When the people of British North America threw off their colonial
bonds, they sought more than freedom from bad government: most of
the founding generation also desired the freedom to create and
enjoy good, popular, responsive government. This book traces the
central issue on which early Americans pinned their hopes for
positive government action--internal improvement.
The nation's early republican governments undertook a wide range of
internal improvement projects meant to assure Americans' security,
prosperity, and enlightenment--from the building of roads, canals,
and bridges to the establishment of universities and libraries. But
competitive struggles eventually undermined the interstate and
interregional cooperation required, and the public soured on the
internal improvement movement. Jacksonian politicians seized this
opportunity to promote a more libertarian political philosophy in
place of activist, positive republicanism. By the 1850s, the United
States had turned toward a laissez-faire system of policy that,
ironically, guaranteed more freedom for capitalists and
entrepreneurs than ever envisioned in the founders' revolutionary
republicanism.