It was true that the National Government
had permanently opened the Mississippi River as an outlet for the West.
But the journey down was long and tedious, delays might be encountered
at New Orleans because of the limited number of ocean vessels on which
produce could be transshipped, and only a limited cargo if any was
possible on the return journey up-stream. The increase in population
and the consequent increase in the size of crops to be transported to
a market would speedily bring a demand for some means of taking the
products directly to the Atlantic seaboard and of bringing manufactured
goods in return.
Gallatin embodied some of these thoughts in his celebrated report on
the topography of the United States, which he submitted to Congress
in 1808. He first described the few attempts which had thus far been
made by States and private companies toward constructing canals and
turnpikes. Then he threw party theories to the wind and, with a
constructive statesmanship second only to that of Hamilton, he suggested
a vast system of national improvements on a worthy scale to be
undertaken and carried to completion by the central authority.
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