Restricted Authority

• Author: Daniel M. Mulcare
• Published date: 01 December 2008
• Date: 01 December 2008
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912908324587
• Subject Matter: Mini Symposium: American Political Development through the Lens of Race

Political Research Quarterly

Volume 61 Number 4

December 2008 671-685

© 2008 University of Utah

10.1177/1065912908324587

http://prq.sagepub.com

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671

Restricted Authority

Slavery Politics, Internal Improvements,

and the Limitation of National Administrative Capacity

Daniel M. Mulcare

Salem State College, MA

This article connects slavery politics with the curtailment of antebellum infrastructure policy and the limits placed on

the development of the early American state. Because many Southerners feared that a unified Northern majority could

hinder slavery’s expansion or continued existence, they successfully worked to curtail federal power, even in areas

seemingly unconnected to slavery. They helped to undermine a national improvement system, the federal govern-

ment’s ability to build improvements within state borders, and Congress’s power to levy tolls to fund road repairs. In

addition, Southerners’ efforts to curb certain improvement projects curtailed the federal government’s overall admin-

istrative capacity.

Keywords: race; ethnicity; politics; federalism; intergovernmental relations

The spring of 1830 witnessed great merriment for

those who championed state sovereignty. Along

with President Andrew Jackson’s Maysville Road

veto, which furthered the doctrine that states held pri-

mary authority to charter improvement companies

and build roads and canals within their borders, rep-

resentatives in the House defeated a measure that

would have led to the national government’s con-

struction of a road from Buffalo, New York, to New

Orleans, Louisiana. Of those individuals enthused

that the legislation was voted down, North Carolina’s

Samuel Carson was one of the most jubilant.

Concerned that improvement policies had a direct

“bearing on a question in which the whole southern

portion of the Union was not only deeply but vitally

interested,” he beamed that the result marked “a vic-

tory over a monster which has been lapping the life-

blood of the South.” By negating the nefarious

measure, he and his fellow representatives success-

fully “harpooned the monster, and made his blood

spout gloriously.” Carson also boasted that the fiend

would unlikely be resurrected, contending that “we

have got the monster down—he is struggling and

ready to expire, and I, for one, will keep my foot

upon his neck, and hope to witness his expiring

gasp.” Such a hyperbolic statement underscored a

growing sentiment in slave-holding states: the failure

of nationalist improvement policies constituted a

“victory of the South” precisely because it limited the

national government’s ability to control slavery

(Register of Debates 1830, 804-5; Baker 2002, 456).

Because Southerners’ reaction against measures

like the Buffalo and New Orleans Road contributed to

the limits placed on congressional improvement

authority and helped to curtail the federal govern-

ment’s administrative capacity, it is necessary to

examine the connections between slavery politics,

antebellum infrastructure policy, and the development

of the American state. Specifically, Southerners’ con-

cern that increased federal powers could curb slav-

ery’s extension and potentially lead to its abolition

influenced their efforts to reduce the national govern-

ment’s authority. Southerners’ attempts to protect their

economic system did not exclusively concentrate on

slavery policy; rather, their desire to contract federal

dominion influenced other legislative spheres, such as

internal improvements, that were seemingly unrelated

to the slavery’s existence. Because of their ability to

translate their states’ rights perspective into legislative

practice, Southerners, along with their northern allies,

Daniel M. Mulcare, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Salem

State College; e-mail: mulcad01@gmail.com.

Author’s Note:I would like to thank Julie Novkov, Joe Lowndes,

and Dorian Warren for providing invaluable comments on previ-

ous drafts of this article.