Internal Improvement And The Building Of Early American Nation-State (1801-1833)

Internal improvement was a great issue in early American national politics and economics. In the period of 1801-1833, American presidents and Congresses held great debates on the issue of a national system of internal improvements. This dissertation aims to examine and analyze the great debates and federal internal improvement policies from the nation-state building perspective.The dissertation argues that the federal debates on a national system of internal improvements were closely related to the nation-state building problem in early America and that they actually reflected great differences about nation-state building among American presidents and Congressional members. The vast majority of the participants in the debates agreed that the federal government ought to direct and build a national system of internal improvements, because it was an important measure to consolidate the American Union. In this sense, most of them wished to build a strong American nation-state. But they differed sharply on whether the federal government could undertake internal improvements without explicit constitutional authority. The issue at the heart of the conflicts was the extent of federal powers. In other words, the issue was to what extent the federal government would actually function as a central state. Thus, at the heart of the debates were great differences regarding nation-state building among American presidents and Congressional members, which had great impact on the course of federal internal improvements policies.The dissertation examines respectively the delay of federal internal improvements policy before the War of 1812, President Madison's veto of the Bonus Act in 1817, the great federal debates on internal improvements during the presidency of James Monroe, and the rise and fall of federal internal improvements policy during the presidencies of John Q. Adams and Andrew Jackson, with a view of revealing the fundamental differences about nation-state building among the participants in the debates. Taken together, there were three major views about nation-state building: some hoped to build up the American nation-state by advocating the "broad construction" doctrine and arguing that the federal government had extensive power over matters related to "common defence and public welfare"; some wanted to grant the state some necessary power such as that over internal improvements by adopting an amendment to the Constitution; some insisted on limiting the federal government to a few enumerated powers in the Constitution by advocating the "strict construction" doctrine. In the great federal debates on internal improvements, these three views were in constant conflict and struggle with each other, the outcome of which had great impact on the course of federal internal improvements policies. The latter, in turn, also had impact on the building of early American nation-state.