In desperation, her far-sighted
and courageous merchants inaugurated the plan of a railroad across
the mountains to the Ohio, grasping the idea that as the canal had
shown its superiority over the turnpike, so this new device would
win the day over the canal. In 1827 and 1828 charters for the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad were granted by Maryland, Virginia, and
Pennsylvania.
At Washington, on July 4, 1828, President Adams stripped off his
coat, amid the cheers of the crowd, and thrust the spade into the
ground in signal of the beginning of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal;
but on the same day a rival celebration was in progress at
Baltimore, where the venerable signer of the Declaration of
Independence, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, placed the foundation-
stone to commemorate the commencement of the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad, first of the iron bonds between the east and the west.
When Adams thus won the plaudits of the people for his evidence of
ability to break the conventions of polite society and use a
laborer's tool, it was perhaps the only time that he and democracy
came into sympathetic touch.
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