Partisanship, Slavery, and the Demise of the National Road

The National Road was an early, but failed, attempt by the United States Congress to build an interstate highway. The Road, which extended through the newly formed western states, led to fierce debate over two interconnected issues. First, should Congress authorize additional routes that would expand the Road beyond its original western route? Second, should the Road remain under federal control or should it be given to the states through which it ran? I find that partisanship was the most consistent predictor of a legislator’s position on these questions. In addition to partisanship, legislators from districts with a larger slave population were also more likely to oppose the Road. Distributive politics also informed representative’s behavior ad those whose districts were more proximate to the Road were more of these projects. In sum, an examination of the politics of the National Road helps to shed light on the interconnection of partisanship, slavery, and distributive politics in early America and its implications for early American political development.