The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1884-07-10
The Great Epoch Of internal Improve
ments.

tetu OfTtHUOtOyy.
The Great Epoch Of internal Improve
ments.
The four years administration of John
Quincy Adams is commonly spoken OF
as very uninteresting period, but 1t
was in ono respect more important
than the twenty years that went before
it or the ten years that followed. For
the first time the inhabitants of the
United States began to find out how
very large country they livel In.
From occupying q mere strip OF land
on the Atlantic they had spread already
through New York and Ohio; but it
was by detached emigrat ons. of which
the nation was hardly conscious, 10y
great single waves of population sweep
ing here and there. After 1926 this de-
velopment became self-conscious and
deliberate thing, recognized and legis-
lated for, though never Systematically
organized by the nation. When, be-
tween 1920 and 1880, Michigan Terri
tory increased go per cent, Illinois
1870 per cent. Arkansas Territory 142
per cent, and Indi ma 1873 per cent, it
indicated not mere impulse but a
steady progress, not wave but tide.
Now that we are accustomed to the
vast statistics of to-day, it may not seem
exciting to know that the population OF
the whole nation rose from nearly ten
millions (9,633, 1927 in 1920 to nearly
thirteen az, $50, 020) in 1880; but this
gain of one-third was at the time the
most astounding demonstration OF ma
tional progress. 1t enables us to under
stand the immense Importance attached
in John Quincy Adams time to phrase
| now commonplace and almost mean
ingless-"internal improvements" 1t
is true that under John Quincy Adams
more commercial treaties were organ
lied than under all his predecessors;
but this, after all, was minor benefit.
The foreign commerce of the United
States is now, itself, comparatively
speaking, subordinate; it is our vast
internal development that makes us a
nation. 1t is as the great epoch of in
ternal improvements that the four years
from 1928 to 1929 will forever he mo-
mentous in the history OF the United
| States.
In 1926 the nation was in the po-
| sition OF a young man who becomes
aware that he owns vast estate, but
finds it to be mostly unproductive, and
hardly even marketable. Such per-
son sometimes hits upon very ener-
getic agent, who convinces him that
the essential thing is to build few
roads, bridge few streams, and lay out
some building lots 1t was just in this
capacity OF courageous adviser that
John Quincy Adams was quite ready to
offer himself. On the day of his inaug-
uration the greater part of Ohio was
vet covered with forests, and Illinois
was wilderness The vast size OF the
country was still source rather Of
anxiety than of pride Monroe had
expressed the fear that no republican
government could control nation
reaching as far as the Mississippi; and
Livingston, after negotiating for the
purchase of Louisiana, had comforted
part of it might be resold. At that
time this enormous annexation was
thought to endanger the very existence
of the original thirteen States.
We must remember that when John
Quincy Adams became President the
nation had been governed for quarter
of century under succession of
Democratic administrations, acting
more and more on Federalist princi-
pies The tradition of Statesrigh hts
had steadily receded, and tue reality of
a strong and expanding nation had
taken it's place. The very statesmen
who had at first put into the most def
mite shape these States-rights opinions
throw them, Jefferson above all. BY
the purchase of Louisiana he had, per-
haps unconsciously, done more to build
up national feeling than any President
before him. Having, by happy i'm
pulse, and in spite OF all his own theo-
ries, enormously enlarged the Joint ter
ritory, he had recognized the need OF
opening and enlightening the new pos
session; he had set the example of pro-
posing national appropriations for
roads, canals, and even education; and
had given his sanction March "a, 1866
to building national road from Mary
land to Ohio, first obtaining the con-
sent of the States through which it was
to pass To continue this policy would,
he admitted, require constitutional
amendments, but in his closing message
he favored just these changes. 1t was
but step from favoring constitutional
amendments for this purpose to doing
without them. Jefferson, Madison,
Monroe had done the one, John Quincy
Adams did the other.-T W. Higgin-
son, in Harper'S Magazine.
Making a Railroad.