Wayne County, Indiana - Chapter 8: Old National Road, 1912

CESSION OF VIRGINIA - NORTHWEST TERRITORY INACCESSIBLE - WATERCOURSES THE ONLY HIGHWAYS - INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS - CONSTITUTIONAL OBJECTIONS - JEFFERSON'S PLAN - COMPACT WITH OHIO AND OTHER STATES - CONSTRUCTION OF THE NATIONAL ROAD - TRIUMPH OVER DIFFICULTIES - RESULTING BENEFITS.

In 1784 Virginia ceded to the General Government the magnificent domain then known as the Northwestern Territory, which now constitutes the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and a portion of Minnesota.

It was at that time almost as inaccessible to the States then forming our Republic as are at this time our possessions in the Philippines on the opposite side of the globe. The nearest settlements of the Eastern States were divided from this Territory by more than 100 miles of rugged mountains, forming an almost impassable barrier between them. There was indeed a trail over these mountains, along which wagons could, with difficulty and danger, be transported between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, but the journey required many weeks, and it was entirely useless for commercial purposes. To overcome these difficulties and to bring the two sections of the country into easy communication was a subject which occupied the minds of the leading statesmen of that day. Washington was one of the first to urge the necessity of a public highway over the mountains, and he wrote many letters, as early as 1784, advocating it.

At that time the highways of the country were almost exclusively the watercourses. Our present means of travel and transportation were unknown and mostly undreamed of. Men traveled in those days upon horseback and goods were transported long distances mainly by water. When a new settlement was to be made or the foundations of a new city laid, the banks of a navigable river were the choice locations and first occupied. It will be remembered that when, in the quaint phrase of the day, "a residence for the Government of the United States" was being selected, only the banks of two great rivers were seriously considered - the Potomac and the Susquehanna. The first resolution adopted by Congress upon the subject declared the necessity of having the seat of government convenient to the Atlantic ocean, "and having due regard to the particular situation of the Western country." In all the debates, "easy access to the Western territory" was the principal argument urged on either side. It is amusing, in following these debates, to note with what earnestness the great men who founded this Republic presented maps, charts, and rough drawings of the fountain rivulets of these great rivers, some of them tiny brooks dashing down the side of the Alleghany mountains, to show how much nearer the one approached the headwaters of the Ohio than did the other, and therefore how much more accessible would the National Capital be to the Western country if built upon the one river rather than upon the other.

It seems strange to us at this day that men like James Madison could seriously argue that a waterway sufficient for all purposes could be found over the Alleghanies by following the sources of the Potomac river to the tops of the mountains, and there connecting, by a portage of only two or three miles, with the tributaries of the Ohio, and by these descend to that river. But this is the recorded belief, not only of Mr. Madison, but of many other distinguished men of 100 years ago. When the contest over the capital had been settled in favor of the Potomac, and men came to consider the subject calmly, they admitted the absurdity of hoping to find a waterway over the mountains and turned their attention to mastering the difficulties of making a macadamized roadway.

The first difficulty the project encountered was entirely a political one. The road would be in parts of three States, and it must necessarily be the work of the Nation. That internal improvements by Congress were forbidden by the Constitution was the stern belief of the dominant party of the time. Mr. Jefferson was President and was a strict constructionist of that instrument. He had long and publicly avowed his belief. But fear from this quarter was soon allayed. Mr. Jefferson never permitted a good thing to escape because it interfered with his principles. He did not believe that Congress could use public money to build a road from Cumberland on the Potomac to Wheeling on the Ohio. That would be unconstitutional, but it would be a good thing for the country if it were done. The President was equal to the emergency and devised a scheme to avoid the constitutional objection. He had Gallatin, his secretary of the treasury, put it into the form of a bill and then induced Congress to adopt it. On the authority of this law a compact was made with the people of Ohio, then

Although Ohio contained 45,000 inhabitants, still the great body of the lands in that Territory was as yet unsettled and unsold and belonged to the General Government. These lands were also, as property of the General Government, untaxed, but when sold to private individuals they became subject to taxation by the State. It was to the interest of the General Government to encourage the sale of these public lands to private settlers. The money received from them-was public money and went into the public treasury to pay the expense of maintaining the Government. Congress could not use any of this public money, according to the views of the Government at that time, in any internal improvement enterprise of any kind; that would be unconstitutional. But Jefferson's scheme to overcome this difficulty showed genius, and was successful. He could not use any of the money received for the sale of these lands in building a national road, because money for such purpose could not be drawn from the public treasury. But he would take a portion of this money, before it got into the public treasury, and create a sinking fund for the purpose of building roads, and from this special fund could be appropriated what might be needed for making a public highway over the mountains.

Of course this distinction was finely drawn, so fine the President did not believe the people would see its fallacy. The scheme, however, was a good one - it encouraged immigration, and it gave the settler time to improve his land before he was required to pay taxes on it. And if it also satisfied the President and his staterights friends in regard to the constitutional question, that could do harm to no one. It was proposed that, to create this sinking fund, five percentum of the gross receipts of the sales of public lands should be set aside for the purpose of making a public road from the Potomac to the State of Ohio. Just here another difficulty was encountered. At that time the sales of public lands were confined mostly to the Territory of Ohio, which was under the immediate jurisdiction of Congress. But Ohio was about to ask admission into the Union as an independent State, and objected to having its revenue so largely reduced as it would be if its right to tax these lands were suspended for the proposed five years. In the convention held in Ohio, in November, 1802, to frame a constitution preparatory to becoming a State, this question was discussed. The result was a proposition from the people of Ohio to Congress to the effect that they would consent to the suspension of the collection of taxes on lands as proposed for the term of five years on condition that three-fifths of the five per cent. provided by Congress for building roads should be expended in the State of Ohio, under the direction of the State legislature. Congress accepted this proposition by a special act, passed March 3, 1803.

Thus it was arranged, to satisfy the scruples of the President against the use of public money in making internal improvements, that five per cent. of the sales of public lands should go into a sinking fund to be used in building roads, and by the compact with Ohio that State was to have for its own use three-fifths of this reserve fund, leaving only two-fifths to be used in building a great National Road.

Thus the Congress of the United States, in 1803, contracted to build a road over the Alleghany mountains, to connect the Eastern States with the Western Territories, and by special enactment authorized the President to appoint a commission to select a route for said road and the points at which it should commence and terminate. The final report of this committee was not made until near the close of 1805.

A compact substantially the same as that made with the people of Ohio was afterwards made with the States of Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. These latter compacts were made at the time these States were respectively admitted to the Union. In Indiana and Missouri the three-fifths reserved for State use was to be applied to "roads or canals," while in Illinois it was to be "appropriated by the legislature of the State for the encouragement of learning, of which one-sixth part shall be exclusively bestowed on a college or university." This was only the Western branch of the great national road contemplated by Congress. A Southern branch was to pass through Kentucky and Tennessee, by way of Natchez to New Orleans, and with the States through which this branch passed similar compacts were made as the one with Ohio. In respect to this Southern extension, as well as the Western, Mr. Clay, of Kentucky, in a speech in Congress, said: "It must also be viewed in reference to that branch of it which would pass through Kentucky and Tennessee to Natchez and New Orleans, in- tersecting the great road now proposed from the latter place to this city. It must be remembered," he said, "that it (the Cumberland Road) is a part of a road which is to traverse nine States and two Territories; so that whether we look to the right or to the left, we find the interest of nine States and two Territories all concentrated in the present design."

Mr. Clay was arguing that the completion of the road from Cumberland to the Ohio river, while it was a fulfillment of the compact with Ohio, was not in accordance with the agreement with the States beyond Ohio. Many of us have not known that it was originally intended to extend the National Road to New Orleans, but the advent of railroads made it necessary to abandon this grand scheme, so far as its Southern extension was concerned.

Although Congress had, in 1803, contracted to build a road over the Alleghany mountains, it was not until near the end of 1805 that a route was agreed upon. A committee of Congress had considered a route from Philadelphia, one from Washington City, another from Baltimore, and still another from Richmond, Va., but it was not until December, 1805, that an agreement was reached and reported as follows:

"The Committee have thought it expedient to command the laying out and making a road from Cumberland, on the northerly bank of the Rotomac, and within' the State of Maryland, to the Ohio, at the most convenient place between a point on the easterly bank of said river, opposite Steubenville, and the mouth of Grove Creek, which empties into said Ohio a little below Wheeling, Va." The committee also reported a bill authorizing the laying out and making of the road, which was enacted into law and approved by President Jefferson on March 29, 1806. This bill authorized the President of the United States to appoint three commissioners to lay out a road from Cumberland on the Potomac to the river Ohio, to be four rods in width. The commissioners are directed to make a report to the President of their proceedings, as well as the expense of making the road passable. The President was authorized to accept or reject the report, in whole or in part. If he should accept it, he was then authorized to obtain the consent of the States through which the road must pass; and having obtained such consent, to make a road on the route proposed. Thirty thousand dollars were appropriated, first out of the proceeds of the reservation from the sales of lands in Ohio, and, secondly, out of the treasury of the United States, the last amount to be chargeable to the said reserved fund. The President appointed the com- missions authorized by this act, obtained the consent of the States through which the road would pass, afterward approved the report of the commissioners in locating a National Road from Cumberland, Md., to the Ohio river at Wheeling, Va., thus making this first appropriation of $30,000 available.

Thus was the first section, 135 miles, of the great National Road placed under construction, at the expense and under the supervision of the General Government. Begun in 1806, this section was not completed until 1824, eighteen years afterward. During the remainder of Mr. Jefferson's term of office the work of this great road progressed smoothly, apparently without opposition from any quarter, but it necessarily advanced slowly.

During the first years of Mr. Madison's administration the work upon the national road was greatly delayed. At the end of nine years from the commencement less than half the work between Cumberland and Wheeling was completed. The enthusiasm so general among the people when the work began had greatly abated. Indeed, a strong party had arisen among the people of the Eastern States in opposition to the road. It was argued that the Western country had already held out sufficient lures to the inhabitants of the Atlantic States to migrate thither, and that it was impolitic to contribute to their increase, which, it was thought, would be the effect of building the road under construction. It was asserted that many portions of the country east of the mountains were being depopulated by the prevailing "western fever." The constitutional objection that Congress had no power to appropriate money for such purpose was urged with all the bitterness of party rancor. At some points even physical force was used, and much of the werk already done was demolished or greatly injured. So far did this proceed that those in charge of the work were compelled to appeal to Congress for protection.

The friends of the road met this argument by asserting that the migration to the West would continue whether the road was made or left unmade. That soon the western territories would be populous and wealthy, with an important trade which would be lost to the Atlantic cities if some such easy communication were not opened between the two sections of the country. They pointed out the fact that the Ohio and Mississippi were being successfully navigated with steam boats, and if this road was not made the merchants of the Western country would cease to purchase goods from the importers of New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore, and New Orleans would soon become the sole emporium of their trade.

It could not be expected that with such distraction among the people on this question that there would be much harmony among their representatives in Congress. Therefore, the construction of the road was allowed to drag with only occasional appropriations from the public treasury to aid it.

The superintendent of construction wrote, in 1816, a most discouraging letter to the Secretary of the Treasury, giving a description of the condition of the road, in which he said "that frequent abuses are committed on the road, such as throwing the walls down, digging away the banks," etc., and he suggested that measures Ought to be promptly adopted to prevent and to punish these outrages. Where the right belonged to punish these offenders had long been a disputed question, both with the people and the statesmen of the country. There was an absolute necessity of protecting the work, already completed, against lawless violence. The State would not do this because the property belonged - to the United States, nor would it permit the General Government to punish such crimes committed within the jurisdiction of the State. Albert Gallatin, secretary of the treasury, in a report to Congress, doubted the authority of that body to pass laws punishing the offenders. And that was the opinion.of the administration and dominant party in Congress. Thus the questions of State sovereignty and State rights became involved in the construction of the national road. These objections were answered by the friends of the road, that the State, having given the right of way to make the roads, it followed as a necessary consequence that all the powers obviously needed and proper to carry the grant into complete effect and to preserve it inviolable, were also conferred. And it was insisted that a different construction would render the grant a nullity and exempt from punishment as well the individuals who resisted the construction of the work as those who afterward destroyed it.

This controversy continued with great bitterness for some years, while the depredations upon the work done increased with the assurance that no punishment need be apprehended. Finally, in May, 1822, Congress summoned courage to take means for the protection of the work. A bill was passed, by both the Senate and the House of Representatives, entitled, "An act for the protection and repair of the Cumberland Road." This bill provided for the erection of toll gates and fixed a schedule of tolls to be collected, and also provided severe punishment for all persons who refused to pay such toll. The amount of tolls thus collected, after deducting the expense of collecting, was to be applied, under direction of the President of the United States, to the repair and preservation of said road, in such a manner as he may prescribe, and to no other purpose whatever. It also appropriated an unexpended balance of a former appropriation of $9,000 to the same purpose of repairs.

This bill was vetoed by President Monroe, who said in doing so: "It is with deep regret (approving as I do the policy) that I am compelled to object to its passage and to return the bill to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, under a conviction that Congress do not possess the power, under the Constitution, to pass such a law." Because, as he adds, "a power to establish turnpikes, with gates and tolls, and to enforce the collection of the tolls by penalties, implies a power to adopt and execute a complete system of internal improvements." On the general principle that the Constitution does not specifically or impliedly grant the power to make national roads, he denied the power of Congress to keep this road in repair; though, because of the compact with Ohio, he had signed seven appropriation bills, granting more than $1,000,000 toward making the road, and though he had distinctly declared in his first inaugural address that among the "interests of high importance" claiming the attention of Congress, "the improvement of our country by roads and canals holds a distinguished place." Thus the effort to keep the road in repair was defeated. At the next session of Congress an appropriation of $30,000 for repairing the road was attached as an amendment to the bill for the District of Columbia, and passed in that shape.

The National Road from Cumberland to the Ohio river was completed in the year 1824 and the compact with Ohio to make a road to that State was fully executed on the part of the General Government. It is true the original proposition was not only to make a road to the State, but through it. But this agreement was modified, at the request of Ohio, by the act of March 3, 1803, giving that State three-fifths of the reserve funds, to be used by the legislature in building roads within the State, and leaving twofifths only to be used in building a road to the State. It was therefore insisted that the compact with Ohio was fully and faithfully executed in making the road to the Ohio line. The compacts with Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, were the same-as with Ohio, except that the General Government had agreed not to make a road to these States respectively, but that "a road or roads leading to said State' should be constructed. On these facts a strong party arose, in Congress, in opposition to making the road any further, on the ground that every stipulation of these compacts had been fulfilled. The two per cent. fund, it was argued, had been expended in making a road "to" Ohio, as was required, and "leading to" the other States, as stipulated in their compacts, and that the three per cent. fund was given to the States to be used by them at their pleasure; and this was all that Congress had contracted to do in the matter.

These objections Henry Clay combatted at length. He argued: "Can it be said that the government has made a road to Missouri, when it made a road which nowhere approaches Missouri within 500 miles, or, that it has made a road to the other Western States, when it has made one to a point 250, 300 or 500 miles from them? Gentlemen say that a road has been made in that direction. It might as well be said that the making of Pennsylvania Avenue, in this city, was a fulfillment of the contract, or that the Government might begin a road in the remotest part of the East and end it there, provided it had a "Western direction."

These objections were raised to a bill making an appropriation to continue the road west from Wheeling, with a provision that the amount of the appropriation should be repaid the Government from the two per cent. reserve fund, as stipulated in the original scheme, devised by Mr. Jefferson. All former appropriations had contained a proviso to this effect. Mr. Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, on this discussion made a bitter attack on this proviso. He said that every bill appropriating money for this purpose, from the first to the completion of the road to the Ohio river, had stipulated that the amount should be repaid from the two per cent. funds. He further stated that the expenditure on the part of the General Government, in making this section of the road, was $1,700,000, or more than $13,000 per mile for the 135 miles of road. During this time, he said, the entire receipts of the two per cent. fund aggregated but $259,409.42. Of this amount Ohio had furnished $187,786.31 and Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Mississippi, and Alabama $71,628.11. The two per cent. fund was therefore already charged with the repayment of more than $1,400,000, an amount many times greater than that fund would produce, without applying a dollar on the roads west of the Ohio. He then said "it is certainly idle and absurd for us to place a pretext so flimsy before the public in any act of legislation. Gentlemen who advocate this bill should at once abandon its defense, upon the ground of the two per cent. fund and compact, and support it upon the principle that it is.

an internal improvement, which independently of these considerations should be undertaken at this time by the General Government." Mr. Buchanan did not indorse Mr. Jefferson's scheme for deceiving the people. But notwithstanding all objections, Congress continued to the end in drawing upon the two per cent. funds for the repayment of appropriations to the extént of many millions more than the funds could ever reach.

But it must be admitted that, while this scheme was from the beginning a flimsy pretext to ease Mr. Jefferson's constitutional scruples, it was, by securing the making of this road, of incaluable benefit to the early settlers of these Western States, especially the poorer class. It gave them a magnificent thoroughfare over which they could move easily and cheaply to the Western country, taking with them their families and their household goods, and gave them five years to build up homes in the wilderness, free from all taxation on their lands. Nor could the General Government have devised any scheme more advantageous for itself. The government was depending largely for its revenue upon the sales of its Western lands. The road opened up these lands to market and the exemption from taxation was a great inducement to purchasers. Within three years after this compact was concluded, and before the road was even located, the sales of the public lands in Ohio had increased fivefold.

On Dec. 4, 1828, Oliver H. Smith, of Indiana, introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives, instructing the committee on roads to inquire into the expendiency of reporting a bill to authorize the opening of the Cumberland road, eighty feet wide, on its present location, through the State of Indiana. Mr. Smith supported his resolution in a long and able speech. Mr. McLean, of Ohio, moved to amend the resolution by adding the words: "From Zanesville, by way of Columbus, in the State of Ohio." This amendment prevailed over Mr. Smith's objection, whereupon the latter moved to raise the proposed appropriation from $50,000 to $100,000, which was agreed to. The bill based on this resolution only asked for $100,000 to open the road from Zanesville, Ohio, west through Indiana, but it also contained a provision for toll gates on the finished portion of the road and the collection of tolls to keep the road in repair. There was no objection made to the appropriation, but the suggestion of toll gates and tolls acted like a red flag to a mad bull, to the party organized by Jackson and about to assume charge of the Government.

the new party, was thrown into paroxysms of terror at the suggestion of a toll gate. He said: "It is not a question whether we shall keep the road in repair by annual appropriations, nor whether we shall spend other millions in constructing other Cumberland roads ; these would be comparatively unimportant; but it is a question upon the determination of which, in my humble judgment, depends the continued existence of the Federal Constitution, in anything like its native purity. Let it once be established that the Federal Government can enter the domain of the States, interfere with the domestic concerns; erect toll gates over all the military, commercial and post roads within their territories, and define and punish, by laws of Congress, in the courts of the United States, offences committed upon these roads; and the barriers which were erected by our ancestors with so much care, between Federal and State powers, are entirely prostrated. This single act would,.in itself, be a longer stride towards consolidation than the Federal Government has ever made; and it would be a precedent for establishing a construction of the Federal Constitution so vague and so indefinite that it might be made to mean anything." Thus Jackson Democracy struck a higher note on the subject of State sovereignty than Jefferson Republicanism ever attempted.

This debate on State sovereignty was joined in by all the leading members of Congress and was the first important discussion of that subject in that body. During the debate Mr. Buchanan moved an amendment to the bill which proposed surrendering the road to the States through which it passed, after the road was first put in good repair, and on condition that the States should never collect more toll on the road than will be needed to keep it in good condition. This amendment was rejected and the original bill, which made an appropriation of $100,000 to continue the road through the State of Indiana, passed. This act provided that the work of construction in Indiana should be commenced at Indianapolis and prosecuted at the same time, both east and west, from that city.

There was no further. difficulty in procuring all appropriations necessary to complete the construction of this road. During the administration of President Jackson the appropriation for building the National Road aggregated $3,735,530, being more than one-half of the whole cost of the roads; the entire amount was $6,824,919. The last appropriation was made June 14, 1844, and was for $1,359, to meet arrearages on account of survey to Jefferson, Mo. While no constitutional objection was raised against appropriations to make the road, after the year 1825, when it was agreed to build the road west, through Ohio and Indiana, to the Mississippi river at St. Louis, yet the toll gate question was still discussed and the erection of toll gates bitterly denounced. The perpetuity of the Union, the utter failure of self-government by men, were declared to be dependent upon the erection or non-erection of a toll gate by the government on the National Road.

At length the road was becoming so dilapidated it was feared it would go to ruin if not repaired. As the conflict of authority between the General Government and the States would permit neither to keep the road in proper condition, the proposition to surrender it to the States, through which it ran, was determined on by Congress. Ohio was the first to accept its portion and accepted without condition. Maryland and Pennsylvania each refused to accept unless Congress would first repair the road in those States. Pennsylvania's demand was that the road in that State "shall be first put in a good state of repair, and an appropriation be made by Congress for erecting toll houses and toll gates thereon, to be expended by the commissioners" of the State.

The singular thing about this condition is that Congress accepted and complied with it. Maryland's demand was the same as that of Pennsylvania, and was also complied with. In time all the other States interested, including Indiana, accepted without condition the grant from the General Government and then the National Road no longer existed.