AMERICA-The Developing Nation 1820-1845

THE HERMITAGE, GENERAL JACKSON'S HOME NEAR NASHVILLE, TENN.

AMERICA

Great Crises In Our History As Told by Its Makers A LIBRARY OF ORIGINAL SOURCES Volume VI

ISSUED BY

AMERICANIZATION DEPARTMENT VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS OF THE

UNITED STATES CHICAGO, U. S. A.

THE DEVELOPING NATION 1820-1845

THE BUILDING OF THE ERIE CANAL

By William H. Seward.

SEWARD, at the time of the Is building of the Erie Canal (1818-25), was a lawyer in Auburn, New York. As the agent of what was known as the Holland Land Company, he laid the foundation of a comfortable fortune. In 1838 he was elected Governor of New York as a Whig, and served a second term. Going to the United States Senate in 1849, he at once took a prominent place in the Whig party councils, being a formidable candidate for President at the Chicago Convention which nominated Lincoln in 1860.

As early as 1850 Seward vigorously denounced slavery on the floor of the Senate, and startled the opposition by declaring that "there is a higher law, than the Constitution."

He served in the Lincoln Cabinet as Secretary of State, continuing in that office during the administration of Andrew Johnson. He negotiated many important treaties with foreign governments, and directed the State Department over a critical period of American history.

HISTORY will assign to Gouverneur Morris the merit of first suggesting a direct and continuous communication from Lake Erie to the Hudson. In 1800 he announced this idea from the shore of the Niagara River to a friend in Europe, in the following enthusiastic language:

"Hundreds of large ships will, in no distant period, bound on the billows of these inland seas. Shall I lead your astonishment to the verge of incredulity? I will! Know then that one-tenth part of the expense borne by Britain in the last campaign would enable ships to sail from London through the Hudson into Lake Erie. As yet we only crawl along the outer shell of our country. The interior excels the part we inhabit in soil, in climate, in everything. The proudest empire of Europe is but a bauble compared with what America may be, must be."

The praise awarded to Gouverneur Morris must be qualified by the fact that the scheme he conceived was that of a canal with a uniform declination, and without locks, from Lake Erie to the Hudson. Morris communicated his project to Simeon De Witt in 1803, by whom it was made known to James Geddes in 1804. It afterward became the subject of conversation between Mr. Geddes and Jesse Hawley, and this communication is supposed to have given rise to the series of essays written by Mr. Hawley, under the signature of "Hercules," in the Genesee Messenger, continued from October, 1807, until March, 1808, which first brought the public mind into familiarity with the subject. These essays, written in a jail, were the grateful return, by a patriot, to a country which punished him with imprisonment for being unable to pay debts owed to another citizen. They bore evidence of deep research and displayed singular vigor and comprehensiveness of thought, and traced with prophetic accuracy a large portion of the outline of the Erie Canal.

In 1807 Albert Gallatin, then Secretary of the Treasury, in pursuance of a recommendation made by Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States, reported a plan for appropriating all the surplus revenues of the general government to the construction of canals and turnpike roads; and it embraced in one grand and comprehensive view, nearly without exception, all the works which have since been executed or attempted by the several States in the Union. This bold and statesmanlike, though premature, conception of that eminent citizen will remain the greatest among the many monuments of his forecast and wisdom.

In 1808 Joshua Forman, a representative in the New York Assembly from Onondago County, submitted his memorable resolution:

"Resolved, if the honorable the Senate concur herein, That a joint committee be appointed to take into consideration the propriety of exploring and causing an accurate survey to be made of the most eligible and direct route for a canal, to open a communication between the tide-waters of the Hudson River and Lake Erie, to the end that Congress may be enabled to appropriate such sums as may be necessary to the accomplishment of that great national object."

In pursuance of a recommendation by the committee, a resolution unanimously passed both houses, directing the surveyor-general, Simeon De Witt, to cause an accurate survey to be made of the various routes proposed for the contemplated communication. But how little the magnitude of that undertaking was understood may be inferred from the fact that the appropriation made by the resolution to defray the expenses of its execution was limited to the sum of six hundred dollars.

There was then no civil engineer in the State. James Geddes, a land surveyor, who afterward became one of our most distinguished engineers, by the force of native genius and application in mature years, leveled and surveyed under instructions from the surveyor-general, with a view to ascertain, first, whether a canal could be made from the Oneida Lake to Lake Ontario, at the mouth of Salmon Creek; secondly, whether navigation could be opened from Oswego Falls to Lake Ontario, along the Oswego River; thirdly, what was the best route for a canal from above the Falls of Niagara to Lewiston; and, fourthly, what was the most direct route, and what the practicability of a canal from Lake Erie to the Genesee River, and thence to the waters running east to the Seneca River. The topography of the country between the Seneca River and the Hudson was at that time comparatively better known.

Mr. Geddes's report showed that a canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson was practicable, and could be made without serious difficulty. In 1810, on motion of Jonas Platt, of the Senate, who was distinguished throughout a pure and well-spent life by his zealous efforts to promote this great undertaking, Gouverneur Morris, De Witt Clinton, Stephen Van Rensselaer, Simeon De Witt, William North, Thomas Eddy, and Peter B. Porter were appointed commissioners "to explore the whole route for inland navigation from the Hudson River to Lake Ontario, and to Lake Erie." Cadwallader D. Colden, a contemporary historian, himself one of the earliest and ablest advocates of the canals, awards to Thomas Eddy the merit of having suggested this motion to Mr. Platt, and to both these gentlemen that of engaging De Witt Clinton's support, he being at that time a member of the Senate. Another writer commemorates the efficient and enlightened exertions, at this period, of Hugh Williamson. The canal policy found, at the same time, earnest and vigorous supporters in the American and Philosophical Register, edited by Dr. David Hosack and Dr. John W. Francis.