Making the Case for Internal Improvements

HON. P. B. PORTER, Speech on Internal Improvements (1810)

Internal improvements (roads, canals, bridges) became a topic of debate in the early national period. Advocates linked economic development to public support of these projects. Opponents questioned the propriety of using public funds for improvements, which they saw as primarily local or regional. Congressman Peter B. Porter (1773–1844), from western New York State, championed construction of the Erie Canal, serving on the commission tasked with surveying a canal route linking the Hudson River to the Great Lakes. In this speech, delivered to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1810, Porter makes the case for internal improvements.

And permit me, in the first place, to say, sir, that some great system of internal navigation, such as is contemplated in the bill introduced into the Senate, is not only an object of the first consequence to the future prosperity of this country, considered as a measure of political economy, but as a measure of state policy, it is indispensable to the preservation of the integrity of this government.

The United States have for twenty years past been favoured in their external commerce, in a manner unequalled perhaps in the history of the world. Our citizens have not only grown rich, but they have gone almost mad in pursuit of this commerce. Such have been its temptations, as to engage in it almost the whole of the floating capital of the country, and a great part of its enterprise; and every other occupation has been considered as secondary and subordinate. This extraordinary success of commerce has been owing partly to our local situation, partly to the native enterprise of our citizens, but primarily to the unparalleled succession of events in Europe. The course of these events, before so propitious to our interests, has of late very materially changed, and with it has changed the tide of our commercial prosperity. I am far, however, from believing that this sudden reverse may not eventually prove fortunate for the true interests of the United States. The embarrassments which the belligerents have thrown in the way of our external commerce, have turned the attention of the people of this country to their own internal resources. And in viewing these resources, we perceive with pride, that there is no country on earth, which in the fertility of its soil, the extent and variety of its climate and productions, affords the means of national wealth and greatness in the measure they are enjoyed by the people of the United States. If these means are properly fostered and encouraged by a liberal and enlightened policy, we shall soon be able not only to defend our independence at home (which, however, I confidently trust, we have now both the ability and the disposition to do, notwithstanding the fears that are attempted to be excited on this subject), but we shall be able to protect our foreign commerce against the united power of the world. One great object of the system I am about to propose, is to unlock these internal resources, to enable the citizen of one part of the United States to exchange his products for those of another, and to open a great internal commerce, which is acknowledged by all who profess any skill in the science of political economy, to be much more profitable and advantageous than the most favoured external commerce which we could enjoy. The system, however, has another object in view not less important.

The people of the United States are divided by a geographical line into two great and distinct sections — the people who live along the Atlantic on the east side of the Alleghany mountains, and who compose the three great classes of merchants, manufacturers, and agriculturists; and those who occupy the west side of these mountains, who are exclusively agriculturists. This diversity and supposed contrariety of interest and pursuit between the people of these two great divisions of country, and the difference of character to which these occupations give rise, it has been confidently asserted, and is still believed by many, will lead to the separation of the United States at no very distant day. In my humble opinion, sir, this very diversity of interest will, if skilfully managed, be the means of producing a closer and more intimate union of the states. It will be obviously for the interests of the interior states, to exchange the great surplus products of their lands, and the raw materials of manufactures, for the merchandize and manufactured articles of the eastern states; and on the other hand, the interests of the merchants and manufacturers of the Atlantic will be equally promoted by this internal commerce; and it is by promoting this commerce, by encouraging and facilitating this intercourse—it is by producing a mutual dependence of interests between these two great sections, and by these means only, that the United States can ever be kept together.

The great evil, and it is a serious one indeed, sir, under which the inhabitants of the western country labour, arises from the want of a market. There is no place where the great staple articles for the use of civilized life can be produced in greater abundance or with greater ease; and yet as respects most of the luxuries and many of the conveniences of life, the people are poor. They have no vent for their produce at home; because, being all agriculturists, they produce alike the same articles with the same facility; and such is the present difficulty and expense of transporting their produce to an Atlantic port, that little benefits are realized from that quarter. The single circumstance, of the want of a market, is already beginning to produce the most disastrous effects, not only on the industry, but upon the morals of the inhabitants. Such is the fertility of their lands, that one half of their time spent in labour, is sufficient to produce every article which their farms are capable of yielding, in sufficient quantities for their own consumption, and there is nothing to incite them to produce more. They are, therefore, naturally led to spend the other part of their time in idleness and dissipation. Their increase in numbers, and the ease with which children are brought up and fed, far from encouraging them to become manufacturers for themselves, puts at a great distance the time, when, quitting the freedom and independence of masters of the soil, they will submit to the labour and confinement of manufacturers. This, sir, is the true situation of the western agriculturist. It becomes then an object of national importance, far outweighing almost every other that can occupy the attention of this house, to inquire whether the evils incident to this state of things, may not be removed by opening a great navigable canal from the Atlantic to the western states; and thus promoting the natural connexion and intercourse between the farmer and the merchant, so highly conducive to the interests of both.…

How many hundred millions of dollars such an operation would add to the solid wealth of the western country, I will not venture to conjecture. But, sir, I may well say, that there is no work in the power of man, which would give such life, such vigour, such enterprise, and such riches to the citizens of that country, as the execution of this canal. The inhabitants near the lakes would have a direct communication to and from New-York, by means of the canal, and the effect of it would be to double the price of their produce, and to add three or four hundred per cent, to the value of their lands. The people of the Ohio and the Mississippi would descend with their produce to New-Orleans, and to any port on the Atlantic, from whence they might return with the articles received in exchange by way of the Hudson and the lakes, to their own homes. The idea of benefitting the people of the Ohio and Mississippi to any great extent by this northern navigation, may perhaps, at first, appear visionary; but I can state it as a fact, that even at this time, under all the disadvantages of that route, goods may be transported from the city of New-York, by the way of the Hudson and the lakes, to any part of the Ohio, and to all those parts of the Mississippi above its confluence with the Ohio, at as cheap a rate as they can be transported from any port on the Atlantic, by any other route. The effect of opening this navigation, would then be to reduce the price of transportation to those parts of the country, at least fifty, and probably seventy-five per cent. Another important advantage, independent of the general commerce of the lakes, would be felt in the reduction of at least fifty per cent, in the price of salt. The salt springs in the state of New-York, are within a few miles of the proposed line of circumnavigation, and are connected with it by a navigable river. This article may be manufactured at those springs in sufficient quantities for the whole of the population of the United States, and it is now sold there for twenty-five and thirty cents a bushel; but such is the present expense of transportation, that it sells in the Pittsburg market for two dollars a bushel. If the effect of opening a canal navigation were only to reduce the price at Pittsburg to one dollar, it would make a saving on the quantity now sent to that market, of one hundred thousand dollars a year. But, sir, aside from all the pecuniary benefits I have mentioned, the great political effect of this work would be, by opening extensive communications, encouraging intercourse, and promoting connexions between the various ports of the Atlantic and western states, to subdue local jealousies, and to bind the union together by the indissoluble ties of interest and friendship.

David Hosack, Memoir of De Witt Clinton (New York: J. Seymour, 1829), 360–362, 365–366.

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