Colonel
Johnson, attempting to take a small fleet of steamboats up the Missouri
to the Yellowstone in 1819 to open a new route for trade with China
by way of the Columbia River, was hindered by sand-bars and snags, or
"planters." Various improvements in rivers and the construction of
canals undertaken by different States were reported in Congress.
Government aid in the shape of subscriptions to stock was contemplated
in some cases. Gallatin's report of 1809, recommending the expenditure
of twenty million dollars on public works, was reprinted. The Cumberland
Road was given over three hundred thousand dollars in a single
appropriation. Two and a half million dollars were spent annually on
the navy. Various arguments were used to harmonise these expenditures
with the economic principles of the Republicans. Twenty
ships-of-the-line could be built, it was said, for much less than the
cost of drafting the militia and the losses in a single State during
one year of the recent war. Ten thousand seamen afloat would be of
more service than fifty thousand militia in preventing "a foreign enemy
ever again polluting the shores of the United States.
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