When Monroe first took office, he told congress that if they wanted to authorize the building of a national road, they would need to amend the constitution. He was just following in the footsteps of his predecessor James Madison who vetoed the Bonus Bill of 1817. But now, in Monroe's last term, he seems to be celebrating the acts of Congress to appropriate funds to not only survey but alsoconstruct a series of roads and canals that would crisscross our great nation. Monroe, unlike his predecessors now believed that the commerce clause of the constitution fully authorized Congress to appropriate funds for the construction of roads and canals. No longer was a constitutional amendment needed.
On President James Madison's last day in office he declared that Congress did not have the constitutional authority to construct roads and canals when he vetoed the "Bonus Bill of 1817". Madison concluded that "The power to regulate commerce among the several States' can not include a power to construct roads and canals." This did not mean that Madison was not interested in building roads and governments. Quite the contrary, Madison, like his successor James Monroe was quite interested in constructing roads and canals, so long as it was constitutionally authorized. Both Madison and Monroe urged Congress to find ways to amend the constitution to expand the powers of the federal government to build roads and canals that could crisscross the growing nation. Five years later, in 1822 just moths after Monroe vetoed a bill to maintain the Cumberland road via a toll system, he felt the need to explain his actions. Monroe explained that at the time, he felt compelled to veto the bill because it would have given the federal government full jurisdiction over internal improvements, which was not enumerated in the constitution, but now in 1822 he seemed to have a slight change of perspective. In 1822, Monroe explained that there was a fine line between "jurisdiction" and "appropriation", and in his opinion, while Congress did not have the constitutional authority to take jurisdiction of the roads, they did have the authority to appropriate funds for the construction and maintenance of such roads. And with this, he opened the floodgates of federal funds for the construction and improvement of roads and canals.
Following Monroe's change of heart, Congress for the first time involved the Army Corps of Engineers in navigation improvements. In 1823, the start was small with a sum of $150 for examination and surveys of the harbor of Presque Isle on Lake Erie, and in 1824 the work was greatly expanded under the Act of April 30, 1824 when Congress authorized the President to survey "the routes of such roads and canals as he may deem of national importance in a commercial or military point of view". An additional act (May 24, 1824) initiated Federal improvements on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers with an appropriation of $75,000 for the project. In his final State of the Union Address, President Monroe celebrated the act of April 30th with Congress. He had come a long way since 1818.
"Under the act of 30th April last, authorizing the President to cause a survey to be made, with the necessary plans and estimates, of such roads and canals as he might deem of national importance in a commercial or military point of view, or for the transportation of the mail, a board has been instituted, consisting of two distinguished officers of the Corps of Engineers and a distinguished civil engineer, with assistants, who have been actively employed in carrying into effect the object of the act. They have carefully examined the route between the Potomac and the Ohio rivers; between the latter and Lake Erie; between the Alleghany and the Susquehannah; and the routes between the Delaware and the Raritan, Barnstable and Buzzards Bay, and between Boston Harbor and Narraganset Bay. Such portion of the Corps of Topographical Engineers as could be spared from the survey of the coast has been employed in surveying the very important route between the Potomac and the Ohio. Considerable progress has been made in it, but the survey can not be completed until the next season. It is gratifying to add, from the view already taken, that there is good cause to believe that this great national object may be fully accomplished.
It is contemplated to commence early in the next season the execution of the other branch of the act—that which relates to roads—and with the survey of a route from this city, through the Southern states, to New Orleans, the importance of which can not be too highly estimated. All the officers of both the corps of engineers who could be spared from other services have been employed in exploring and surveying the routes for canals. to digest a plan for both objects for the great purposes specified will require a thorough knowledge of every part of our Union and of the relation of each part to the others and of all to the seat of the general government. For such a digest it will be necessary that the information be full, minute, and precise.
With a view to these important objects, I submit to the consideration of the Congress the propriety of enlarging both the corps of engineers—the military and topographical. It need scarcely be remarked that the more extensively these corps are engaged in the improvement of their country, in the execution of the powers of Congress, and in aid of the states in such improvements as lie beyond that limit, when such aid is desired, the happier the effect will be in many views of which the subject is perceptible. By profiting of their science the works will always be well executed, and by giving to the officers such employment our Union will derive all the advantage, in peace as well as in war, from their talents and services which they can afford. In this mode, also, the military will be incorporated with the civil, and unfounded and injurious distinctions and prejudices of every kind be done away. To the corps themselves this service can not fail to be equally useful, since by the knowledge they would thus acquire they would be eminently better qualified in the event of war for the great purposes for which they were instituted."
Clearing Snags from the Mississippi and Ohio
One of the projects the act called for was the development of watercraft and machinery to clear the many thousands of snags from both the Ohio and the Mississippi river which made the rivers very hazardous to travel. These snags included among others, logs fixed at the river bottom called "planters" and "sawyers" or logs that moved up and down with the current. It was estimated that there were at least 50,000 snags across both the Ohio an Mississippi river, impeding the use of the rivers for commercial activity. Since there was no such machinery to remove these snags in existence, General Alexander Macomb, the Chief Engineer of the Army enlisted the private industry by offering up a $1,000 reward for the best "plan, machine, or instrument" (Robinson, 1983). A Kentucky flatboat and steamboat captain named John W. Bruce rose to the occasion with his "machine boat" that used an iron claw to attach to the snag and dislodge it from the river bottom. Not only did Bruce win the $1000 reward, but he also won a contract for $60,000 to remove all the snags in both the Ohio and Mississippi rivers by January 1, 1827. The project was a success, and by 1832, the concern over losing watercraft to snags was no longer a concern and insurance rates on steamboat cargoes declined by 50 percent from 1827 to 1835.References
Presidency.ucsb.edu. (2017). James Monroe: Eighth Annual Message. [online] Available at: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29466 [Accessed 9 Dec. 2017].History of the Commercial Waterways & Ports of the United States: Volume 1, From Settlement to Completion of the Erie Canal. (1979). DIANE Publishing. pg. 5
Robinson, M. (1983). History of navigation in the ohio river basin. pgs 13-14
Stateoftheunionhistory.com. (2017). 1822 James Monroe - The Constitution and Federal Highways. [online] Available at: http://www.stateoftheunionhistory.com/2017/07/james-monroe-constitution-and-federal.html [Accessed 9 Dec. 2017].
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