Recently the History Channel has been running an intriguing series called America: The Story of Us. What is so striking -- and commented upon
by a mix of accomplished Americans such as Donald Trump -- is the deeply American character trait which surfaced early in our history. A
trait that virtually leaps from the screen as events such as the building of the Erie Canal are described.
The Erie Canal, the dream of entrepreneur Joseph Hawley and New York Governor Clinton, was inspired by the Hudson River, which stretched from
New York Harbor all the way straight up to Northern New York. Possessing a vision of "manifest destiny," realizing that if a canal connected
the Hudson to Lake Erie in the West products could be moved not only across America but the world, Clinton persisted with a vision that was
viewed with skepticism even by the usually visionary Thomas Jefferson. Conceived in 1808, after 17 years of hacking and gunpowdering
wilderness and sheer rock, the Canal was opened, the greatest engineering marvel of its day. It changed America -- and by extension the
world.
But the doing of it? The nitty-gritty of constructing a 363-mile long canal through the wilderness? Impossibly and dangerously difficult.
Trees had to be not just cut but uprooted -- en masse. There was the bitter cold of winter and the sweltering heat of summer. Mules, along
with oxen the primary transportation in clearing out tree stumps and debris, could be stubborn. There was not a single civil engineer in the
United States. Not one. How does one build complicated canal locks without an engineer? And then there were the solid, towering walls of
limestone rock that had to be blasted through. Not to mention the volatile gunpowder that did the blasting. Mud. Swamp. Insects. Over 1,000
Canal workers died. That's one thousand human souls lost to this determined vision of carving a canal out of the wilderness. Today, a
proposal like this -- and the hardships involved -- would have gotten nowhere with Luddites.