Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation (2005) by Peter L. Bernstein

The Erie Canal was the first “grand project” of the American republic, paving the way for other monumental national engineering achievements, from the transcontinental railroad and the Panama Canal to the Manhattan Project and Apollo mission. Peter Bernstein, a writer known more for his skill in making financial and monetary issues comprehensible to the mass market, demonstrates in “Wedding the Waters” that the Erie Canal was every bit as awe-inspiring in its time as any of these later achievements.

The motivation for building a canal that linked the eastern seaboard states with the advancing American empire in the west beyond the Appalachian range was clear to many in the early days of the republic, George Washington foremost among them (who preferred the Potomac). It was more than simply facilitating the movement of trade goods – finished products flowing west and raw materials flowing east – but was necessary as an instrument to ensure national unity and cohesion, the very same argument that later propelled forward the idea of a transcontinental railroad.

If finding a good reason for a canal was simple, the prospect of constructing it was anything but. For over a decade the route was surveyed multiple times and estimates were run and re-run and then run again. That such a colossal undertaking was practicable and affordable struck many early canal opponents as utter nonsense. “The whole thing just seemed too good to be true,” the author notes. Indeed, to undertake such a project – building a canal 375 miles long when the world record at the time was barely over 100 miles, and through wild, unbroken virgin forest, all led by men with little education and experience in the field – seemed risible to many.

While several men played key roles in overcoming those doubts and objections, Bernstein singles out one man as the true father of the Erie Canal: De Witt Clinton. He is, quite unabashedly, Bernstein’s “hero protagonist of this story.” DWC, as he was known, was an effective New York politician from a distinguished family, but his personal style – aloof, supercilious, and irascible with friends and enemies alike – alienated him from many, which the author almost seems to lament. To Bernstein, Clinton is a giant, a genius, “this amazing man, his mind, his erudition and his eloquence…” he waxes reverently.

The author frequently notes the unfortunate “contrast between the divisive behavior of the politicians and the extraordinary achievements of the engineers is the most remarkable feature of the whole story of the Erie Canal.” The men who built the canal had little to no experience and nothing but shovels, picks and horses with which to work. Their pluck and ingenuity was awe-inspiring. Meanwhile, progress on the canal jerked along in fits and starts owing mainly to political jealousy and intrigue, mainly led by the Tammany Hall “Bucktails” whose primary goal in life was to destroy the political career of Bernstein’s idol, De Witt Clinton.

When the canal opened in 1825 it was immediately and stupendously successful. Not only did it cut the travel time from Albany to Buffalo from just over a month to less than week, it dropped the cost of transportation by an order of magnitude, and it was highly profitable from the start. For over half a century, before the railroads eclipsed it, the Erie Canal generated “$121 million in toll revenue, more than quadruple its operating costs.” Moreover, the loans/bonds required to build the canal, which incidentally came exclusively from New York state as the federal government and neighboring states refused any financial assistance, was paid in full a mere decade after completion.

Just how dramatic an impact did the canal have on the American economy? While it may be impossible to accurately assess, Bernstein notes that the quarter century before the canal was completed (1800-1825) the country had a real GDP growth rate of 2.8%, with sharp peaks and valleys during that time. Meanwhile, from 1825-1850 the growth rate jumped to 4.6%, and at a rather steady growth at that. The economic influence was similar to the later introduction of the railroads and then intermodal shipping. Suddenly goods of all kinds could move at a speed and cost efficiency previously unimaginable. “This narrow ribbon of ditch,” Bernstein writes, “less than 375 miles long, provided the spark, the flashpoint, and inspiration for a burst of progress in America that would eventually coin the buzzwords of the early twenty-first century: economic growth, urbanization, national unity, globalization, networking, and technological innovation.”

Finally, Bernstein makes the remarkable but plausible assertion that the Erie Canal was the indirect yet essential impetus behind the Industrial Revolution in England. It short, he argues, it was the inexhaustible supply of grain and other crops from the vast American west made available for export because of the Erie Canal that enabled Richard Cobden and John Bright to win the repeal of the protectionist Corn Laws in 1846. At once food prices dropped by a third, thanks to free trade with the US, which simultaneously put downward pressure on factory wages while discouraging farming as commodity priced dropped, further encouraging factories to hire and young men to leave the countryside for the city.

In closing, it is difficult to refute the remarks of William L. Stone, the official chronicler of the project, who wrote proudly and justifiably in 1825 at the time of the wedding of the waters: “They have built the longest canal in the world in the least time, with the least experience, for the least money, and to the greatest public benefit.”