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Political Research Quarterly
DOI: 10.1177/1065912908324587
2008; 61; 671 Political Research Quarterly
Daniel M. Mulcare
Administrative Capacity
Restricted Authority: Slavery Politics, Internal Improvements, and the Limitation of National
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Political Research Quarterly
Volume 61 Number 4
December 2008 671-685
2008 University of Utah
10.1177/1065912908324587
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671
Restricted Authority
Slavery Politics, Internal Improvements,
and the Limitation of National Administrative Capacity
Daniel M. Mulcare
Salem State College, MA
This article connects slavery politics with the curtailment of antebellum infrastructure policy and the limits placed on
the development of the early American state. Because many Southerners feared that a unified Northern majority could
hinder slaverys expansion or continued existence, they successfully worked to curtail federal power, even in areas
seemingly unconnected to slavery. They helped to undermine a national improvement system, the federal govern-
ments ability to build improvements within state borders, and Congresss power to levy tolls to fund road repairs. In
addition, Southerners efforts to curb certain improvement projects curtailed the federal governments overall admin-
istrative capacity.
Keywords: race; ethnicity; politics; federalism; intergovernmental relations
T
he spring of 1830 witnessed great merriment for
those who championed state sovereignty. Along
with President Andrew Jacksons Maysville Road
veto, which furthered the doctrine that states held pri-
mary authority to charter improvement companies
and build roads and canals within their borders, rep-
resentatives in the House defeated a measure that
would have led to the national governments con-
struction of a road from Buffalo, New York, to New
Orleans, Louisiana. Of those individuals enthused
that the legislation was voted down, North Carolinas
Samuel Carson was one of the most jubilant.
Concerned that improvement policies had a direct
bearing on a question in which the whole southern
portion of the Union was not only deeply but vitally
interested, he beamed that the result marked a vic-
tory over a monster which has been lapping the life-
blood of the South. By negating the nefarious
measure, he and his fellow representatives success-
fully harpooned the monster, and made his blood
spout gloriously. Carson also boasted that the fiend
would unlikely be resurrected, contending that we
have got the monster downhe is struggling and
ready to expire, and I, for one, will keep my foot
upon his neck, and hope to witness his expiring
gasp. Such a hyperbolic statement underscored a
growing sentiment in slave-holding states: the failure
of nationalist improvement policies constituted a
victory of the South precisely because it limited the
national governments ability to control slavery
(Register of Debates 1830, 804-5; Baker 2002, 456).
Because Southerners reaction against measures
like the Buffalo and New Orleans Road contributed to
the limits placed on congressional improvement
authority and helped to curtail the federal govern-
ments administrative capacity, it is necessary to
examine the connections between slavery politics,
antebellum infrastructure policy, and the development
of the American state. Specifically, Southerners con-
cern that increased federal powers could curb slav-
erys extension and potentially lead to its abolition
influenced their efforts to reduce the national govern-
ments authority. Southerners attempts to protect their
economic system did not exclusively concentrate on
slavery policy; rather, their desire to contract federal
dominion influenced other legislative spheres, such as
internal improvements, that were seemingly unrelated
to the slaverys existence. Because of their ability to
translate their states rights perspective into legislative
practice, Southerners, along with their northern allies,
Daniel M. Mulcare, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Salem
State College; e-mail: mulcad01@gmail.com.
Authors Note: I would like to thank Julie Novkov, Joe Lowndes,
and Dorian Warren for providing invaluable comments on previ-
ous drafts of this article.
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facilitated the collapse of numerous improvement pro-
posals. They also undermined the development of the
national governments administrative capacity; these
states rights advocates limited the creation of new
federal improvement positions, or when such offices
did materialize, they ensured that these jobs did not
become permanent parts of the national state.
In this treatment of slavery politics influence on
infrastructure policy and federal administrative
capacity, I support and revise two main facets of
American political development (APD) literature.
First, I affirm the recent trend to explore the connec-
tions between racial politics and the structure of the
United States political system. Because race contin-
ues to be a durable force in American politics and
institutional formation, the following analysis pro-
vides an additional example of where racial concerns
influenced the development of the national state.
Second, this study of national improvement legisla-
tion contributes to recent revisions of early APD
treatments of the American state. I cautiously affirm
arguments that the early republic and antebellum
periods were not stateless, nor were they predomi-
nately structured by the actions of courts and par-
ties. Rather, in certain instances, federal policies and
national administrative structures influenced the
course of APD and organized what was politically
possible. Although this revisionist APD literature
makes necessary corrections, it is essential to move
beyond its contributions and emphasize those areas
where the national governments growth was deliber-
ately curtailed. In doing so, it can be shown that polit-
ical efforts, including those meant to protect slavery,
helped to ensure that the national government did not
achieve significant administrative strength, particu-
larly in areas where increased national power could
interfere with states internal authority.
Along with this intervention into the American
state literature, this article shows how slavery politics
were integral in keeping federal power in check.
Although this theme has been an undercurrent in liter-
ature on slavery and race, my analysis of internal
improvement legislation brings it to the fore. I also
augment improvement and federalism scholarship.
Although the scholarship correctly focuses on the eco-
nomic and political reasons behind the demise of
national road and canal policy, this literature fails to
account sufficiently for how slavery politics con-
tributed to the derailment of national infrastructure
legislation and the limitation of federal administrative
authority. As such, in the final part of this article, I dis-
cuss how southern states rights advocates helped to
undermine nationally directed internal improvements.
Through their insistence that federal authority could
not infringe on state dominion and their central place
within the Democratic coalition, these politicians
were able to undermine support for an integrated road
and canal system, upend precedent for federal road
construction within the states, limit the methods to
financially support state improvement projects, and
undercut the permanence of federal administrative
expansion that would have facilitated the construction
and maintenance of national improvement projects.
APD and the Antebellum State
To explain how slavery politics placed constraints
on the antebellum state, it is necessary to first rework
standard APD arguments about the weakness of
administrative capacity. Beginning with Stephen
Skowroneks (1982) book Building a New American
State, APD scholarship has contended that the U.S.
national government, particularly when compared
with its contemporaries in Europe, failed to evoke
any sense of a state (5). The American legislative
system was radically decentralized and could not
muster more than a meager concentration of govern-
mental controls at the national level. Rather than per-
petuating itself though complex administrative
processes, the federal state was, at best, a patchwork
government that was facilitated though the efforts of
courts and parties (8).
Theda Skocpol (1992) and Richard Bensel (1990)
further elucidate these insights in their seminal works
on American state formation. Skocpol recognizes the
importance of the national state in the spheres of
international relations, westward expansion, and eco-
nomic development, but following Skowronek, she
also concludes that these developments did not bring
bureaucratic heft to the federal government. Instead,
political parties filled the institutional vacuum and
served as the main facilitators of state organization
and action. The lack of durable administrative agen-
cies also created a larger presence for the courts,
which enjoyed substantial influence over the imple-
mentation of legislation. Richard Bensel extends the
weak state narrative into the postCivil War period.
For him, the Second Party Eras partisan composition
contributed to a lack of significant central power; the
periods electoral volatility, corruption, and patron-
age politics disrupted state institutional coherence.
Since these initial observations, several revisionist
treatments of the antebellum American state have
shown that the national government achieved durable
powers during this era and facilitated significant
672 Political Research Quarterly
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social, economic, cultural and political development.
Richard Johns (1995, 238-42; also see 1997) work
counters the court-and-party thesis, contending that
the postal bureaucracy facilitated the rise of a robust
antebellum state. Because it bound together in a
national community millions of Americans, most of
whom would never meet in person, the postal
administration fostered communication and narrowed
the distance between the frontier and the centers of
government and capital. This enabled the nation to
rapidly expand in size and population, which in turn
helped to enlarge the governmental apparatus neces-
sary to govern these regions. In addition, through its
contribution to the rise of patronage, the postal sys-
tem influenced the political structure of the mass
party period; politically appointed postmaster posi-
tions (and the financial bounties attached to them)
offered party operatives large patronage streams with
which they could bind their coalitions together.
Other recent APD work highlights that late 18th-
century and early 19th-century legislation, rather than
being secondary to court rulings and party directives,
significantly shaped the periods political outcomes.
Peter Onufs (1987) study of the Northwest Ordinance
details how legislative decisions made prior to the
Constitutions ratification channeled the development
of territorial expansion. By setting up the conditions
for statehood and preventing slavery in the Northwest
Territory, this legislation shaped territorial governing
structures, statehood procedures, and antebellum con-
flicts over slaverys expansion. Laura Jensons (2003)
treatment of revolutionary military pensions indicates
how these programs laid the institutional framework
for later articulations of the American welfare state,
increased the treasurys coffers, and facilitated the land
offices distribution of the public domain. Similarly,
Ira Katznelsons (2002) exploration of the United
States armed forces displays how the military greatly
increased the countrys size and sovereignty. Although
overstated, David Ericsons (2005) work displays that
the national governments enforcement of the slave
trade ban, support of African colonization, and imple-
mentation of the 1850 fugitive slave law increased fed-
eral institutional capacity. In each of these realms, the
national governments expenditures reveal a substan-
tial sphere of administrative growth spurred by
slaverys presence in the United States. Although, in
general, national infrastructure legislation undermined
the expansion of the federal state, internal improve-
ments did induce modest national institutional
growth through the federal governments erection of
lighthouses, clearance of waterways, funding of state
infrastructure projects, and employment of the Army
Corps of Engineers to survey routes and construction
of territorial roads. In each of these APD studies, it is
clear that the national state was not anemic; rather, it
was a central player in the countrys economic, cul-
tural, and political development.
This scholarship corrects the APD literatures
blind spots (Jenson 2003, 6) that fail to account for
the strength of the early American state. It highlights
the specific ways that the Constitution promoted cen-
tralization and displays how subsequent legislation
expanded the national governments powers and facil-
itated the countrys development. This literature is
also valuable, because it offers a better method to
chart centralization; instead of using a standard narra-
tive about the progressive nature of state development
that uses contemporary, New Deal, or Great Society
state development as the yardstick to measure govern-
ment capacity, this analysis evaluates national power
in less presentist terms. From this starting point,
recent APD scholarship shows that, although modest,
the national government grew during the antebellum
period and that this development is significant both in
terms of earlier formations of the American state as
well as in comparison to those governing structures
that had emerged concomitantly in Europe. In addi-
tion, this scholarship forefronts how institutional
actors within Congress and nascent bureaucracies suc-
cessfully expanded the scope and reach of the federal
state, and in doing so, it highlights the ongoing polit-
ical struggles over national institutional development
that marked the antebellum era.
For all its virtues, this scholarship presents a mis-
leading picture of national institutional strength.
Despite administrative growth, in most cases, national
development was limited, particularly in those areas
that seemingly ran afoul of state authority. During this
period, states rights politicians ensured that the federal
government remained austere, and their actions cur-
tailed the already modest level of administrative devel-
opment, particularly when compared to the expansive
state building proposals that emerged within the
periods mainstream political discourse. Federal inter-
nal improvement policy is an obvious example of this
trend. In this sphere, political actors intentionally lim-
ited national power; to ensure that local authority would
not be trampled on by the national government, policy
makers endorsed states rights measures that solidified
doctrinal and institutional barriers to increased federal
infrastructure capacity. As such, it is necessary to exam-
ine the political process that led to the diminution of
federal powers and undermined administrative growth.
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Theories About the Limitation
of Improvement Legislation
Internal improvement scholars have been more con-
sistent than APD theorists in their estimation of
national authority, concluding that the failure to secure
a national system of roads and canals highlights the
general antebellum trend of limited federal dominion.
However, scholars have disagreed about why infra-
structure policy developed in this manner, the specific
administrative realms that best represented the overall
tendency to curb national development, and the partic-
ular political dynamics that led to these results. One
school of thought, best represented by the initial work
of Carter Goodrich (1948, 1972), focuses on the fed-
eral governments failure to institutionalize a national
improvement system. Such a comprehensive program
did not materialize because economic forces and sec-
tional jealousies induced legislators to veto such mea-
sures. In terms of economic capacity, at no time did the
political desire to facilitate a large-scale improvement
program match a treasury capable of financing it.
Despite consistent support for federal assistance to
develop a nationwide system, Jeffersons embargo, the
War of 1812, the alarming costs of the nationally built
Cumberland Road, and the Panic of 1837 dissuaded
many national politicians from using governmental
resources to fund these projects.
Other improvement scholars provide a modified
politicaleconomic account as to why legislators
failed to support a national improvement system.
Initially articulated by George Taylor (1951) and
Carter Goodrich (1950, 1972), this position notes that
most major impediments to a nationally directed
improvement system emerged during times of finan-
cial security and that the bitter state and sectional
jealousies created an insurmountable obstacle dur-
ing those periods when the treasury neared solvency
or operated at a surplus. The West, which could not
fund needed projects on its own, pushed for federal
assistance, but it did not possess a legislative major-
ity to pass such legislation. Other regions balked at
the proposals; the New England states did not want to
assist these projects because they had already built a
complex transportation system, and New York, pre-
vented from receiving federal funds for the Erie
Canal construction, followed a similar logic once
their connection to the Great Lakes was completed.
The South, flustered that the improvement funds
were produced in part by the onerous protective
tariff, felt that they were being unjustly taxed to con-
struct projects that would not help their region.
The scholarships examination of these political and
sectional forces, although they provide some of the
reasons why a national improvement system failed,
does not fully account for either the federal govern-
ments inability to create a national infrastructure sys-
tem or other significant factors that hindered federal
growth. Specifically, this literature cannot explain why,
during the period where hope for a federal system was
destroyed, there was a significant and sustained spike
in federal improvement funding.
1
Nor do these schol-
ars elucidate why states rights Congresses and presi-
dents approved large-scale omnibus infrastructure
legislation, which established a national appropriation
power to facilitate waterway trade, construct territorial
roadways, and provide resources for state improve-
ment projects. Recent APD and New Institutionalist
scholars, such as Stephen Minicucci (2004) and John
Wallis and Barry Weingast (2005), remedy some of
these oversights. They note that outside political con-
cerns were not the only factors that shaped infrastruc-
ture policy. Rather, the institutional dynamics within
the national legislature played an important role: the
congressional representative structure, political
dynamics within each chamber, and constitutional
strictures influenced politicians decisions in such a
way that a federally directed road and canal system
could not survive the legislative process. Specifically,
the necessity for Congress members to facilitate inter-
regional cooperation to pass distributive infrastruc-
ture policies simultaneously undermined any
large-scale improvement proposals. Instead, these
dynamics promoted federal support for smaller scale
state infrastructure projects through a taxless finance
system of customs money, land grants, and land sales.
For all this emphasis on the political process, the
institutional account shares with the political eco-
nomic approach a general ambivalence toward the
ways legislators framed their support for or against
the expansion of federal improvement authority.
From these perspectives, sectional disputes and the
necessity to maintain legislative majorities were pri-
mary to the development of internal improvement
legislation; politicians ideological positions were at
best secondary. Because of this framework, these
approaches fail to adequately detail the full shape of
infrastructure legislation, the political and ideological
dynamics that produced it, and states rights politi-
cians effect on national administrative development.
In reality, federal improvement policy encom-
passed more than the development of a national sys-
tem. Also key were battles over federal construction
projects within states boundaries, like the interstate
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Cumberland Road, which by the end of its construc-
tion, ran through Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia,
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Similarly, other national
roads, like the one from New Orleans to Buffalo,
were a constant object of legislators attention during
the late 1820s and early 1830s. Although economic
concerns and legislative logrolling shaped discussion
on these policies, these roads ultimately foundered
because of states rights arguments, fears about the
extension of federal power, and concerns about the
expansion of federal administrative capacity.
Specifically, as Larson (2001) notes, states rights
politicians insistence that the national government
could not consolidate local improvement powers,
their ability to rebuke most nationalists congres-
sional infrastructure proposals, and numerous presi-
dents vetoes that supported state dominion limited
the possibility that the federal government could
develop a national infrastructure system or build indi-
vidual road and canal projects within the states.
Slavery Politics and the Structure
of Improvement Policy
Despite statements like that of Representative
Carson, which identified the Buffalo and New Orleans
road as hostile to White Southerners control of their
slave system, in both initial APD treatments of the
early American state and scholarship on internal
improvements, slavery politics influence on the devel-
opment of federal institutional capacity and infrastruc-
ture legislation has gotten short shrift. Either it has not
been explored adequately (Goodrich 1948, 37;
G. Taylor 1951, 21) or the connection has been explic-
itly rejected (Ericson 2005; Larson 2001, 110-11).
To remedy these oversights, it is necessary to use
contributions by recent APD scholarship (Reider 1989;
Saxton 2003; Smith 1997) that has examined the rela-
tionship between race and the formation of U.S. poli-
tics and institutions. First, this literature underscores
that race has been a durable aspect of U.S. political
life. From efforts to maintain White supremacy to
attempts to foster civic equality regardless of skin
color, racial interests have significantly contributed to
the shape of U.S. political traditions, policies, and
institutions, including the original Constitution; the
13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments; Supreme Court
decisions; federal relations; and numerous party coali-
tions. Along these lines, APD research on race has also
displayed that those who promote racial hierarchy
have not been marginal actors who express aberrant
viewpoints contrary to the countrys foundational prin-
ciples of freedom and equality; often, they have been
the central, if not the dominant, political actors, simul-
taneously expressing the principles of the Declaration
and the prejudices of White supremacy.
APD scholarship also shows how racial interests
have influenced policy spheres seemingly unrelated to
conflicts about race. For instance, Robin Einhorn
(2006) displays that the Constitutions original taxation
provisions, which do not grant the federal government
a direct property tax, were more than neutral measures;
rather, they display slaveholders desire to prevent the
national government from levying onerous taxes on
their slave holdings. As Richard John (1995) notes, dur-
ing the antebellum era, southern states rights advocates
and their presence within the Democratic Party influ-
enced the postal systems structure, limited citizens
ability to distribute controversial material through the
mail, and helped foment the rise of the mass party-
based antidevelopmental national state. Nancy Weiss
(1983) underscores that, to placate Southern members
of the Democratic Party, New Deal universalistic
measureswhich included the Works Progress
Administration, Social Security, and Wagner Act
used race neutral provisions to specifically exclude
many African Americans from these measures.
Racial politics durability and its capacity to influ-
ence legislation seemingly unrelated to it highlight
the complex ways it has been imbricated into
American political life. In chronicling these tenden-
cies, APD scholars have provided two guiding princi-
ples. First, the study of legislation and institutions
must account for the effects of racial politics or, as
King and Smith (2005) advise, provide explicit jus-
tification as to why racial dimensions do not apply
(78). Second, political scientists interested in racial
dynamics must account for the shifting and often
contradictory effects that these racial orders impose
on state formation and document the ideological, leg-
islative, and institutional processes that produce par-
ticular policy outcomes. In this light, my analysis of
antebellum state development and internal improve-
ment legislation explores how one group of legisla-
tors, intent on preserving slavery, contributed to the
shape of the American state and the types of infra-
structure projects within its administrative reach.
The story of southern resistance to federal power
and internal improvement was not preordained.
Although they consistently worked to protect slavery
from the Constitutional Convention through the Civil
War, Southerners were neither initially unified nor
inclined to reject centralized authority or infrastructure
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legislation. From revolutionary times through the first
thirty years under the Constitution, numerous
Southerners strongly advocated for congressional
power, encouraged the development of a national sys-
tem of roads and canals, and supported nationally
directed construction projects within the states. During
these years, southern Old Republican states rights
advocates cautioned that the national government
would consolidate states power, but these admonitions
did not reflect the regions ideological temperament or
indicate its support for improvement legislation.
However, in the 1820s and 1830s, political
changeslinked to Congress representative struc-
ture, northern unity against slavery extension and the
connection between nationalist ideology and the
reduction of southern control over slaverymorphed
these Old Republican stances into a self-conscious
sectionalism (Risjord 1965, 172-3) in which many
Southerners rallied around the banner of states rights
to preserve slavery. Most Southerners viewed the
Missouri debates as a warning that a unified northern
majority could limit slaverys expansion and under-
mine state slavery laws. Demographic shifts
(Carpenter 1990, 21-3; Richards 2000, 102; Robinson
1971, 180-1, 402-3), which increased northern House
votes at the expense of the South, also raised concerns
that the Souths minority status would significantly
weaken the ability to regulate its labor system.
Added to these concerns was the specter of slave
revolts and the national governments efforts to curb
southern states actions to prevent further uprisings
(Freehling 1965, 47, 64-6; Hamer 1935). As a response
to Denmark Veseys unsuccessful slave revolt, South
Carolina (and soon after other southern governments)
passed Colored Seamens Acts, which severely
restricted free Black sailors liberty and limited their
movement through southern port cities. Despite presi-
dential objections that these measures infringed inter-
national trade and ran afoul of the federal
governments commerce powers, southern legislators
resisted any attempt to negate their laws. They con-
tended that their police powers, which privileged the
states responsibility to protect their White citizens,
trumped national trade jurisdiction. Consequently, the
political fallout from these slave revolts led many
Southerners to rally around the doctrine of states
rights and limited national authority.
Various colonization schemes, which would send
freed slaves from the United States to Africa or South
America, also led erstwhile Southern nationalists into
the states rights and strict construction camps.
Although numerous colonization plans derived from
Southern legislators in the late 18th and early 19th
centuries, after the Missouri debates, most
Southerners received these proposals with great hos-
tility, seeing them as little more than emancipation
legislation. For example, Southern state officials
expressed alarm (Ames 1970, 206-8, 211-13; Faust
1982, 47-9; Register of Debates 1825, 296-7) when-
ever North-sponsored colonization measuressuch
as Ohio legislatures 1824 proposal (Ames 1970,
203-4) to federally fund these efforts or the antislav-
ery extensionist Rufus Kings measure (Register of
Debates 1825, 623-4) to pay for colonization through
land sale moneywere presented to the Congress.
Disputing Northern contentions that the evil of slav-
ery is a national one, (Ames 1970, 203-4) Southern
reaction focused on the positive good that slavery
produced, defended the sanctity of state sovereignty,
and labeled as unconstitutional any national action to
remove slaves from their states borders.
These sentiments dovetailed with the overall
Southern reaction against nationalism in the 1820s
and 1830s, and they marked Southern opposition to
John Quincy Adamss presidency and Henry Clays
American System, which advocated a national bank,
protective tariff, internal improvements, and high land
sales prices. Southern states rights advocates saw
these measures as key battles to prevent further dan-
gerous incursions into state power, and in doing so,
they sought to limit the national governments ability
to regulate slavery. In this vein, throughout the 1820s
and early 1830s, Southern politicians such as John
Randolph (Annals of Congress 1824, 1308), Richard
Spaight (Annals of Congress 1824, 1308), Thomas
Cobb (Register of Debates 1825, 657-8), Philip
Pendleton Barbour, Samuel Carson, Thomas Bouldin
(Register of Debates 1830, 647-8, 650-1, 668-70,
733), Robert Turnbull (Freehling 1967, 26), John
Tyler (Register of Debates 1828, 108), and John
Taylor of Caroline (1992, 210-11; 2000, 340-1)
echoed Nathaniel Macons (Dodd 1908, 310) admon-
ishment that a core problem with national infrastruc-
ture legislation was that if Congress can make canals
they can more properly emancipate [our slaves].
Similarly, by the early 1830s, former Southern nation-
alists such as John Calhoun echoed South Carolina
Governor James Hamiltons (Freehling 1967, 100-1)
contention that the doctrines that justified internal
improvements could also authorize the federal gov-
ernment to erect the peaceful standard of servile
revolt through the implementation of colonization
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societies. Because of this, Hamilton and other
Southerners viewed the struggles against internal
improvements, the tariff, and other components of the
American System as skirmishes at the out-posts; the
citadel that protected slavery would be safe only if
Southerners were able to succeed in repulsing the
enemy in these other policy spheres.
To win this combat, Southerners concerned about
the expansion of federal power vigorously defended
states rights, insisted that additional national author-
ity violated the Constitutions strictures, and worked
to undermine the presidency of nationalist John
Quincy Adams. These Southerners could not achieve
these goals by themselves, so it was necessary to
combine forces with Northerners who were also per-
turbed by Adamss and Henry Clays American
System. This alliance formed in part because of
Martin Van Burens efforts as a legislator and party
organizer. As head of the Regency, a New York polit-
ical machine, Van Buren used his position to signal to
states rights Southerners that there were Northerners
who not only wanted to keep slavery out of the
national agenda but also sought to accomplish this
goal through the championship of state sovereignty.
As an example, although Van Buren had voted for
internal improvements and tariff legislation in 1823
and 1824, in the following yearsonce he thor-
oughly investigated the matterhe modified his
position into a firmer states rights and strict con-
structionist stance. In a move that foreshadowed his
role in drafting Jacksons 1830 Maysville Road veto
message that helped put a formal end to a national
system of roads and canals, Van Buren (Register of
Debates 1825, 20) put forth an 1825 Senate resolu-
tion to deny Congress the power to make Roads and
Canals within the respective states. This declaration
also called for a committee to examine the question
in a way that would effectually protect the sover-
eignty of the respective States.
Van Burens proposal did not pass the Senate, but
his efforts to institutionalize a states rights constitu-
tional theory bolstered his standing with many
Southerners, and he was able to translate this support
into a solid political coalition. Joining forces with
Thomas Ritchie and other members of the Richmond
Junto to challenge John Quincy Adamss re-election
bid (Remini 1959, 1963), Van Buren, as a key repre-
sentative of Northern states rights sentiment, toured
the South to gain support for both Andrew Jacksons
candidacy and the newly formed Democratic Party. In
developing this coalition, Van Buren visited stalwart
states rights advocates such as Virginias Thomas
Jefferson, South Carolinas William Smith, and North
Carolinas Nathaniel Macon; all of them impressed
on him the necessity to limit the expansion of
national power. In turn, he suggested that they should
help form a party system that de-emphasized criti-
cally divisive issues such as slaverywhich would
create dangerous rifts between the northern and
southern statesin favor of much less disruptive
issues like the like tariffs, banks, and internal
improvements. To solidify the support of his mes-
sage, though, Van Buren also stressed that the
Northern coalition members would join states rights
Southerners in the protection of local power. He told
Southerners (Remini 1959, 142) that the Democrats
would preserve state sovereignty, and he insisted
that this commitment would lead to a speedy extin-
guishment of Sectional and State jealousies. In doing
so, Van Burens attempt to bring together the planters
of the South and the plain Republicans of the North
(Brown 1966) rested on a commitment to the
doctrines Southerners used to protect their system of
slavery, and this new political coalition furthered the
diminution of internal improvement legislation,
national power, and federal administrative growth.
The State-centered Development
of Improvement Legislation
The rise of Southerners resistance to the expan-
sion of federal power and their membership in
the Democratic coalition contributed to the more state-
centered improvement policy that emerged in the 1820s
and solidified in the 1830s. As a result, improvement
supporters achievements, such as securing the federal
governments authority to appropriate resources for
state projects and Congresss ability to construct
roads and canals in the federal district and territories,
were institutionalized in a way that did not compro-
mise state power. In addition, states rights legislators
ensured that those policy spheres that threatened the
separation of state and national authority, such as the
facilitation of a national system and federal govern-
ments potential encroachment into states municipal
authority (police oversight, eminent domain proceed-
ings, toll collection, etc.), never made it out of the leg-
islative process. Finally, these politicians successfully
rolled back many powers that the national government
gained during the early 19th century, which encom-
passed the federal authority to construct and repair
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roads within states as well as the ability to allocate fed-
eral surveyors for state projects. In doing so, the these
efforts undercut the growth of the federal state; posi-
tions such as road commissioners, toll collectors, sur-
veyors, marshals, and judgeships were either
eliminated, never commissioned, scaled back, or main-
tained at their present levels. For reasons of space, I
only detail some of these developments,
2
but these
brief examples underscore how concerns about state
power diluted national improvement authority, limited
federal bureaucratic development, and spurred a cur-
tailment of the American state.
Achievements in National
Improvement Policy
Overall, antebellum infrastructure legislation rein-
forced state-centered improvement schemes, did not
significantly increase federal infrastructure authority
and failed to produce a notable expansion of national
administrative capacity, but there were areas like the
national governments ability to underwrite road and
canal construction that solidified into standard prac-
tice. Derived in part from a near universal support for
improvement projects,
3
nationalists and some states
rights legislators reached a consensus that permitted
the federal government to fund state improvement pro-
jects, particularly those they deemed beneficial to the
entire nation. Although the precedent that established
the national governments ability to fund improvement
projects was first put into practice with the 1808
Cumberland Road Bill, Presidents Monroe and
Jackson explicitly recognized and confirmed its exis-
tence. Disputing President Madisons reasoning in his
1817 Bonus Bill Veto (Annals of Congress 1817, 1059-
62), which denied that the national government had the
constitutional authority to fund improvement projects,
4
Monroe played the middleman between the states
rights activists and the nationalists within his party and
refused to affirm Madisons reasoning. Instead,
Monroe (Annals of Congress 1822, 1835-6) held that
the general Welfare and common Defense provi-
sions permitted improvement appropriations. For him,
these clauses contained a two-fold power: the first
allowed Congress to raise funds and the second per-
mitted it to spend them. Because Monroe maintained
that this language was general and unqualified, it
encompassed monies earmarked for national roads and
canal proposals. With Jacksons affirmation of this
precedent (Register of Debates 1830, Appendix 133-
42), Monroes declaration opened up the infrastructure
spending floodgates; over the next decade and a half,
congressional allocations blossomed, marking the
high point of improvement expenditures during the
antebellum era.
5
Although the appropriation power increased
Congresss legislative reach, the form these appropri-
ations took underscores the ideological and political
strength of the states rights position and highlights
that the states governments administrative apparatus
would be primarily responsible for the construction
of the nations roads and canals. The way that
Congress funded infrastructure projects in the newly
admitted states displays this dynamic. Beginning
with the Ohio enabling act (Statutes at Large 1845,
173-5225-7), the legislation that granted statehood to
western territories included provisions that ear-
marked five percent of the public domain land sales
within these states for their respective general
improvement coffers. From this allotment, forty per-
cent of the original allocation (i.e., two percent of the
five percent) was used for the national government to
build roads leading to the state. Out of the monies
from Ohios, Indianas (1846a, 289-91), Illinoiss
(428-31, 610-11) and (initially) Missouris (545-8)
admission provisions, the national government (with
consent from the affected states), funded, planned,
built and repaired the Cumberland Road.
6
Tied to
national construction authority, this particular form
of improvement funding was scaled back as the
states rights position gained ascendancy in the late
1820s and early 1830s, and once the Cumberland
Road was handed over to the states, subsequent
admission bills no longer featured provisions that
permitted the federal government to construct inter-
state roads. Indeed, with the national government no
longer responsible for the planning, construction, or
repair of interstate roads, the entire five percent went
to the newly admitted states so that they could con-
nect their routes to the nations transportation net-
work. In the end, the appropriation power did not
permanently enable the federal power to construct
improvements within state, nor did it enhance the
national governments administrative oversight over
the roads built with these funds.
7
Stock purchases and land grants also display the
limited powers the national government achieved
through the appropriation authority. Initially, it
seemed that stock purchases would become a regular
institutional practice; the Gallatin (American State
Papers 1834a, 724-41) and Calhoun Reports
(American State Papers 1834b, 533-7) on internal
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improvements recommended it, and the House
Committee on Roads and Canals also endorsed this
practice (1816, 283-5; 1817, Register of Debates
1831, xxxv-xlii). Presidents Monroe and Adams
(Statutes at Large 1846b, 124, 162, 169, 293-4, 350,
353) followed these recommendations and approved
the procurement of over 10,000 shares to fund four
different state-chartered canal companies. President
Jackson, in his articulation of states rights anxiety
about monopoly power and federal consolidation,
ended these subscription allocations. By preventing
future stock purchases, Jackson sought to stave off
increased mingling of national, state, and individual
concerns. Although there was no substantial evidence
that the national government had wrested control
from public or private stockholders on any of the pro-
jects in which it was involved, Jackson, like many
states rights politicians, were fearful that once the
extension of federal power was secured, states inter-
nal authority over the roads and canals within their
borders would be irrevocably destroyed. Following
this logic, Jackson (Register of Debates 1830,
Appendix ii-xiii) warned that any federal presence on
a state-chartered improvements board of directors
would lead to national control over numerous stock
companies elections. With its extended authority,
Congress would gain dominion over nearly every
canal and each sixty or hundred miles of every impor-
tant road. To stave off this result and to keep national
officials out of infrastructure companies board-
rooms, Jackson insisted that Congress allocate infra-
structure resources through other means than stock
purchases.
Land grants mark another area where state power
trumped federal authority. As a means to avoid
debates over authority and jurisdiction, land grants
enabled the federal government to appropriate
resources for nationally oriented state projects without
compromising local authority over charters, land,
property, tolls, and police powers. The general con-
sensus accepted that the national governments Article
IV, Sec. 3 authority to dispose of territorial lands
included the power to sell federal holdings located
within the states, provide stipulations as to what type
of project could be built on the land, and direct how
the funds would be used. However, these concurrent
powers did not facilitate the federal oversight of the
chartering, construction, repair, or policing of these
routes, nor did it significantly increase federal bureau-
cratic presence beyond the land grant offices already
in place. In addition, once the land was sold and the
road built, states retained the full proprietorship of the
soil and the public work. For these reasons, the grants
generated limited resistance and were routinely allo-
cated during the 19th century; unlike stock purchases
and funding tied to nationally constructed roads, land
grants did not threaten to consolidate state power and
interfere with local municipal legislation.
Rejected Powers
The consensus surrounding financial support for
state-directed projects of national worth did not trans-
late into a unified position in favor of other infrastruc-
ture powers. These spheres of authority included the
planning of a national improvement system and juris-
diction over security patrols, toll collection, and emi-
nent domain proceedings. Although some powers were
championed more than others, each was legislatively
asserted and subsequently rejected. In these cases, con-
gressional and presidential opponents of these mea-
sures justified their actions through a defense of state
internal power, advocacy of limited national authority,
and support for a strict constitutional construction.
For reasons of space and because the states rights
arguments in relation to a national system have been
covered in the improvement literature, I focus here on
failed congressional attempts to secure the power to
administer and collect tolls. Of all the municipal pow-
ers under scrutiny, toll collection was the most salient.
Unlike efforts to expand national eminent domain
authority or establish courts to oversee crimes on
national roads, which often served more as a states
rights bugaboo than as perennial legislative provisions,
national toll authority was at the center of improve-
ment debates throughout the 1820s and early 1830s.
Similar to these other powers, toll authority was
thwarted because it could have interfered with states
internal authority.
In addition, these rejected powers curtailed the
expansion of the national state. Toll collectors did not
become part of the national administrative structure,
road commissioners and superintendents were not
permanently hired to oversee road construction and
repair, there was not an increased presence of federal
marshals to prevent the nonpayment of tolls and
ensure that citizens did not damage federally con-
structed routes, and additional federal justices were
not hired to hear the cases of those arrested.
Legislators like Virginias William Archer (Register
of Debates 1830, 742) highlighted this diminution of
the federal state. In his warnings that federal
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improvement legislation would flood the states with
tens of thousands of federal officers, Archer
implied that the curtailment of federal power would
produce the additional benefit of a more limited fed-
eral bureaucracy.
8
Initially linked to calls for increased criminal
oversight over the Cumberland Road, pleas for fed-
eral toll authority emerged as early as 1812. By this
time, the pathway was already damaged, and con-
gressional committees suggested levying tolls to
facilitate repairs. Although numerous Cumberland
Road superintendent reports (American State
Papers 1834b, 205, 226, 262-3 272, 296-8, 300-03,
420-3) urged for the erection of toll gates, President
Madisons reticence to support these suggestions
delayed legislative action until Congress took up the
matter in 1822 (Annals of Congress 1822, 1872-4).
Amid the political climate following John
Calhouns pro-improvement report on roads and
canals, the nationalist surge after the McCullough
decision and the near completion of the Missouri
Debates, Congress passed the Cumberland Road
extension bill. Also called the Toll Bill, the legis-
lation authorized the president to erect toll gates on
the road as well as appoint toll collection officers
who would be under his charge (via the executive
branchs oversight of the roads superintendents).
Congress also stipulated the number of gates to be
erected, the distances between them, toll rates,
penalties for collectors who overcharged, and fines
for toll evaders.
In their 1824 House Road and Canal Committee
report, federal toll power supporters contended that
Congress had the complete power to establish tolls
and could protect the road with suitable penalties.
They also claimed that in exercising this authority,
Congress did not infringe on State jurisdiction.
9
In
response, states rights advocates insisted that the abil-
ity to levy tolls was an exclusive component of states
internal authority. As Pennsylvania Democrat and
perennial Doughface James Buchanan noted in his
1829 Cumberland Road speech (Register of Debates
240-1), although the question of making and repairing
roads could be considered comparatively unimpor-
tant, in reality the continued existence of the Federal
constitution hinged on states control over their
domestic concerns. These municipal powers
included the ability to erect toll gates, which if sub-
sumed by Congress, would result in perfect consoli-
dation of states into the federal government.
Similarly, in an 1830 speech (Register of Debates,
651), Virginia congressmember and future Supreme
Court Justice Philip Pendleton Barbour warned
Southerners about the dangers of increased federal
power and declared that it was the states solemn con-
viction that the national government could not con-
struct toll gates. Wary of the jurisdictional conflicts that
would emerge between the national and state govern-
ments, Barbour insisted that states should not yield
what they believe to be their rights; no road, however
beneficial, was worth the loss of states autonomy over
their internal matters.
10
Theses sentiments further articulated President
Monroes 1822 Toll Bill veto (Annals of Congress). In
it, he expressed his concern that the national govern-
ment would contravene the Constitution by usurping
states municipal authority. Deriving from his assertion
that the nation was not a consolidated government,
(1821) Monroe reasoned it would never occur to an
individual who examined the Constitution that the
national government had the power to establish turn-
pikes and tolls (1827). Instead, because the sover-
eignty necessary to erect tolls was rooted in state, not
national, powers and that the evil to be particularly
avoided is the violation of State rights, the bill was
unconstitutional unless the document itself was
amended (1842-3). In 1823, with no proposal forth-
coming, Monroe (1823, 21) insisted that the only way
to erect toll gates was to negotiate with the respective
states to put up the gates themselves. Because states
would initiate toll collection, Monroe felt that essential
repairs could be made without the national government
encroaching on states internal authority.
In the years immediately following Monroes
statements, Congress failed to support the initial toll
bill or the presidents suggestion to use states pow-
ers, but by the end of the 1820s and into the early
1830s, and with the rise of the Democratic coalition,
the legislative trajectory swung in favor of those who
rejected national toll authority. During Adamss pres-
idency, Congresss shift against the administration
and its purported nationalism afforded no opportunity
for the president to sign a toll bill; instead, states
rights advocates actively worked to undermine this
power. In 1827, Pennsylvania Representative James
Buchanan (Register of Debates 1828, 1397) sug-
gested that toll language be removed from the
Cumberland Road appropriation bill. Although he
cited the closure of the session as the reason for cut-
ting out this provision, Buchanan correctly argued
that discussion over the provisions constitutionality
would prevent the entire legislations passage. In the
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following year, the Senate failed to act on a similar
toll measure. Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton,
in his denial of congressional toll jurisdiction
(Register of Debates 1828, 717), also claimed that it
was not expedient for the national government to
have permanent superintending care over the repair
and preservation of the road, which led him to call
for the pathways transfer to the states. In his 1830
Maysville Road veto (Appendix, 140-1), President
Jackson also insisted that Congresss toll authority
did not presently exist; it was a power reserved to the
states and could only be transferred through a consti-
tutional amendment.
No amendment came forth, and because the
states rights objections prevented toll collection to
repair the route, national and state legislators contin-
ued to request that the national government transfer
the Cumberland Road to the states (Statutes at Large
1846b, 553-7). Following Ohios petition to hand
over the project, and referencing the national debate
on the subject, Pennsylvanias legislature specifi-
cally cited that doubts have been entertained that
Congress could erect toll-gates on said road, and
collect toll. Not wanting the pathway to go to com-
plete ruin, Pennsylvanias legislature contended that
they had little alternative but to oversee the roads
operations itself. Maryland and Virginia also issued
resolutions to accept the Cumberland Roads han-
dover, and with Congresss consent to transfer the
road, meaningful discussion over national toll
authority ceased.
Administrative Rollbacks
The Cumberland Roads transfer signaled the suc-
cess of states rights advocates insistence that toll,
policing, and takings powers were exclusively within
the purview of state, not national dominion, and it also
served to roll back the national governments con-
struction powers and recall those federal officials
responsible for the roads construction and mainte-
nance. This turn of events was not a preordained con-
clusion; after all, there was little opposition when
legislators first exercised its construction power when
they authorized the creation of the Cumberland Road.
Spurred by westward expansion and money from state
admission bills five percent fund provision (forty per-
cent of which went for roads to lead to the states),
Congress facilitated the creation of a national road
from Cumberland, Maryland, through Pennsylvania,
Virginia, Ohioand after numerous extensions
Indiana and Illinois.
Among its powers under the sundry Cumberland
Road bills (Statutes at Large 1845b, 357-9, 661-2,
730; 1846a, 206, 604-5, 728; 1846b, 128, 228, 275-6,
351, 363-4 469; American State Papers 1834a, 474-
77, 718), Congress expanded its improvement
authority and created new federal positions. Through
its appropriation power, Congress funded the road; at
first, this was done through the two percent land sale
fund, but it often used monies from the general trea-
sury to both continue the route and facilitate its
repairs. Congress also set the general route, with the
president making the final decisions on the exact
path. Congress mandated the pathways width; place-
ment of road markers; procedures for clearing trees;
types of material to be used; requisite gradation; and
salaries for commissioners, surveyors, and chainmen.
The president was also given the duty to administer
the roads construction. He secured the affected
states permission; appointed commissioners and
superintendents with Senate approval; supervised
them; oversaw their subcontracting, building, and
repairs; and issued annual reports.
For improvement supporters, the Cumberland Road
served as an obvious example of what states rights
politicians continually denied; if the Cumberland Road
was constitutional, then the national government had
the authority to go into a state (at the very least, with
its consent) and build roads on its land. In terms of the
passage of the original bill, legislators expressed few
qualms about the national governments use of a power
to construct the route; the only constitutional concern
was that states permission was obtained to build the
interstate within their boundaries. In addition, as
improvement boosters consistently pointed out
(Annals of Congress 1822, 443-4, 1508-9; Register of
Debates 1826, 353-3; 1828, 114, 279; 1832, 2743),
many presidents who were sympathetic to states
rightssuch as Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and
Jacksonagreed to create, fund, supervise, and repair
the route. As Pennsylvania Representative Andrew
Stewart (Register of Debates 1829, 276) noted, these
presidents affirmed the right of this Government to
construct [ . . . ] roads and canals, and these improve-
ment powers derived from Congresss ability to facili-
tate interstate commerce, establish the postal system,
and secure the militarys preparedness. The national
government, then, clearly had a concurrent authority to
build needed routes within states boundaries.
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However, in the coming decades, as it was inter-
mixed with debates over the federal system, linked
with states rights concerns over state municipal
authority, and connected to the potential threats to the
Southern slave system, the Cumberland Road and the
construction powers constitutionality came under
rigorous attack. As Virginia Representative George
Tucker argued (Annals of Congress 1824, 1340),
although the national government was set up to
improve the whole union, this arrangement did not
trump a states ability to improve its own territory.
Tucker and other improvement opponents also rea-
soned that Congresss constitutional authority did not
encompass those powers necessary to facilitate road
or canal construction. As Virginia Representative and
Speaker of the House Andrew Stevenson noted in
1829 (Register of Debates, 300), except for purposes
of taxation and its modest enumerated powers, the
national government could exercise no property in
the [states] soil. For improvement projects within
state borders, then, Congress had no jurisdiction to
charter road, canal, or bridge companies; initiate tak-
ings claims; erect toll gates; or use its judicial powers
to punish those who vandalize the route. Any steps by
the national government toward these ends would be
a usurpation of state dominion and would lead to con-
solidation. As Philip Barbour exclaimed (Annals of
Congress 1824, 1005), if the national government
increased its power in this way, it would resemble
Aarons serpent, ready to swallow up the State
governments.
These arguments helped to scuttle other attempts to
create nationally constructed roads. The last major
proposal, which would have connected Washington,
D. C., to Buffalo and New Orleans, failed to garner
legislators support (Register of Debates 1839, 637-791).
The bill was recommended by the Committee on
Roads and Canals and was seen as a way to further
connect the North and the South. Citing the nearly
thirty-year precedent of the Cumberland Road, sup-
porters such as Tennessee Whig James Israel Standifer
claimed that the project was merely following an
established principle and that two-thirds of the House
of Representatives were satisfied of the existence of
the power of Congress to make internal improve-
ments (Register of Debates 1839, 709). Despite these
sentiments and calculations, for the majority of House
members, concerns about the route and national con-
solidation led them to believe, in the words of Philip
Barbour (Register of Debates 1839, 652-3), that
every consideration of interest, of pride, of State
sovereignty made it necessary to strike down the
measure. They did so by a vote of 88 to 105.
With the Buffalo to New Orleans proposal rejected,
national involvement in the Cumberland Road also
wavered. The pathway was increasingly framed as a
continuous financial burden, and as the states rights
position against national toll and police powers gained
strength, these arguments against the national con-
struction authority joined the chorus of federal and
state legislators who clamored for the road to be
passed into state hands. In their statements asking for
the transfer of the road, the state legislatures cited the
doubts about the national powers necessary to con-
struct and sustain federal roads within states (Statutes
at Large 1846a, 533-7).
Once these petitions were submitted to the national
government, the local legislatures consulted with
Congress to pass their own laws to protect and raise
revenue for the road (Statutes at Large 1846b, 483-86,
551-7, 680, 772; 1856, 41, 195, 197; Young 1904, 85-
98). Congress did retain some authority; for example,
the transfer legislation stipulated that national employ-
ees who conducted government business (e.g., mail
carriers, members of the army, or those transporting
federal property) would not be subject to toll payment.
Even with these mild concurrent provisions, the over-
all result was that authority ultimately resided with the
states. Local governments controlled the toll rates, how
funds were spent, salaries for road officials, fines for
toll evasion, penalties for officials who excessively
delayed travelers, and punishments for road destruc-
tion. With this transfer of authority and the affirmation
of state municipal powers, the Cumberland Road
passed into the hands of the states, and the main prece-
dent for federal construction powers went with it. In
addition, areas of federal administrative growth, such
as the various road superintendents, commissioners,
and sundry other positions created to plan, direct, con-
struct, and maintain the route were no longer needed
once the road passed into state hands.
Conclusion
This treatment of slavery politics influence on
national infrastructure legislation provides a new way
to understand APD and internal improvement schol-
arship and provides an additional example of the
durability of racial interests in American institutional
development. In addition, because slavery politics led
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to the hindrance of national power that could com-
promise Southern states control over their labor sys-
tem, this development highlights the influence that
racial politics had on spheres seemingly unrelated to
the existence of slavery.
In terms of APD research on the antebellum state,
the evolution of national road and canal policy under-
scores the limits placed on the national governments
development. Although federal dominion translated
into increased institutional heft in some areas, the
racial interests organized to preserve slavery curbed
numerous opportunities to extend national administra-
tive capacity. The failed road and canal system, the
devolution of national construction powers, the rejec-
tion of federal toll authority, and the reduction of fed-
eral appropriation options underscore states rights
legislators efforts to maintain state authority and limit
nationalists efforts to expand federal institutions.
As such, the political concerns about slavery were
one of the significant factors in the reduction of con-
gressional infrastructure authority and the diminution
of the federal state. In showing this dynamic, this
study also modifies the improvement literatures eco-
nomic and legislative institutionalist focus. Although
this scholarship explores some of the main causes
behind the course of improvement legislation, to
explain fully why the national governments construc-
tion and repair powers were rescinded, why police and
toll jurisdiction never materialized, and why its ability
to direct national improvement system proved unsuc-
cessful, slavery politics must be part of this narrative.
Notes
1. For instance, as Larson (2001, 191) charts in his book on
internal improvements, the expenditures during the presidency of
nationalist John Quincy Adams were $6,237,815, while during
Jacksons term, which terminated efforts to support of federal
improvement system as well as national construction of nonmilitary
roads and canals within states, $16,167,117 was spent on improve-
ments. These figures include money for river and harbor projects,
roads and canals, lighthouses, and during the Adams administration,
stock subscriptions for state-chartered projects (Jackson explicitly
denied federal authority for such appropriations).
2. I do not discuss federal authority over the federal district
or the territories. Suffice to say, states had little trouble with the
national governments exercising full jurisdiction over the ten
miles square set aside for the nations capital. Hence, Congress
had full rein over the charter of roads and bridges. It set tolls, took
property, and enacted a legal code to protect these lands (Statutes
at Large 1845a, 53, 426; 1845b, 539, 570; 1846a, 5 12, 318, 752;
1846b, 71, 190, 231, 244, 268, 417, 474, 476, 560, 646, 650, 672,
718, 723, 757, 778, 793; 1856, 144, 197, 261, 303, 328, 352,
364). For territorial improvements, some states rights purists
denied federal authority in this realm. However, the national
government, in its caretaker role, built roads through these lands
and authorized some takings proceedings. Once the territory
became a state though, the jurisdiction over these improvements
was transferred to the respective states. Jacksonian legislation
made these provisions explicit, which reinforced their protection
of state power (Statutes at Large 1856, 245, 778). In a similar
manner, because I have already discussed the factors behind the
national system of roads and canals, I do not need to restate my
arguments in this section. This is also due to the fact that my
treatment of municipal legislation and the construction power
highlight the political reasons why a national improvement sys-
tem did not develop. I also do not discuss the rollback of the sur-
vey power and the way the Army Corps of Engineers were used
to assist state improvement projects.
3. Although many states rights politicians feared that sub-
stantial federal involvement in improvements would lead to con-
solidation, this did not diminish their support for building up the
countrys infrastructure. Even federal improvements staunchest
foes and those who dealt the most serious blows to national con-
struction and planning authority agreed that roads and canal pro-
jects would benefit the country. At their core, these opponents
were for development, and instead of bemoaning the destruction
of agrarian living that transportation projects would bring, they
recognized improvements utility. Their main concerns centered
on the preservation of the Constitution and the protection of
states internal powers. So long as these ends were met, such
politicians felt that government should do its part to ensure that
the country was bound together by an integrated system of roads
and canals. For instance, Thomas Ritchie, one of the staunchest
states rights supporters, actively endorsed state-directed
improvement projects. Presidents Madison, Monroe, and
Jackson, whose vetoes thwarted attempts to create a national sys-
tem, establish tolls on the Cumberland Road, and maintain the
federal governments construction power, endorsed the military
and economic benefits that additional roads and canals would
produce (Annals of Congress 1811, 2167; 1822, 1855-57; Register
of Debates 1830, Appendix 133-42).
4. Madisons rejection of the appropriation power is curious.
First, he was a main improvement supporter at the Constitutional
Convention. In addition, his veto sentiments contradict his prac-
tices, in which he signed numerous improvement funding bills
(Statutes at Large 1845b, 661; 1812, 730; 1815, 206; 1817, 377).
The last act, a $4,000 military road appropriation in Tennessee,
became law on the same day as the Bonus Bill veto. The others
are Cumberland Road appropriations for $50,000, $30,000, and
$100,000, respectively.
5. Minicucci (2004) and Wallis and Weingast (2005) offer
good accounts federal improvement expenditures. In terms of
aggregate and percentage of overall spending, national funding
for improvements significantly increased from Madisons
through Jacksons presidency. Counting harbor and river projects
as well as roads and canals, federal expenditures for Madison
were $2,066,910, a 1.52 percent share of all federal expenditures.
Under Monroe, it was $2,997914 and 1.57 percent; Adams,
$3,861265 and 5.89 percent; and Jackson $14,452,376 and 9.51
percent. Although the numbers diminished after Jackson, they
remained at a higher level than during Monroes presidency.
6. Because of rising costs, the Cumberland Road repairs
were also financed though monies from the general fund. Similar
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grants were given to Mississippi (Statutes at Large 1846a, 348-9)
and Alabama (489-92). Louisiana (Statutes at Large 1845b, 701-4)
received its full five percent, and Maine (Statutes at Large 1846a,
544) was not a public land state; its admission legislation lacked
these provisions. Illinoiss three percent was to be used for
schools, whereas two percent was reserved for nationally con-
structed roads leading to the state.
7. Michigan (Statutes at Large 1856, 49-50), Arkansas (58-9),
Florida and Iowa (742-3, 788-90), and Wisconsin (1862, 178-9,
233-5) were all free to use the entire amount for their internal
improvement projects. Although improvement funding remained
intact, the national government no longer constructed roads con-
necting new states with the rest of the country. Texas (Statutes at
Large 1856, 797-8) and California (Statutes at Large 1862, 452-3)
were not allotted the same provisions; in the case of the former,
there were no public domain lands, though the state was required
to give over all public edifices, which included fortifications
and the like.
8. Other legislators were concerned about additional
numbers of federal officials with the states, from road commis-
sioners to federal judgeships. See Monroes veto of the Toll Bill
(Annals of Congress 1822, 1825) and speeches by Virginias
John Randolph (Annals of Congress 1824, 1306; Register of
Debates, 1826, 357); Virginias Alexander Smyth (Annals of
Congress 1824, 1413); Virginias Andrew Stevenson (Annals
of Congress 1824, 1270); New Yorks Silas Wood (Register of
Debates, 1826, 1512); and Missouris Thomas Hart Benton
(Register of Debates 1828, 719-21).
9. The committee report can be found at Annals of Congress,
1824, 2556-58. For various articulations of Congressional toll
power, including those made during the BuffaloNew Orleans
Road debate, 1829, 247-9, 267, 285, 328; 1830, 727; 1835, 409-10.
10. As a Supreme Court Justice, Barbour was the author of the
New York v. Miln decision, which extended states police powers
and limited the reach of the federal commerce power.
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