Collection of Mark R . Shenkman
Although the constitution of the Confederate States of America explicitly prohibited spending on “ internal improvements ,” Confederate currency — such as this $ 100 note from 1862 — often bore the images of railroads and other infrastructure projects . and funding the government became significant political issues ,” said Christopher Graham , curator of exhibits at the American Civil War Museum in Richmond , Virginia . “ Debates over ‘ internal improvements ’ were important factors in decades leading up to the Civil War .”
Graham noted in particular the Maysville Road controversy of 1830 . Jackson vetoed a bill by which the government would have purchased stock in a company building a road from Lexington , Kentucky to Maysville , on the Ohio River .
There were many arguments for and against — most practical , some purely legalistic . Jackson ’ s decision was that the road was entirely within one state , so it was purely a local matter . He dismissed arguments that it was to be part of a larger system of roads being developed throughout what was then the western frontier , and thus of benefit to the nation as a whole .
“ For the longest time it was widely understood that the central government had some responsibility for shipping ,” said Graham . “ Over time , what people saw as counting for internal improvements expanded to things like swamp drainage and canals . Both political parties , the Democrats and the Whigs , competed to support internal improvements . But by the end of the 1850s the more conservative ones [ mostly Democrats but also some southern Whigs ] had come to consider spending on internal improvements wildly out of control and corrupt . They were probably not wrong .”
At that point centrifugal forces had begun to take over politics . There were still some Jeffersonian conservatives who favored a weak central government . At the same time the Republican party formed with strong advocacy for free labor over slave labor , and for internal improvements . Some of Abraham Lincoln ’ s earliest forays into politics were to support river clearance for better navigation and commerce . His early law career was also heavily involved with steamboats and railroads .
The reactionary , or at least minimalist views on infrastructure spending coalesced in the Confederacy . Article I Section 8 of the US Constitution gives the federal government the right “ to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations , and among the several States , and with the Indian Tribes ,” and leaves it at that .
Article I Section 8 ( 3 ) of the Confederate constitution states the exact same right to regulate commerce and then adds explicitly , “ but neither this , nor any other clause contained in the constitution , shall ever be construed to delegate the power to Congress to appropriate money for any internal improvement intended to facilitate commerce .”
An exception was given for aids to navigation , but it was specified that those shall be paid for by “ duties … laid on the navigation facilitated thereby .”
Graham made an important clarification . “ It is not true that Confederates were preternaturally opposed to federal power . They supported the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 .” They were also not categorically opposed to industry and infrastructure . As Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce , Jefferson Davis advocated for a transcontinental railroad taking a southern route , and he facilitated the Gadsden Purchase in 1853 to help enable that .
Indeed , there were grandiose dreams of a vast western empire , as detailed in the book Colossal Ambitions : Confederate Planning for a Post – Civil War World , by
Adrian Brettle , a member of the faculty at Arizona State University .
“ What comes back over and over in the Confederate constitution ,” said Brettle , “ is that you can ’ t separate finance from ideology . The federal government supporting infrastructure projects was anathema because it was supporting one section or interest over another .”
There was also a sense of the natural order of things versus “ artificial impositions ,” Brettle explained . That was not just an entitled racial view but also a geographic one . “ There was a sense in the South that , ‘ we have a vast natural river system so we don ’ t need internal improvements like the unnatural North .’ The Mississippi River versus the Erie Canal . The Confederates also loved the idea of private enterprise . The states would lead and the federal government would follow .”
As early as 1862 , and more so in the next few years , the realities of war started to impose practical changes on that ideology . “ We start to see things like subsidies that are inconsistent with the sanctimonious constitutional prohibition on internal improvements . Given what happened in the war , it seemed Confederate leaders were easy about saying one thing and doing another ,” said Brettle .
Ironically , the same progressive versus reactionary divisions emerged even within the Confederacy . Some hoped to restore the status quo ante bellum . Others , he noted , dreamed of a vast inland empire . “ They kept oscillating between dreaming and planning , but they could reconcile the paradox for anything that would secure their independence and put their slave economy at the center of world commerce . That was the highest goal .”
26 FINANCIAL HISTORY | Summer 2021 | www . MoAF . org