War of 1812. Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun were their chief spokesmen. The advocates of protection argued that it would build up home industries and thus make our country independent of the rest of the world; that it would enable the manufacturers to pay higher wages to their workmen; and that the growing factory towns would furnish good local markets in which the neighboring farmers could sell the products of their farms. On the other hand, the merchants and shipowners of New England and most of the southern planters opposed the new policy on the grounds that it would injure our foreign trade, and that it would make all the people pay more for the protected goods in order to benefit a small number of manufacturers and their workmen.

The friends of protection won the day, and in 1816 Congress passed the first tariff act whose chief purpose was protection.

The manufacturers were not satisfied with the aid given them Early tariff by the law of 1816, and in 1824 the rates of duty were raised laws by another tariff act. By this time the South was almost solidly opposed to the protective policy. Very little manufacturing was developing in that section, and it seemed to its farmers and planters that they were being taxed for the benefit of the northern manufacturers. On the other hand, the New Englanders were turning from trade to manufacturing and beginning to favor protection duties. In 1828 Congress passed a still higher tariff law. This act was so badly made that it was called the "tariff of abominations." All these laws helped to stimulate the growth of manufacturing in the United States.

Turnpikes and Canals.-Ever since the first pioneers began to push westward in our country there has been a growing need for good roads to connect the settlements in the interior The need for with the seaboard. In the last chapter we saw how turnpike good roads companies, often with state aid, built fine stone roads in the older states, and how the tides of inland trade and travel flowed back and forth upon them. So many of these roads were built during the first quarter of the nineteenth century that it is often called the "turnpike era" in our history.

After new states began to grow up in the valley of the Mississippi it became vitally important that the western section

should be bound to the East by better means of communication The National and transportation if we were ever to have a real nation. Pike

Recognizing this fact, in 1811 the United States government began to build a fine "National Pike" westward from Cumberland, Maryland. In time this "Cumberland Road," as it is often called, was extended to Illinois, thus connecting the East and the Middle West by a good highway.

The War of 1812 still further aroused the country to the Roads and necessity for better facilities for transportation. canals were President Madison urged Congress to provide for "a system of built by the states roads and canals such as would have the effect of drawing

more closely together every part of our country." But when Congress, led by John C. Calhoun, passed a bill appropriating a large sum of money for internal improvements, Madison vetoed it. The president did this, not because he did not favor internal improvements, but because he thought that Congress had no power to spend money for them. As a consequence of this strict construction attitude of Madison and of his successor, James Monroe, most internal improvements continued to be made by the states instead of the national government. The greatest of these state undertakings was carried out by New York. For years DeWitt Clinton had urged the dig

ging of a canal to connect Lake Erie with the Hudson River. The Erie When he became governor of New York this great work was Canal begun. On July 4, 1817, Governor Clinton threw out the

first shovelful of earth, and eight years later the Erie Canal was completed. Far reaching results followed the opening of this great waterway. Goods could now be easily carried between the Great Lakes and New

York Harbor. The freight rate from Albany to Buffalo fell from one hundred and twenty dollars to fourteen dollars a ton. The people of the West could now buy the manufactured goods of the East very much more cheaply than ever before. Because it stood at the starting point of the best road into the interior of the country. New York City soon became and has ever since remained the largest city in the United States.

Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.

The Present Barge Canal at Waterford, N. Y.

But New York was not alone in undertaking a great work

of internal improvement. Beginning about the time the Erie Canal was opened, the people of Pennsylvania built a great Similar highway of commerce from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. This improvehighway consisted in part of canals and in part of railroads other states

ments in

upon which the cars were drawn by horses or by stationary engines. Other canals were constructed in Pennsylvania until

westward from Philadelphia, Baltimore, Albany, and Charles

ton, but only a few miles were actually built before the latter date. Horses were used to furnish the motive power on these earliest American railroads.

The honor of inventing the steam locomotive belongs to George Stephenson, an Englishman who after many experiments made an engine which would run upon a

motive

railway track. In 1825 he put Invention of
in operation the first steam the loco-
railroad in Great Britain for
carrying both freight and
passengers. In 1830 Stephen-
son built a new and im-
proved locomotive which

Four pairs of driving wheels. Weight 80 tons. attained a speed of thirty-six

United States began to be used on the new railroads.

Some of the early American railroads were built by the

Triplex Locomotive (1914)

Twelve pairs of driving wheels. Weight 425 tons.

Photographs by courtesy of the Baldwin Locomotive Works.