Cyclopædia of Political Science, Political Economy, and the Political History of the United States

CUMBERLAND ROAD

CUMBERLAND ROAD (IN U. S. HISTORY). March 29, 1806, a bill was passed which authorized the president to appoint three commissioners to lay out a public road from Cumberland, on the Potomac, to the river Ohio, and appropriated $30,000 for expenses. As the maintenance of the road involved the doubtful question of the right of the government to appropriate money for internal improvements, every new appropriation met fresh opposition, and president Monroe, May 4, 1822, vetoed the yearly bill to repair the Cumberland road because of his belief that "congress does not possess the power under the constitution to pass such a law," although three bills to the same effect had already become law under his administration. The road was carried as far as Illinois in 1838, when its further progress was superseded by railroads, the last act in its favor being passed May 25, 1838. Up to that time the total amount appropriated by all the acts for the extension and repair of the road was $6,821,246. (See INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS..)

—See 2-5 Stat. at Large (1806-38), the various acts appropriating money for Cumberland road (60 in number); 3-13 Benton's Debates of Congress; Harper's Magazine, Nov. 1879, Art. The Old National Pike.

A. J.