But he was aiding in a losing cause,
for, though Carroll was a man of the past, destiny was working on
the side of the movement which he represented. In the field of
transportation, the initiative of individuals and of corporations
during the next two generations proved superior to that of state or
nation.
In the mean time, Ohio, eager to take advantage of the competition
of these rival routes from New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and
Washington, and wishing to develop the central region of the state,
undertook in 1825 a state system of canals connecting the Ohio with
Lake Erie. [Footnote: Morris, Internal Improvement in Ohio (Am.
Hist. Assoc., Papers, III.), 107; see also McClelland and
Huntington, Ohio Canals.] The Ohio Canal began at Portsmouth and
followed the valleys of the Scioto and the Cuyahoga to Cleveland,
while another canal extended from Cincinnati along the Miami to
Dayton. By branches connecting with the Pennsylvania system, this
net-work of water-ways was intended to give alternative outlets for
the rapidly growing surplus of the state.
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