H. Res. 936 

In the House of Representatives, U. S., 

March 12, 2008. 

Whereas President Thomas Jefferson commissioned his Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin, to provide a new 

vision for transportation that would unite the young Republic; 

Whereas 2008 marks the bicentennial of the national plan, 

known as the Gallatin Report on Roads and Canals (Gallatin Report), presented by Secretary Gallatin to President Jefferson; 

Whereas the Gallatin Report proposed transportation improvements not as ends in themselves but as means to 

further national unity; 

Whereas transportation improvements were part of the promise of the American Revolution, as James Madison, writing in The Federalist No. 14, emphasized, ‘‘Let it be remarked * * * that the intercourse throughout the Union 

will be facilitated by new improvements. Roads will everywhere be shortened, and kept in better order; accommodations for travelers will be multiplied and meliorated; 

an interior navigation on our eastern side will be opened 

throughout, or nearly throughout, the whole extent of the 

thirteen States’’; 
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Whereas Madison’s words have served as a worthy reminder 

of the needs for transportation infrastructure since that 

time; 

Whereas the Gallatin Report incorporated the improvements 

to the Postal Service that Benjamin Franklin bequeathed 

to the Nation, including Franklin’s route surveys, his 

placement of milestones on principal roads, and his development of shorter transportation routes; 

Whereas the Gallatin Report called for an inland waterway 

navigation canal from Massachusetts to North Carolina, 

which was the precursor to the modern day Intercostal 

Waterway system; 

Whereas the United States, as a result of Gallatin’s legacy, 

has a record of successful infrastructure developments, 

including— 

(1) the Erie Canal, which vastly reduced transportation costs to the interior; 

(2) the transcontinental railway, which united the 

Nation; 

(3) transit projects across the Nation, which promote freedom and opportunity; 

(4) the National Highway System, including the 

Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense 

Highways, which fostered interstate commerce, national 

unity, and broke down barriers between the States; and 

(5) the Tennessee Valley Authority, devised by 

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a ‘‘corporation 

clothed with the power of government but possessed of 

the flexibility and initiative of a private enterprise’’, 

which brought electricity, conservation planning, and opportunity for thousands in the Tennessee Valley and 

across the Nation; 
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Whereas to be regarded as a success, any national planning 

endeavor must address and reconcile the needs of different regions of the Nation; 

Whereas the genius of the Gallatin Report was its alignment 

of the hopes of the Nation with the opportunities presented by access to new markets, populations, and territories; 

Whereas the United States currently faces new challenges in 

financing the transportation infrastructure that is necessary for the future economic needs of the Nation; and 

Whereas if the United States is to succeed in a world of increasing international competition, the United States 

must have a new national plan for transportation improvements to provide for the Nation’s future: Now, 

therefore, be it 

Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 

(1) reaffirms the goals and ideals that formed the 

impetus for Albert Gallatin’s national plan for transportation improvements 200 years ago; 

(2) calls on the Federal Government, States, localities, schools, nonprofit organizations, businesses, and 

the citizens of the United States to mark this important 

anniversary by recalling the important legacy of public 

investment in infrastructure, which connects and enhances the economies, communications, and communities 

of the several States; and 
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(3) supports the creation of a new national plan for 

transportation improvements to align the demands for 

economic development with the resources of the Nation. 

Attest: 

Clerk.