Having embarked
in the work in the case of military and post-roads and in the Cumberland
Road, they hesitated to go on.
[Illustration: WRITTEN LAW OF THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORY. A law passed
at Vincennes, now in Indiana, against gambling. In the absence of
printing-presses it is said the judges were accustomed to nail up
copies of the laws on trees for the information of the public.]
This Cumberland National Turnpike is an excellent example of the
constant menace to individualism and the irresistible tendency toward
unionism resulting from the advance of population, the topography of
the country, and the cupidity of the people. The portage across the
watershed from the streams of the Atlantic plain to those of the Ohio
valley had been a matter of concern from colonial times. Artificial
waterways were impossible from lack of water-supply on the high levels.
The Union inherited this problem when the policy of creating national
Territories out of the back lands was inaugurated. Lack of funds
prevented any extensive attempt to solve the problem.
The State of Ohio was the first to be created out of the public domain.
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