How Did The Erie Canal Make Money?

Written past: Frank Due west. Garmon Jr., Christopher Newport University

By the terminate of this section, you will:

• Explain the causes and furnishings of the innovations in engineering science, agronomics, and commerce over time

Suggested Sequencing

This Narrative should be assigned later students have an understanding of the Age of Jefferson and earlier the Age of Jackson.

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Overland transportation was extremely expensive at the turn of the nineteenth century. It cost the same corporeality of money for a merchant to ship a ton of freight across the Atlantic Ocean as it did to send the same goods xxx miles overland by railroad vehicle. As a upshot, early on settlement remained concentrated along the coast and beside major waterways. In the showtime federal census in 1790, the boilerplate eye of population was twenty-three miles due east of Baltimore, Maryland. Xl years later, yet, the heart of population had shifted into what is now West Virginia. Westward expansion was made possible by a revolution in transportation. Turnpikes, canals, steamboats, and, ultimately, railroads allowed settlers to begin moving westward.

By the early nineteenth century, the coast was already densely settled and the demand for internal improvements, infrastructure projects that promised to unite the state through improved transportation, was increasing. In 1817, Representative John C. Calhoun proposed a Bonus Beak in Congress that would have appropriated surplus federal money toward a national system of internal improvements. Calhoun emerged as one of the nation'due south foremost expansionists and argued that the powers granted to Congress by the Constitution to create post offices and post roads authorized the legislature to fund transportation improvements. Calhoun declared boldly, "Allow the states, then, bind the republic together with a perfect system of roads and canals. Let us conquer infinite."

Calhoun's vision foreshadowed Henry Clay'due south American System, which combined a national system of internal improvements with high tariffs and a strong national bank to promote economic development. Sectional rivalries hampered the passage of Calhoun's bill in Congress, however. Although the Bonus Nib did not identify or recommend whatsoever specific roads or canals to exist synthetic, representatives wanted to ensure that every state benefited every bit from any proposed system of infrastructure projects. After expressing concerns about the nib's constitutionality, President James Madison vetoed it. With the direction of federal policy fabricated articulate, country legislatures moved chop-chop to initiate infrastructure projects of their own.

DeWitt Clinton emerged as the leading advocate for a canal in New York (where his uncle, George Clinton, had served as the start governor). As the mayor of New York Urban center, Clinton took a special interest in the canal and dedicated the proposal when it appeared earlier the legislature. Though New York was already the most populous city in the land, Clinton worried that rival seaports might overtake it if they established a viable trade road with the w. A west culvert would encourage prosperity, develop a national market, and perhaps fifty-fifty promote exclusive harmony. Increasingly, businesses believed that domestic trade would shortly overshadow the nation'due south foreign commerce. A directly connection with the w would guarantee New York'south emergence as the center of a new national market.

DeWitt Clinton was mayor of New York City and subsequently, like his uncle, a governor of New York State. This portrait past Rembrandt Peale is from almost 1832.

Clinton faced significant opposition in the state legislature. Canals were expensive undertakings and would crave considerable loans and burdensome taxes. The location of the proposed canal was some other consideration. Local jealousies divided various interests who supported dissimilar locations. Clinton also met resistance from his political rivals, who organized behind Martin Van Buren. Although support for the culvert was widespread throughout the land, his opponents feared that a successful project would elevate Clinton'south political fortunes. When Clinton managed to win election as governor of New York in 1817, however, Van Buren sensed that the balance of ability had shifted, and he quickly flipped his position on the culvert. As ane of his first acts in office, Clinton bankrupt ground on the canal he had helped secure.

The Erie Culvert required incredible feats of applied science to come up to completion. Until work on it began, about early canals had reached across brusk distances to connect existing waterways. The state possessed only three canals more than than two miles long, with the longest being only 20-seven miles. The Erie Culvert came to span 363 miles. Upon completion in 1825 after 8 years of work, information technology was the largest canal in the earth, including eighty-3 culvert locks and rise 675 feet in summit. The locks constructed at Lockport, New York, were college than whatsoever previously attempted and allowed a canal clomp to ascend seventy anxiety over a solid limestone embankment. The canal likewise required a tremendous amount of human being and beast labor for its construction. More than 75 pct of the more than than 9 k canal diggers who worked on the project were from upstate New York; near of the rest were Irish gaelic immigrants. The engineering backside the culvert is even more impressive when we consider that the builders were amateurs who did not possess any formal training in engineering.

This map of the Erie Canal dates from 1840, fifteen years after its completion.

Of all the canal projects in the nineteenth century, the Erie Culvert was far and abroad the virtually successful, benefitting near importantly from its location. The culvert builders could take advantage of natural waterways such as the Hudson River and Lake Erie, to connect the Atlantic Bounding main to the Great Lakes. Passing through the Appalachian Mountains, the Erie too profited from more gradual changes in elevation than rival canals. Afterwards canals were more than successful at false than improvement. And considering they relied on funding from country governments, failed internal improvement projects initiated a wave of state debt defaults in the 1840s. These failures encouraged state governments to exit financing to the private sector. Although state governments were the largest financiers of culvert projects, railroads obtained their financing primarily from private banks.

The Erie Canal was the first major canal synthetic forth an existing merchandise route. An upstate New York merchant, Jesse Hawley, described it every bit the "longest Canal – in the to the lowest degree time – with the least experience – for the least money – and of the greatest public utility of whatever other in the world." Within a few years of its completion, it was already carrying goods worth double the value of all freight shipped down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. Tolls collected along the canal repaid the construction costs in the first nine years of performance.

By linking the Atlantic Bounding main to the Great Lakes and Due west, the Erie Culvert transformed the state of New York and cemented New York City's status every bit the nation'southward virtually preeminent commercial urban center. With greatly reduced transportation costs, farmers forth the canal could now ship their products to more distant markets. For the first time, inland consumers could buy fresh oysters and products that had one time been prohibitively expensive considering of the shipping costs. The canal also revolutionized communities in upstate New York and brought them into contact with a developing national market for goods and ideas. News and newspapers travelled much more quickly than e'er earlier. Religious figures also travelled along the canal and helped initiate a 2nd Slap-up Awakening. Upstate New York hosted and then many fervent religious revivals and travelling preachers delivering fiery sermons that the region became known later as the "burned-over district."

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Review Questions

i. Which of the following contributed to the success of the Erie Canal?

1. The Missouri River shortened the distance the canal would need to bridge.
2. Near of the laborers were formally educated in engineering.
3. Meridian changes across the Appalachian Mountains were gradual.
4. The altitude it spanned was far less than canals already existing in the United States.

ii. Which of the following was a technological accomplishment that benefited the culvert?

1. Because virtually of the labor was mechanized, very few people and animals were involved in the canal'southward construction.
2. Communication technologies such equally telegraph and telephone improved the process of purchasing building materials.
3. Engineering advances immune the canal to be completed without using dangerous explosives.
4. The locks constructed in Lockport, New York, were far college than whatsoever previously constructed.

iii. What is one important reason that New York State legislators opposed the culvert at starting time?

1. They believed culvert projects were inherently unconstitutional.
2. They did not want to participate in the national marketplace.
3. They worried that the canal would eternalize DeWitt Clinton'southward political prospects.
4. They believed the federal regime should build post offices and post roads, non the state legislature.

4. Which of these was an effect of completion of the Erie Culvert?

1. Its fees made it more difficult for farmers to ship their crops long distances.
2. It led to so much new wooden construction that fires increased, causing upstate New York to be called the "burned-over district."
3. It made New York and so prosperous that the westward shift in the geographical center of the U.S. population stopped for a while.
4. Within a few years, information technology carried goods worth double the value of all freight shipped down the Mississippi River to New Orleans.

5. Advocates for building the Erie Canal would most likely support

1. Clay'south American System
2. the nullification position of John Calhoun
3. clearing restrictions
4. the abolitionism of slavery

half dozen. Which city increased its economic stature with the completion of the Erie Culvert?

1. Montreal
2. Philadelphia
3. Boston
4. New York City

7. Which transportation technology replaced canal building in the Jacksonian Era?

1. Railroads
2. Turnpikes and plank roads
3. Clipper ships
4. Steamboats

Complimentary Response Questions

1. Explain how an improvement in transportation such as the Erie Canal could transform politics, economy, and society.
2. Explain why the federal government, and ultimately state governments, abandoned infrastructure projects in the mid-nineteenth century.
3. Explain why the canals built in the decades later on the Erie Culvert were less successful.
4. Explain the impact of the Erie Canal on New York State and the greater region.

AP Practise Questions

"The chief source of the commercial and agricultural prosperity of Rochester is the Erie canal, equally that village is made the emporium of the rich agronomical districts bordering on the Genesee river; and its capitalists both send out and import a vast quantity of wheat, flour, beef, and pork, pot and pearl ashes, whiskey, and so on. In return for these articles, Rochester supplies the next country with all kinds of manufactured goods, which are carried up past the culvert from New York…There were in 1826 no less than 160 canal boats, drawn by 882 horses, owned by persons really residing in the village, besides numberless others belonging to non-residents.

Out of more than 8000 souls in this gigantic young village, there was not to be found in 1827 a single grown-upwardly person born at that place, the oldest native not existence so seventeen years of historic period. The population is composed principally of emigrants from New England that is from usa of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Some settlers are to be found from other parts of the Marriage; and these, together with a considerable number from Frg, England, Ireland, and Scotland, and a few natives of Canada, Norway, and Switzerland, make up a very singular gild."

Basil Hall, Travels in North America, in the twelvemonth 1827 and 1828(Philadelphia: 1829), 83-87.

Refer to the excerpt provided.

1. The changes referred to in the passage most clearly resulted in

1. the North and the Midwest developing economical links with each other rather than with the Due south
2. national legislation restricting immigration from southern and eastern Europe
3. express expansion of abolitionist sentiments into central New York
4. spread of cloth manufacturing along the Ohio and Mississippi river systems

two. Which of the post-obit most directly contributed to the developments described in the extract?

1. Merchandise policy in the period before the War of 1812
2. The transportation and market revolution
3. Failure of the Federalist Party to win the presidency in 1800
4. Rise of utopian movements and the 2nd Dandy Awakening

three. Which of these features of the city of Rochester does the author imply is a result of transportation using the Erie Canal?

1. An unusually young population from various areas
2. An unusually diverse assortment of professionals
3. A surprisingly big number of farmers inside the urban center itself
4. A surprising lack of variety in manufactured goods

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Primary Sources

Clinton, DeWitt. "Memorial of the Citizens of New-York, in Favour of a Culvert Navigation Between the Great Western Lakes and the Tide-Waters of the Hudson." 1816.

Suggested Resources

Bernstein, Peter L. Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Culvert and the Making of a Peachy Nation. New York: Norton, 2005.

Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Larson, John Lauritz. Internal Comeback: National Public Works and the Hope of Popular Regime in the Early U.s.a.. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.

Ryan, Mary P. Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family unit in Oneida Canton, New York, 1790-1865. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Academy Press, 1983.

Sheriff, Carol. The Bogus River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress, 1817-1862. New York: Hill and Wang, 1996.

Source: https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/the-building-of-the-erie-canal

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