Nevertheless,
that highway was rapidly going to destruction, and a counter
project, ultimately successful, was already initiated for
relinquishing the road to the states through which it passed.
[Footnote: Young, Cumberland Road, chap. vii.; Hulbert, Historic
Highways, X.]
Over two and a third million dollars was appropriated for roads and
harbors during the administration of John Quincy Adams, as against
about one million during the administrations of all of his
predecessors combined. Acting on the line of least constitutional
resistance opened by Monroe, when he admitted the right of
appropriation for internal improvements, though not the right of
construction or jurisdiction, extensive appropriations were made for
roads and canals and for harbors on the Great Lakes and the
Atlantic. Far from accepting Adams's ideal of a scientific general
system irrespective of local or party interests, districts combined
with one another for local favors, corporations eagerly sought
subscriptions for their canal stock, and the rival political parties
bid against each other for the support of states which asked federal
aid for their roads and canals.
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