unity at a single stroke.

The success of the Erie Canal and the rapid growth of internal trade
which followed the adoption of the "American System" caused a demand
everywhere for more roads and canals and a widespread agitation in
favor of government aid to internal improvements. The federal
government gave extensive aid to private and state enterprises in the
way of land grants and stock subscriptions, though it did not engage
directly in the construction of commercial highways. The individual
states embarked in schemes of canal and turnpike building which
involved them in debts of millions of dollars. Ohio and Indiana began
to construct canals joining the Ohio River to Lake Erie in order to
secure the advantage of the new outlet to the East. Pennsylvania,
awakened to the danger of the total loss of western trade through the
state by the fact that shipments of merchandise to the West were
abandoning the wagon roads from Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York
in favor of the cheaper route by way of the Erie Canal, began, in 1826,
an extensive system of canals to connect the Delaware River with the
Ohio River and the Great Lakes. Not to be outdone by their rival
states, Maryland and Virginia agreed upon the construction of a canal
from Chesapeake Bay to the Ohio River, and on July 4, 1828, President
Adams dug the first spadeful of earth to signalize the beginning of the
undertaking. Some financiers of Baltimore, dubious of the success of an
effort to build a waterway over the difficult route adopted by the
promoters of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, withdrew their support from
that enterprise, and putting their confidence in a new and almost
untried transportation device, which they believed would prove superior
to canals, just as canals had proved superior to turnpikes, they boldly
inaugurated the plan of a railroad from their city across the mountains
to the Ohio, and Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, placed the stone that
commemorated the beginning of its construction on the same day that
President Adams officiated at the rival celebration that marked the
beginning of the canal.

Thus by 1830, the future of the internal commerce of the United States
was assured. The adoption of the "American System" could have but one
result--a tremendous expansion of domestic trade. That this expansion
had already commenced was evident from the fact that notwithstanding
the vast growth in wealth and population from 1820 to 1830, the i