Internal Improvements. One of the oldest political arguments in the United States was over the government's role in fostering commerce and building internal improvements in the West. As the territory called the West grew by leaps and bounds in the first half of the nineteenth century, the argument had enormous political and economic consequences. Henry Clay's American System represented one vision of cooperation between government legislation and privately owned capital in developing the West. Other politicians, notably those allied with Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, opposed any role for the federal government in promoting economic development. Some states, well aware of the political stalemate in Washington, threw the power of local governments into promoting growth. New York, for example, financed the building of the Erie Canal in the early 1820s without federal assistance. The canal was a stupendous success—by the...