Petitions for Constructing the Erie Canal

The memorialists attributed the prosperity of ancient Egypt and China to their inland navigation, and expressed the opinion that England and Holland, if deprived of their canals, would lose the most prolific sources of their prosperity and greatness.

Continuing Erie Canal Opens,
our selection from The Building of the Erie Canal essay by William H. Seward published in . The selection is presented in six easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Erie Canal Opens.

Time: 1825
Place: New York City

The canal policy found, at the same time, earnest and vigorous supporters in the American and Philosophical Register, edited by Dr. David Hosack and Dr. John W. Francis.

The commissioners in March, 1811, submitted their report written by Gouverneur Morris, in which they showed the practicability and advantages of a continuous canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson, and stated their estimate of the cost at five million dollars, a sum which they ventured to predict would not exceed 5 per cent, of the value of the commodities which, within a century, would be annually transported on the proposed canal. We may pause here to remark that the annual value of the commodities carried on the canals, instead of requiring a century to attain the sum of one hundred million, reached that limit in twenty-five years.

By whom,” added the commissioners, “shall the needful expense of the construction of the work be supported? We take the liberty of entering our feeble protest against a grant to private persons or companies. Too great a national interest is at stake. It must not become the subject of a job or of a fund for speculation. Among many other objections there is one insuperable, that it would defeat the contemplated cheapness of transportation. It remains to determine whether the canal shall be at the cost of the State or of the Union. If the State were not bound by the Federal band with her sister States, she might fairly ask compensation from those who own the soil along the Great Lakes, for giving permission to cut the canal at their expense; or her statesmen might deem it still more advisable to make the canal at her own expense, and take for the use of it a transit duty, raising or lowering the impost, as circumstances might direct, for her own advantage. This might be the better course if the State stood alone; but, fortunately for the peace and happiness of all, this is not the case. We are connected by a bond which, if the prayers of good men are favorably heard, will be indissoluble. It becomes proper, therefore, to resort, for the solution of the present question, to the principles of distributive justice. That which presents itself is the trite adage, that those who participate in the benefits should contribute to the expense. The commissioners presume not to go one step further. The wisdom, as well as the justice, of the National Legislature will no doubt lead to the exercise on their part of prudent munificence; but the proportion, the condition, the compact, in short, must be the subject of treaty.”

From 1812 to 1815 the country suffered the calamities of war, and projects of internal improvement necessarily gave place to the patriotic efforts required to maintain the national security and honor. But those plans were not altogether forgotten, at least by those who distrusted their wisdom. Although there was much incredulity in regard to the Erie Canal, during all the period which we have been considering, yet the design met little or no opposition, so long as it was supposed that the necessary expenditures would be made by the Federal Government. But a severe scrutiny was encountered when it was avowed that the means for accomplishing so large a work must be derived from taxation, or from the use of the public credit. Erastus Root, in 1813, submitted a resolution by which the commissioners were to be called upon for a further report of their proceedings. The commissioners, in their report of 18 14, reaffirmed their confidence in the feasibility of the enterprise, and adverted to the facilities which would be found for extending the communication to the valleys watered by the Susquehanna and its branches, whence they inferred that Pennsylvania would, at a proper time, cooperate in the enterprise. The commissioners also announced that grants of land would be made by the Holland Company of one hundred thousand six hundred thirty- two acres; by Le Roy Bayard and M’Evers of twenty-five hundred acres; by the heirs of the Pulteney estate, a large tract; and by Governor Hornby, thirty-five hundred acres. These cessions were ultimately realized, with a liberal donation from Gideon Granger.

Mr. Root introduced a bill into the Senate, which two days afterward passed that body, repealing so much of the act then in force as authorized the commissioners to borrow five million dollars. This repeal was a virtual abandonment of the polity of internal improvements. The divisions in the Assembly show a majority of eighteen in favor of the repeal; and in the Senate the majority was eight. In 1816, at the close of the war, Daniel D. Tompkins, Governor, in his annual speech, submitted, for the consideration of the Legislature, the expediency of prosecuting the canals. Citizens in various parts of the State, and especially in New York, Albany, and Troy, and in the towns and counties situated in the vicinity of the proposed routes, now earnestly applied for vigorous measures to accomplish the objects so long delayed. Among these petitions was a memorial by inhabitants of the city of New York, from the pen of De Witt Clinton.

The memorialists declared that since the object was connected with the essential interests of the country, and calculated in its commencement to reflect honor on the State, and in its completion to exalt it to an elevation of unparalleled prosperity, they were fully persuaded that centuries might pass away before a subject would be again presented so worthy of all the attention of the Legislature, and so deserving of all its patronage and support; that the improvement of intercourse between different parts of the same country had always been considered the first duty and the most noble employment of government; that canals united cheapness, celerity, certainty, and safety in the transportation of commodities; that they operated upon the general interests of society in the same way as machines for saving labor in manufactures; and, as to all the purposes of beneficial communication, they diminished the distances between places, and therefore encouraged the cultivation of the most re mote parts of the country; that they created new sources of internal trade, and augmented the old channels, thus tending to enlarge old and erect new towns, increase individual and aggregate wealth, and extend foreign commerce. The memorialists attributed the prosperity of ancient Egypt and China to their inland navigation, and expressed the opinion that England and Holland, if deprived of their canals, would lose the most prolific sources of their prosperity and greatness. Inland navigation, they said, was to the same community what exterior navigation was to the great family of mankind; and that as the ocean connected the nations of the earth by the ties of commerce and the benefits of communication, so did lakes, rivers, and canals operate upon the inhabitants of the same country.

More information here and here, and below.

We want to take this site to the next level but we need money to do that. Please contribute directly by signing up at https://www.patreon.com/history