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Show 342 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT BUILDING THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY RAILROAD IN KANSAS tending the road on into Ohio did not appear quite so pressing. Not until 1833 was it to reach Columbus. All accounts indicate that the completion of this route across the Cumberland Mountains, which provided fair connections with Baltimore, gave rise to a great volume of traffic. Settlers moved west and livestock, grain, and other commodities moved east to market. The obvious success of the Cumberland road was not to lead the United States into an enlarged program of road building because even before it was completed the canal era had begun and canals rather than roads were being demanded.3 Canals of Early Interest At the request of the Senate, Albert Gal-latin in his famous report of April 4, 1808, 3 Archer B. Hulbert, The Cumberland Road, "Historic Highways of America," Vol. 10 (Cleveland, 1904), passim; Caroline E. MacGill, History of Transportation in the United States before 1860 (Washington, 1917), pp. 15 ff. From A. D. Richardson, Garnered Sheaves on "Roads and Canals" had drawn attention to the possibility of developing an intercoastal waterway from Boston to Georgia by the construction of four canals across headlands and had suggested the feasibility of all the major canals which were later undertaken to connect the rivers flowing into the Atlantic with those flowing into the Ohio and the Great Lakes. For the large interstate projects he maintained that "the General Government can alone" carry them out.4 Prominently mentioned in the Gallatin report were canals to connect the Hudson with Lake Huron and Lake Erie. Efforts to gain congressional aid for a canal across New York State were unavailing though there was some discussion of diverting a part of the proceeds from Calhoun's bonus bill to that end. Madison's veto laid the matter of Federal aid to rest.5 4 American State Papers, Miscellaneous, I, 724-921. 5 Annals of Congress, 14th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 295, 361, 934, 1062. |