses of commerce was esestablished. These works are destined to compete with canals, and