nominal prices to private companies. Their value had been almost entirely superseded by railways, which private enterprise soon constructed upon all their routes. Already the use of portions of these canals has been abandoned, while the earnings of others, that are still kept up hardly meet the cost of their maintenance.

The great work which the State of Maryland undertook — the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal - was carried only to Cumberland, a distance of about 180 miles. It has proved to be nearly valueless, even as a local work. The James River and Kanawha Canal reached many years ago, its final terminus at the base of the Alleghany Mountains. The State of Ohio constructed two lines of limited capacity from Lake Erie to the Ohio - one from Cleveland to Portsmouth, and the other from Toledo to Cincinnati. Until railroads were constructed, which now cover that State like a network, the canals performed a highly useful service. They have now practically ceased to be carriers either of produce or merchandize. The State of Indiana was not so fortunate as Ohio. Of an immense extent of projected lines she was able to complete only one work, the Wabash and Erie Canal, which was opened from Toledo to Evansville, on the Ohio River. The portion of this work below Terre Haute was speedily abandoned, while that north of it is now let to private parties upon the sole condition of keeping it in repair. The State of Illinois was enabled to complete only one of the numerous works undertaken a canal from Lake Michigan, at Chicago, to the navigable waters of the Illinois River. This canal for many years was a highly useful and important work. Its route, like that of the Erie Canal, is strikingly favorable. Its summit is only 8 feet above Lake Michigan. So nicely poised in the interior of the Continent are the Great Lakes, that a depression of their eastern bank only 8 feet below its present level would send their flood of waters - which, forming the cataract of Niagara, now find their outlet under the Arctic climate of the North Atlantic down the Mississippi to the torrid regions of the Gulf of Mexico. Such topographical conditions on so vast a scale, have been contrived, it would seem, for the express purpose of supplying the most perfect means of intercommunication, and are fitted to excite, in the highest degree, admiration and wonder. When united to a genial climate and a wealth in mineral and soil such as are nowhere else found, they must render the country possessing such elements of power the theatre upon which is to be enacted the greatest drama of human life yet seen. . . .

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VI. EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF RAILROADS

Location and Construction, 1826-18501

The success of the English railroads stimulated their building in America. Here and there short lines were laid down, primarily for the purpose of acting as feeders for canals or rivers. At first, they were handicapped by lack of effective motive power. Attempts were made to move the cars by the use of sails. The most satisfactory power was found for several years to be horses. These gave way to steam, the use of which gave the railroad a decided advantage over all other means of inland transportation.

The excitement in relation to canals and steamboats was yet at its zenith, when the air began to be filled with rumors of the new application of steam to land carriages and to railroads. There were many inventions and patents at home and abroad in relation to carriages propelled upon common roads by steam, but these seem never to have attained much success, although attempts to perfect them are still made with great perseverance. On the other hand, the use of railroads from small beginnings has reached a magnitude which overshadows the wildest imaginings of the most sanguine. In 1825 descriptions came across the water of the great success of the Darlington railroad, which was opened to supply London with coal, and which had passenger cars moved by steam at the rate of seven miles per hour. The most animated controversy sprang up in relation to the possibility of such roads in England, and was shared in to some extent on this side of the Atlantic. With the national energy of character, the idea had no sooner become disseminated than it was acted upon. The construction of railroads in America is usually ascribed to the emulation excited by the success of the Liverpool and Manchester railway. This appears not to have been the case, however, since some of the most important works in this country were projected and commenced before the Liverpool and Manchester road was built. The act of Parliament for the construction of that road was passed in 1826, and the road itself was finished and opened in September, 1830, 31 miles long; but the Massachusetts Quincy road, three miles from Quincy to Neponset, was opened in 1827, and a great celebration was held in consequence. The celebrated Mauch Chunk railroad of Pennsylvania was begun in 1826, and finished in the following year. On that road the horses which draw up the empty coal wagons are sent down on the cars which descend by their own gravity. This contrivance was borrowed by the Mauch Chunk road from the

1

Eighty Years' Progress. By Thomas P. Kettell (Hartford, 1869), 191-3.

Darlington road, similarly situated, in England. It is to be remarked that both the Quincy and the Mauch Chunk roads were horse roads; the locomotive was not at first introduced. In 1828, twelve miles of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad were completed, two years before the Manchester road was opened. In the same year, 1828, the South Carolina road, from Charleston to Hamburg, was surveyed, and in Massachusetts the city of Boston voted the construction of a road from that city to the Hudson at Albany. The first portion of that road, however, Boston to Worcester, 44 miles, was not opened until 1835. The second road finished in the United States was the Richmond, Va., road, thirteen miles to Chesterfield, in 1831, and in the same year that running from New Orleans, five miles to Lake Pontchartrain, was opened. Thus roads were well adopted in public opinion here before the great success of the Manchester road was known, but which gave an undoubted impulse to the fever. During the excitement in relation to "rail" roads, a writer in a Providence paper thus satirized the condition of the Connecticut roads. He claimed the invention of the cheapest "rail" roads, and proved it thus: "Only one English engine alone costs $2,000, which sum the whole of our apparatus does not much exceed, as figures will prove; for 700 good chestnut rails at $3, amounts to only $21, and it ought to be remembered that this is all the expense we are at, and the inference is conclusive in our favor. We place our rails fifty to the mile by the side of the road, to pry out the wheels when they get stuck, and hoist behind when wanted." The public were, however, no longer to be satisfied with this kind of "rail" road. They embarked in the new enterprise with such vigor, that in 1836 two hundred companies had been organized, and 1,003 miles were opened in eleven states. These were highly speculative years, however, and the revulsion brought matters to a stand.

It was at once apparent to the commercial mind that if railroads would perform what was promised for them, geographical position was no longer important to a city. In other words, that railroads would bring Boston into as intimate connection with every part of the interior as New York could be. The large water communication that enabled New York by means of steamboats to concentrate trade from all quarters, could not now compete with the rails that would confer as great advantages upon Boston.

Indeed, Boston had 1828 she owned no

now availed herself of steam power. Up to steamers. The Benjamin Franklin, built in that year, was the first, and her steam tonnage is now but 9,998 tons. When she bought her

first steamboat, however, she was laying out those railroad connections that she has since pushed so vigorously, and they have paid an enormous interest, if nor directly to the builders, at least to the general interests of the city.

It is to be remarked that the national government expended, as we have seen, largely in the construction of highways, the clearing out of rivers, and the improvement of harbors. The people have by individual taxes mostly constructed the earth roads of this country. The canals have, however, with a few exceptions, been state works, built by the proceeds of state loans, with the aid of lands donated by the federal government. These lands were made marketable and valuable by the action of the canals in aid of which they were granted. The railroads of the country have been, as a whole, built on a different plan, viz., by corporations, or chartered companies of individuals. These associations have not, however, themselves subscribed the whole of the money, probably not more than half, but they have found it to their interest to borrow the money on mortgage of the works. The great object of the companies has not been so much to derive a direct profit from the investment, as to cause the construction of a highway, which should by its operation increase business, enhance the value of property, and swell the floating capital of the country by making available considerable productions of industry, which before were not marketable, since the influences of a railroad in a new district is perhaps, if not to create, at least to bring into the general stock more capital than is absorbed in its construction.

Thus in the last twenty-five years, a thousand millions of dollars have been spent in the construction of roads, and yet capital is proportionally more abundant now than before this vast expenditure, and land has, in railroad localities, increased by a money value greater than the cost of the roads! We have seen that before the operation of canals, land transportation was, and is now remote from these works, one cent per mile per hundred. If a barrel of flour is then worth in market five dollars, a transportation of 300 miles would cost more than its whole value; but by rail it may be carried from Cincinnati to New York for one dollar. Thus railroads give circulation to all the surplus capital that is created by labor within their circle. It is on this principle that may be explained the immense prosperity that has been seen to attend the enormous expenditure for railroads, particularly during the last ten years.

VII. RAILROADS versus CANALS

A. Arguments for Railroads in 18321

Even before the completion of the Erie Canal, experiments in railroad building were being made. As soon as the latter appeared to be practicable and likely to compete with the canals for freight and passenger traffic, the friends of the canals began an agitation against the building of railroads. Work on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was retarded for years by the opposition on the part of the promoters of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. Likewise in New York the state discriminated against the New York Central Railroad in favor of the Erie Canal. Naturally the friends of each enterprise endeavored to convince the people of the desirability of building canals or railroads as the case might be. The controversy at last reached the stage where Congress investigated the merits of the claims of each, the main points of issue of which were as follows:

The various means which human ingenuity has devised for effecting an extensive intercourse in the present state of knowledge, consist of roads, railways, and canals.

The enterprise of our citizens was, at an early period, turned to the first, and, if we may credit accounts on this subject, scarcely less anxiety was felt at that time to obtain grants from the Legislature for the construction of turnpike roads, than is now evinced to obtain railroad privileges. These early enterprises did not yield much pecuniary profit to the stockholders; nevertheless they were of incalculable good to this young but growing country. The facilities of intercourse were promoted, and the general interests of the community were advanced. Next in succession came the desire for canals. The State having yielded her assent, the construction of the Erie canal presented at once a new and interesting view of the benefits of this mode of internal communication - the public mind again became engaged in works of internal improvement, and, to what extent this feeling prevailed, may be learned from the following extract taken from the message of the Governor in the year 1827. "The canals, which now principally occupy the public attention, embrace a navigable union of the principal bays on Long Island of the Delaware and Hudson rivers of the Erie canal, with the east and west branches of the Susquehannah — with the Alleghany river — with Lake Ontario, by Great Sodus bay - with Black and St. Lawrence rivers, and between the latter river and Lake Champlain; and even a canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson river, by an

1 Documents in Relation to the Comparative Merits of Canals and Railroads Submitted by Mr. Howard of Maryland. (Doc. 101, Committee Report on Steam Carriages, etc., 22d Congress, 1st session, 221-5.)