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Internal improvements is the term used historically in the United States for public works from the end of the American Revolution through much of the 19th century, mainly for the creation of a transportation infrastructure: roads, turnpikes, canals, harbors and navigation improvements. [1]
In an unprecedented step, the president used the occasion to present a report titled "Views of the President of the United States on the Subject of Internal Improvements." In the critical document, Monroe made clear that the Constitution did not empower Congress to establish any system of internal improvements, but he stated, "To the ...
As the United States continued to grow, many Americans advocated the construction of a system of internal improvements to help the country develop. Federal assistance for such projects evolved slowly and haphazardly—the product of contentious congressional factions and an executive branch that was concerned about the constitutionality of ...
The United States population had some semi-unique advantages in that they were former British subjects, had high English literacy skills, for that period, including over 80% in New England, had stable institutions, with some minor American modifications, of courts, laws, right to vote, protection of property rights and in many cases personal ...
Internal improvements were supported by the Federalist Party, but improvements in the 1790s and 1800s were limited primarily to the construction of lighthouses. The first major federal infrastructure project, and the largest prior to the Civil War, was the Cumberland Road that connected Cumberland, Maryland and Vandalia, Illinois .
Among the most important internal improvements created under the American System was the Cumberland Road: Henry Clay's "American System," devised in the burst of nationalism that followed the War of 1812 , remains one of the most historically significant examples of a government-sponsored program to harmonize and balance the nation's ...
In his Seventh Annual Message to the Fourteenth Congress on December 5, 1815, President James Madison suggested legislation to create 1) a national bank with regulatory powers 2) a program of federally funded internal improvements for roads and canals, and 3) a protective tariff to shelter emerging American manufacturing from the advanced ...
William H. Crawford felt the constitutional scruples being voiced in the South, and followed the old expedient of advocating for a constitutional amendment to sanction national internal improvements. [16] Shortly thereafter, Congress passed two important laws that would set a new course concerning federal involvement in internal improvements.