The National Road and the promise of improvement, 1802--1850 (Andrew Jackson)

The debate about a strong national government is a central problem in American history. During the first half of the nineteenth century, the issue of federal transportation projects raised fundamental questions about the nature of the union—specifically, what were the limits of federal authority within the states? Should the central government pursue a greater role in the economic development of the states? The resolution of these questions ultimately shifted transportation initiatives to private enterprise and resulted in a system shaped by market forces far more than national developmental policies.; The great transportation debate centered on the National Road, a 600 miles highway from the Atlantic seaboard to the Mississippi River. As the first and only interstate project fully undertaken by the central government, it offered the most important precedent for launching a comprehensive federal system of roads, canals, and other transportation facilities. I present related case studies which explore the issues and conflicts which arose in the planning, building, and repairing of the highway.; Sources include a large collection of unpublished government documents located at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., manuscript collections from state and local archives, a large volume of published government documents contained in the U.S. Serial Set, and contemporary newspaper accounts. To date no study of the National Road draws on these diverse source materials in their entirety. In order to develop case studies where local and national interests intersect, my dissertation utilizes petitions found in the National Archives and the state archives. These petitions, signed by local residents who sought to use the national project to their advance their own interests, have never been examined by any scholar prior to this study.