"Internal Improvements"

trice

Colonel
Joined
May 2, 2006
Internal improvements are generally defined as Canals, River Navigations, Roads, Turnpikes, Bridges, Railroads, etc. The period of greatest Federal support for these "internal improvements" appears to have been before 1837, and Andrew Jackson is the President associated the most with stepping on it.

We often hear about Southern opposition to "internal improvements" as a cause for the war, but I have never seen any discussion of what these "internal improvements" were in the 1850s and why the South was so upset by them. Does anyone have any facts to put forth here?

I can't say that I have much.

The single most expensive asset the US owned in 1860 was almost surely the great drydock at the Navy yard in Norfolk, VA. Did "the South" object to that?

The system of coastal defenses being constructed might count, but Southern ports seemed to be covered about as well as Northern ones. Military posts for the Army and Navy of any kind might be part of this -- but again "the South" seems to have been about equal to "the North" in that sort of thing.

The RR to California might be regarded as a major one, and indeed it was hotly debated in the 1850s -- but Southerners seemed to have been quite interested in the "southern route" from New Orleans, across Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. The Gadsden Purchase (roughly 30,000 square miles, now largely in Arizona, purchased for $10,000,000 in 1853) was largely seen as a way to provide for a non-mountainous route with water for that RR. Hard to see that as a bone of contention.

The US Navy had a major base at Pensacola (and was pushed by Congress into building others at New Orleans and Memphis they didn't really want). Seems fairly equitable, and naval power protected the country, really, not just pieces of it.

Can anyone list the "internal improvements" issues of the 1840s and 1850s for us?

Tim
 
Back
Top