struggle for Western
trade, sent their canals into the Alleghanies toward the Ohio.

It soon developed, however, that Baltimore, both powerful and ambitious,
was seriously handicapped. In order to retain her commanding position as
the metropolis of Western trade she was compelled to resort to a new and
untried method of transportation which marks an era in American history.

It seems plain that the Southern rivals of New York City--Philadelphia,
Baltimore, and Alexandria--had relied for a while on the deterring
effect of a host of critics who warned all men that a canal of such
proportions as the Erie was not practicable, that no State could bear
the financial drain which its construction would involve, that theories
which had proved practical on a small scale would fail in so large an
undertaking, that the canal would be clogged by floods or frozen up for
half of each year, and that commerce would ignore artificial courses
and cling to natural channels. But the answer of the Empire State to her
rivals was the homely but triumphant cry "Low Bridge!"--the warning to
passengers on the decks of canal boats as they approached the numerous
bridges which spanned the route. When this cry passed into a byword
it afforded positive proof that the Erie Canal traffic was firmly
established. The words rang in the counting-houses of Philadelphia
and out and along the Lancaster and the Philadelphia-Pittsburgh
turnpikes--"Low Bridge! Low Bridge!" Pennsylvania had granted, it has
been pointed out, that her Southern neighbors might have their share of
the Ohio Valley trade but maintained that the splendid commerce of the
Great Lakes was her own peculiar heritage. Men of Baltimore who had
dominated the energetic policy of stone-road building in their State
heard this alarming challenge from the North. The echo ran "Low Bridge!"
in the poor decaying locks of the Potomac Company where, according to
the committee once appointed to examine that enterprise, flood-tides
"gave the only navigation that was enjoyed." Were their efforts to keep
the Chesapeake metropolis in the lead to be set at naught?

There could be but one answer to the challenge, and that was to rival
canal with canal. These more southerly States, confronted by the
towering ranges of the Alleghanies to the westward, showed a courage
which was superb, although, as time proved in the case of Maryland, they
might well have taken more counsel of their fears. Pennsylvania acted
sw