The course of the European war showed that Spain was exhausted. Nearly all her American colonies, inspired by the example of the United States, and sustained by their sympathy, struck for independence, established republican systems, and entered into treaties of amity and commerce with the republic of the North.
But the United States yet needed a northern passage from their western valleys to the Atlantic ocean. The new channel to be opened must necessarily have connections, natural or artifieial, with the inland rivers and lakes. An internal trade ramifying the country was a necessary basis for commerce, and it would constitute the firmest possible national union. Practically, there was in the country neither a canal to serve for a model, nor an engineer competent to project one. The railroad invention had not yet been perfected in Europe, nor even conceived in the United States. The Federal Government alone had adequate resources, but, after long consideration and some unprofitable experiments, it not only disavowed the policy, but also disclaimed the power of making internal improvements. Private capital was unavailable for great national enterprises. The States were not convinced of the wisdom of undertaking singly works within their own borders which would be wholly or in part useless, unless extended beyond them by other States, and which, even although they should be useful to themselves, would be equally or more beneficial to States which refused or neglected to join in their construction. Moreover, the only source of revenue in the States was direct taxation—always unreliable in a popular government—and they had no established credits, at home or abroad. Nevertheless, the people comprehended the exigency, and their will opened a way through all these embarrassments. The State of New-York began, and she has hitherto, although sometimes faltering, prosecuted this great enterprise with unsurpassed fidelity. The other States, according to their respective abilities and conventions of interest and duty, have cooperated. By canals we have extended the navigation of Chesapeake Bay to the coal-fields of Maryland at Cumberland, and also by the way of Columbia to the coal-fields of Pennsylvania. By canals, also, we have united Chesapeake Bay with the Delaware river, and have, with alternating railroads, connected that river with the Ohio river and with
