H. Res. 936 
In the House of Representatives, U. S., 
March 12, 2008. 
Whereas President Thomas Jefferson commissioned his Sec-
retary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin, to provide a new 
vision for transportation that would unite the young Re-
public; 
Whereas 2008 marks the bicentennial of the national plan, 
known as the Gallatin Report on Roads and Canals (Gal-
latin Report), presented by Secretary Gallatin to Presi-
dent Jefferson; 
Whereas the Gallatin Report proposed transportation im-
provements not as ends in themselves but as means to 
further national unity; 
Whereas transportation improvements were part of the prom-
ise of the American Revolution, as James Madison, writ-
ing in The Federalist No. 14, emphasized, ‘‘Let it be re-
marked * * * that the intercourse throughout the Union 
will be facilitated by new improvements. Roads will every-
where be shortened, and kept in better order; accom-
modations 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’’;
•HRES 936 EH 
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 devel-
opment 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 transpor-
tation costs to the interior; 
(2) the transcontinental railway, which united the 
Nation; 
(3) transit projects across the Nation, which pro-
mote 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 op-
portunity for thousands in the Tennessee Valley and 
across the Nation;
•HRES 936 EH 
Whereas to be regarded as a success, any national planning 
endeavor must address and reconcile the needs of dif-
ferent regions of the Nation; 
Whereas the genius of the Gallatin Report was its alignment 
of the hopes of the Nation with the opportunities pre-
sented by access to new markets, populations, and terri-
tories; 
Whereas the United States currently faces new challenges in 
financing the transportation infrastructure that is nec-
essary for the future economic needs of the Nation; and 
Whereas if the United States is to succeed in a world of in-
creasing international competition, the United States 
must have a new national plan for transportation im-
provements 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 transpor-
tation improvements 200 years ago; 
(2) calls on the Federal Government, States, local-
ities, 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 en-
hances the economies, communications, and communities 
of the several States; and
•HRES 936 EH 
(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.