WRITINGS OF SA:M HOUSTON, 1822-1841
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At the last session a law was passed, authorizing the President to cause surveys and estimates to be made, of such roads and cannals as were necessary for commercial and military purposes, or for the transportation of the ~ail. In obedience to this law, surveys have been made, with a view to unite the Chesapeake bay with the Ohio river; the practicability of which is not to be doubted, if we are to acredit the report of the Engineer Corps, who performed that service. It is also contemplated to extend this line of canal communication, from Pittsburg to Lake Erie. The contemplation of this grand design, with others of a similar character, opens to the eye of the Patriot a variety of views, which cannot fail to interest the feelings, and animate his exer- tions. In time of war it will enable the government to put forth with energetic speed, its interior force, to the aid of the more vulnerable points; and avoid many of the dangers to which our frontiers were subjected during the late war. To the merchant and agriculturist, it will afford additional facilities in transporta- tion. To the western people, it will present the choice of a northern, southern, or eastern market. Now the whole western country furnishes but one outlet to the markets of the world. In a political point of view, the effects of this system will be highly salutary; it will bring distant points of this Republic nearer to each other, by removing the impediments to a free and expeditious intercourse; it will gradually do away [with] the present danger!)US distinctions of eastern, western, northern, and southern interests, and will bind the different sections of the country happily together, by the strong tie of common and equal benefits. A law was passed at the last session, appropriating $75,000 for the removal of the planters, sawyers, and other obstructions in the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, from Pittsburg and the mouth of the Missouri to New Orleans. A contract for the purpose has been actually made, and the contractor will proceed during the present year to fulfill his engagements. No equal number of the inhabitants of the west are more interested in the success of this experiment, than the industrious and adventurous people ·whom I have the honour to represent. Other objects of a similar char- acter are within the contemplation of this system; among which is a great national road from this place, by the nearest and best route to New Orleans. The bill to increase the amount of duties on articles of foreign manufacture (commonly called the Tariff), consumed much of
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