with disappointment
The hopes of outside aid from Congress and adjacent States met
with disappointment. In vain did the advocates of the canal in
1812 plead that its construction would promote ‘a free and
general intercourse between different parts of the United States,
tend to the aggrandizement and prosperity of the country, and
consolidate and strengthen the Union.’ The plan to have the
Government subsidize the canal by vesting in the State of New
York four million acres of Michigan land brought out a protest
from the West which is notable not so much because it records the
opposition of this section as because it illustrates the
shortsightedness of most of the arguments raised against the New
York enterprise. The purpose of the canal, the detractors
asserted, was to build up New York City to the detriment of
Montreal, and the navigation of Lake Ontario, whose beauty they
touchingly described, was to be abandoned for a ‘narrow, winding
obstructed canal…for an expense which arithmetic dares not
approach.’ It was, in their minds, unquestionably a selfish
object, and they believed that ‘both correct science, and the
dictates of patriotism and philanthropy [should] lead to the
adoption of more liberal principles.’ It was a shortsighted
object, ‘predicated on the eternal adhesion of the Canadas to
England.’ It would never give satisfaction since trade would
always ignore artificial and seek natural routes. The attempting
of such comparatively useless projects would discourage worthy
schemes, relax the bonds of Union, and depress the national
character. But though these Westerners thus misjudged the
possibilities of the Erie Canal, we must doff our hats to them
for their foresight in suggesting that, instead of aiding the
Erie Canal, the nation ought to build canals at Niagara Falls and
Panama!
