The Historic National Road … America’s road to revolution

On March 29, 1806, when President Jefferson signed into law an act authorizing money from the sale of lands in Ohio to build a road from Cumberland to the Ohio Territory, he put to rest an argument that would forever change this country.
In his book, “To Provide for the General Welfare – A History of the Federal Spending Power,” Theodore Sky, currently a lecturer at The Catholic University of America School of Law, says the following of Thomas Jefferson:
“The Jefferson presidency suggests that, even for a chief executive who sincerely emphasized the limited role of the federal government and a strict construction of Article, Section 8 of the Constitution, federal encouragement for internal improvements was difficult to resist despite the absence of an appropriate constitutional amendment… Jefferson signed and administered the Cumberland Road legislation. No amendment preceded its enactment, just as no amendment accompanied the Senate ratification of the Louisiana Purchase treaty.”
It further reads: …Jefferson signed the Cumberland Road measure, thereby enacting into law the Act of March 29, 1806. It is not entirely clear how the president that day squared his approval of the Cumberland Road Legislation with his oft-repeated admonition that federal assistance for internal improvement projects, including roads, must be preceded by an appropriate constitutional amendment.”
From the time the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1789, the fundamental role of government had been questioned and challenged by people across the nation. The strict constructionists believed in the independence and autonomy of each state and fought against any federal involvement in interstate commerce another issues. The federalists, however, took a much broader view of the country, where the states were truly united and where federal involvement was critical in maintaining the political and economic cohesiveness of the new nation.
The debate over the construction of a “National Road” represented the very first challenge to the Constitution, with the eventual outcome establishing a philosophy of government that is now at the core of our country’s collective values. The federal programs that impact our lives every day, including Social Security, Medicare, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Department of Education, all exist because of a debate that occurred over a little patch of road in southwestern Pennsylvania more than 200 years ago.