Why was the Erie canal a cause of the Civil War?

Question

Does anyone know why?

Answer 1

WPC is definitely headed down the correct path in his assessment. The best book I know on the subject is called "The Artificial River" by Carol Sheriff. I have linked a review below. If you actually want to get in depth, you should be able to find it pretty easily.

Sheriff argues that perhaps more than actually being a cause of the Civil War, it demonstrated major changes occurring in the United States that culminated in the Civil War. The Erie Canal did, in fact, do quite a bit to open up the interior of the county to the traffic in goods. Before the canal it was very difficult to tranship agricultural products, but it opened up broad swaths of the American interior, allowing them to export their surplus products to the urbanizing centers of the seaboard (New York, Boston, Philadelphia, etc). The canal literally brought the market to small town farmers who previously had been locked into very traditional patterns of subsistence agriculture. This is but one manifestation of the market revolution that was occurring in the antebellum North. There was no real analog in the South.

The canal also confirmed the validity of the free labor ideology of the North. Remember that slavery was not actually made illegal in the state of New York until 1827, one full decade after the Erie Canal project was started. In slightly more than three decades after the repudiation of slavery in New York, the belief in free labor would become cemented and absolutely fundamental to the ways in which people thought about themselves. Indeed, the rejection of the slave system became part of their identity.

If you accept the notion (I don't) that one of the fundamental causes of the Civil War was the debate over public works, then the canal could certainly have been a cause. Before the Civil War it was the largest public works project in the history of the United States. To be sure, many of the vocal critics of the use of tax dollars for projects of this nature had a field day with the canal.

Answer 2

I actually live about 100 feet from the Erie Canal. I'd never heard of the canal as a cause of the Civil War before. But, if there is a reason, it would probably be that the Erie Canal helped to open up the interior of the country to trade and development by providing a quicker route from the interior of the nation to the main seaports. The potential for the development of the nation's interior led to more rapid westward expansion, which brought the issue of slavery in the territories, and in new states, to a head. This conflict between slave and non-slave states played a great role in bringing about the Civil War.

But, like I said, I've never heard anyone suggest that the Erie Canal was a cause of the Civil War, so I am just stringing together possibilities.

Answer 3

I have studied the Civil War in college and I never came across this piece of information.

The Erie Canal was obsolete by the time it was finished because the railroad was rapidly taking over as a more efficient means of transportation.

So, I am at a loss about the Erie Canal and the Civil War.

Answer 4

the Erie Canal was the gateway to freedom by the slaves because it leads to canada and the north let them do that but the south got mad that the north would do that. blah blah blah

Answer 5

Because it was so Erie...

How Erie was it?!?!?

It was so Erie, everytime someone swam in the canal, they turned into a _____________.

Answer 6

It wasn't