rights, local
favoritism, and political machination. Its purpose was noble and its
successful construction a credit to the nation; but the paternalism to
which it gave rise and the conflicts which it precipitated in Congress
over questions of constitutionality were remembered soberly for a
century. The Erie Canal, after its projectors had failed to obtain
national aid, became the undertaking of one commonwealth conducted, amid
countless doubts and jeers, to a conclusion unbelievably successful. As
a result many States, foregoing Federal aid, attempted to duplicate
the successful feat of New York. In this respect the northern canal
resembled the Lancaster Turnpike and tempted scores of States and
corporations to expenditures which were unwise in circumstances less
favorable than those of the fruitful and strategic Empire State.

In the conception of both the roadway and the canal, it should be noted,
the old idea of making use of navigable rivers still persisted. The act
foreshadowing the Cumberland Road, passed in 1802, called for "making
public roads leading from the navigable waters emptying into the
Atlantic, to the Ohio, to said State Ohio and through the same"; and
Hawley's original plan was to build the Erie Canal from Utica to Buffalo
using the Mohawk from Utica to the Hudson.

Historic Cumberland, in Maryland, was chosen by Congress as the
eastern terminus of the great highway which should bind Ohio to the Old
Thirteen. Commissioners were appointed in 1806 to choose the best
route by which the great highway could reach the Ohio River between
Steubenville, Ohio and the mouth of Grave Creek; but difficulties
of navigation in the neighborhood of the Three Sister Islands near
Charlestown, or Wellsburg, West Virginia, led to the choice of Wheeling,
farther down, as a temporary western terminus.

The route selected was an excellent compromise between the long standing
rival claims of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia to the trade of
the West. If Baltimore and Alexandria were to be better served than
Philadelphia, the advantage was slight; and Pennsylvania gained
compensation, ere the State gave the National Government permission
to build the road within its limits, by dictating that it should pass
through Uniontown and Washington. In this way Pennsylvania obtained,
without cost, unrivaled advantages for a portion of the State which
might otherwise have been long neglected.

The building of the road, however sa