whose land had already been pledged to the road. Then came another moment when the great work paused and the original ambition of its friends was at hazard.
In 1820 Congress appropriated one hundred and forty-one thousand dollars for completing the road from Washington, Pennsylvania to Wheeling. In the same year ten thousand dollars was appropriated for laying out the road between Wheeling, Virginia and a point on the left bank of the Mississippi River, between St. Louis and the mouth of the Illinois River. For four years the fate of the road west of the Ohio hung in the balance, during which time the road was menaced by the specter of unconstitutionality, already mentioned. But on the third day of March, 1825, a bill was passed by Congress appropriating one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for building the road to Zanesville, Ohio, and the extension of the surveys to the permanent seat of government in Missouri, to pass by the seats of government of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.[1] Two years later, one hundred and seventy thousand dollars
- ↑ See Appropriation No. 14, in Appendix A.
