Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/318

CHAPTER III INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS AND FORTIFICATIONS On April 12, 1818, Calhoun was asked by Congress to give a report on the national construction of COMPARISON OF roads and canals. 36 The Secretary of War BONUS BILL considered such internal improvements SPEECH AND necessary both for military defense and REPORT OF 1818 the development of trade, but in reply in ON INTERNAL January, 1819, he made commercial rea- IMPROVEMENTS sons secondary, while in the speech he delivered on the Bonus Bill in February, 1817, he had advocated internal improvements, primarily to strengthen the nation commercially and politically, and only incidentally to serve as a means of defense in war. Calhoun worked out a system of inland transportation which would protect the northern, eastern and REPORT ON southern boundaries. Local roads not ex- ROADS AND tending beyond the boundaries of a state, CANALS were to be left to that state, but those JANUARY, 1819 going through a large section of the United States were to be built by the government. The most important work would be a highway along the eastern coast, over which troops could be marched when it was dangerous to transport them by sea. North of the Chesapeake Bay the coast is very accessible, making it expedient to build roads from all parts of the country to this section, so that it would be easy quickly to concentrate troops at any point. Calhoun suggested that other roads be built from Albany to the Lakes ; Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington and Richmond to the Ohio river, and from Augusta to Tennessee. On the northern frontier he planned canals between Albany, Lake George and Lake Ontario, and between Pittsburg and Lake Erie. Roads were to be built from Plattsburg to Sackett Har- bor, and from Detroit to the Ohio. The southwest was natural- ly guarded by the Mississippi River, while a canal from the 36 Annals of Congress, isth Cong., ist Sess., II, 1678.