The United States is blessed with an immense interior filled to the brim with every variety of natural resource. This potential for prosperity was evident to Americans from the moment of our founding. Our vast frontier was a cornucopia of timber, coal, beaver pelts, iron ore, and fertile agricultural lands. The only problem was that this frontier lay west of the Appalachian Mountains, which stood as a barrier between the treasures of the Midwest and the markets of the East Coast. The wonders of the Great Lakes region remained inaccessible to the bulk of the country’s populace. Then, at the dawn of the 19th century, forward-thinking builders found a solution. They would build a canal connecting the Atlantic Ocean with the Great Lakes. It would wind through the only gap in the mountain range and cut across New York state. It would be called the Erie Canal.
Ninety years before the Panama Canal and 50 before the Suez, the Erie Canal would transform our nation. DeWitt Clinton, the governor of New York, was the visionary who laid the groundwork for this idea. The canal would stretch 363 miles from Buffalo to Albany, which was twice the length of any canal that had ever been built. The budget for this ambitious project was approved at $6 million, and construction began in 1817 (on the 4th of July). Surveyors broke out their compasses and measuring chains while broad-shouldered fathers and sons dug shovels and pickaxes into grass and dirt to excavate the earth, one wheelbarrow at a time. Lumberjacks chopped down trees that were in the way while horses and oxen pulled plows to loosen the soil. Fueled by dollar-a-day wages, black coffee, and cold hard want, Irish immigrant laborers suffered swampy, mosquito-infested bogs and braved blasting-powder explosions to move flint-rock escarpments to lay the base of the canal. In 1825, the Erie Canal was completed, under budget and ahead of schedule.
This innovation was groundbreaking in more ways than one. Once people got word of the trade opportunities that were now possible due to the canal, other state legislatures and private companies decided to follow suit. In Ohio, contractors hired some of the same men who dug the Erie Canal to dig a canal across their state to connect the Ohio River with Lake Erie. The 308-mile Ohio & Erie Canal was completed in 1832. A canal across Pennsylvania broke ground the year after the Erie Canal opened, and it came to completion in 1834. Other canals were commissioned that cut across Indiana, Maryland, and New Jersey. All this contributed to an economic boom known as the Market Revolution. Word went out. Middle America was open for business.
Let’s compare these triumphs of American ingenuity and hard work to a current infrastructure project that similarly has the goal of streamlining transportation. In 2008, California approved a plan to construct a high-speed passenger railway across their state. With intended top speeds of 200 miles per hour, this bullet train would transport Californians from LA to San Francisco in less than three hours. Such a development would not only speed up travel, but it would cut pollution and decrease city traffic. The budget for this endeavor was $33 billion, with a projected completion date of 2020. At the time of this writing, it’s now 2026. Over the past 18 years, California has spent $14 billion of its budget and has built zero miles of rail.
How is such a failure possible in a country known for its pioneering innovations and technological triumphs, especially in the realm of transportation? For centuries, our canals, railroads, and interstate highways were the envy of the world. Now, we can’t even get a single mile of track laid, even with tens of billions of dollars and all kinds of time. How were Americans able to build more 200 years ago than we are today, even as technology has ostensibly made progress much easier and potentially faster? Below are three answers to this puzzler:
1. Corruption: Since 2008, $14 billion of taxpayer money has been spent to build nothing in California. That money went somewhere, and it wasn’t where Californians voted for it to go. Obviously, a group (perhaps many groups) of corrupt businessmen and politicians have gotten rich off this grift. Such corruption didn’t happen in the building of the Erie Canal because the politicians and businessmen responsible for its construction actually wanted the canal to be built–not just for their own profit, but for the benefit of the country as a whole. This kind of vision is lacking among those responsible for California’s ghost train.
2. Overregulation: In addition to the billions of dollars that California taxpayers had to shell out for this project, the federal government contributed $7 billion. With that funding came all the federal regulations that inevitably accompany every federal dollar. These roadblocks combined with California’s overwhelming business and environmental regulations have created an ocean of red tape nearly impossible to wade through. Environmental reviews and lawsuits from environmental activist groups have caused delay after delay and turned this project into a log-jam. In contrast, the federal government stayed out of the Erie Canal’s building completely. As a result, New Yorkers were able to survey a stretch of land in the morning, break ground at noon, and have a half-mile dug by sunset. Extrapolate that productivity over eight years and you have an ahead-of-schedule, under-budget, game-changing canal. Such rapid achievement is not possible in our age of overregulation and hyper-litigation.
3. Lack of motivation: When an Irish-American laborer woke up in 1820, he got to work on time and worked his shamrock shaker off because he knew his pay depended on the quality and quantity of his work. Today in California, contractors and construction crews get government payments up front and keep it, whether they get the work done or not. Politicians in 19th-century New York knew that if the Erie Canal failed to be built, the voters would show them the door; unlike in 21st-century California, where voters will gladly keep incumbents in office, no matter how unaccomplished and incompetent they are, as long as they have a D next to their name. In the 1820s, Americans were eager to show the world what they could accomplish. In the 2020s, most Americans would rather live a life of ease than strive to build great things.
While it’s no longer in commercial use, the Erie Canal remains a testament to American ingenuity and the Protestant work ethic. As the canal gently flows across upstate New York’s meadows and cities, its locks and gates remind us of what’s possible when motivated people work together, unencumbered by political nonsense. In the end, three things are necessary for people to build great things:
1. Limited government involvement: When politicians step out of the way and let hardworking people do their jobs, there’s nothing Americans can’t do.
2. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation: For any accomplishment to occur, people require a vision and a desire to make that dream a reality. People also require a tangible reward for their hard work, specifically in the form of money paid after their work is done.
3. Integrity: If anything of value is to be built, the builders must be men and women of integrity who put the good of others over their own selfish gain.
If we can rediscover these three realities, America can indeed build great things again.
Jonathan Kettler is a history teacher at Brandon High School.
