War Department from the Potomac almost to the Mississippi, through Wheeling, Columbus, Indianapolis and Vandalia, at a cost of over six million dollars. And this famous national road was built, in part, upon an earlier pathway, cut through Ohio by Ebenezer Zane in 1796, also at the order of Congress, and for which he received grants of land which formed the nucleus of the three thriving Ohio cities, Zanesville, Lancaster, and Chillicothe. The constitutionality of road-building by the government was questioned by some, but that clause granting it the right to establish postoffices and post roads "must, in every view, be a harmless power," said James Madison, "and may perhaps, by judicious management, become productive of great public conveniency. Nothing which tends to facilitate the intercourse between the states can be deemed unworthy of the public care."[1] But the government was interested not only in building roads but in many other phases of public improvement; it took stock in the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal; Congress voted $30,000 to
- ↑ The Federalist, p. 198.
