Abraham Lincoln was a steady proponent of Internal Improvements projects in Illinois. That said, there were problems. The few projects initiated randomly to encourage widespread district support resulted in a hodgepodge of disconnected rail lines, many of which ran only a few miles to nowhere in particular. Most projects simply disappeared.
The one notable exception was the Illinois and Michigan Canal. Lincoln had earlier proposed a Beardstown and Sangamon Canal, which was authorized but later abandoned when an engineering survey determined the cost to be at least four times the initial estimate. Lincoln again was the one who proposed the Illinois and Michigan canal bill in the state legislature, which passed by a 40–12 vote. As the financial crisis wiped out the possibility of more and more improvement projects, Lincoln narrowed in his focus to insist the Illinois and Michigan Canal be completed. He saw that canal as a vital cog in the machinery of commerce.
Lincoln realized much of the reason British industrialization was up to a century ahead of other western nations was their scientific tradition, a Protestant work ethic, a high degree of religious tolerance, ample supplies of coal, and efficient transportation networks of roads and canals. He saw the same dynamic with the Erie Canal, which ran for 363 miles from the upper Hudson River in Albany, New York, to Lake Erie. Now goods from Europe and New England could enter New York Harbor, travel up the Hudson River, and be transported across New York by a navigable canal rather than having to offload goods into small wagons prone to weather-induced delays. This ease of transportation helped New York become a hub of domestic and international commerce. It also facilitated the growth of central and northern Illinois, in particular Chicago, which grew from a small hamlet of two thousand to a thriving metropolis.
The Erie Canal was completed in 1825 under the direction of New York Governor DeWitt Clinton. Lincoln later told his close friend Joshua Speed that it was “his highest ambition to be the DeWitt Clinton of Illinois.” The soon-to-be governor of New York, William Seward, also favored internal improvements for his state and engineered development of the Genesee Valley Canal. Lincoln knew that the Erie Canal project had been ridiculed as “Clinton’s Folly,” but he understood the completed canal had been a huge success, carrying vast amounts of passenger and freight traffic and initiating an economic boom for the state. Lincoln saw the Illinois and Michigan Canal as accomplishing the same for Illinois.
The Illinois and Michigan Canal would run from Chicago to LaSalle, where it would connect via the Illinois River through to the Mississippi River. With the Erie Canal already bringing East Coast commerce into the Great Lakes, the new canal would effectively open up all of the northeast trade down the Mississippi to New Orleans. Lincoln believed the canal would stimulate substantial economic growth in Illinois as businesses grew in townships along the route and more settlers moved into the improved western economy. It would turn out to be a stimulus for the rapid growth of Chicago.
Lincoln approved the hiring of William Gooding, who had previously worked on the Erie Canal, to be chief engineer on the Illinois and Michigan. After his state legislative career ended, Lincoln went on to serve as a commissioner for the canal, from which perch he would deal with claims from businessmen and citizenry for many years. Mismanagement almost killed the canal, just as it was derailing other internal improvements in the state, but unlike other projects, the Illinois and Michigan Canal became a Lincoln success story. Construction began in 1836 and, after a hiatus caused by the financial panic of 1837, was completed in 1848, just in time for Lincoln to travel the canal on his way home after visiting Niagara Falls. Eventually sixty feet wide with towpaths on each edge for mules to pull barges through the canal, it provided a vital infrastructure for the economic growth of the region until it was replaced by the Illinois Waterway in 1933.
[Map photo from WikiMedia Commons; text adapted from Lincoln: The Fire of Genius]
Coming in February 2026: Unable to Escape This Toil
Available now – Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.
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David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.
His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.
Abraham Lincoln was always interested in technology, so when the Civil War arrived as soon as he was inaugurated, he worked hard to convince the usually conservative military to employ the latest technological advances. One such advance caused him to look to the skies to give every advantage to Union troops. That was the use of balloons in war.
As 2024 comes to an end, it’s time to recap how it all went in the writer’s life. At least for this one writer. Once again, it was a busy year, with some residual events related to Lincoln: The Fire of Genius, some new obligations, and some really big news (really!). You can check out my other year-end posts by reading about 
How time flies. The year 2024 is almost over and I think I’ve finished accumulated new books for the year, to it’s time for my annual Abraham Lincoln book acquisitions post. As you’ll quickly see, my goal to reduce the number of books I buy has been relatively successful-the total number of books acquired is definitely fewer-coming in at 25 new acquisitions. Reducing the total number of books? Not so successful. You can read about past years acquisitions by 
On this date, December 11, 1862, Abraham Lincoln transmitted to the U.S. Senate his response to their request that he “furnish the Senate with all information in his possession touching the late Indian barbarities in the State of Minnesota, and also the evidence in his possession upon which some of the principal actors and head men were tried and condemned to death.”
Back in the days when inciting an insurrection against the government was considered disqualifying, on December 2, 1859, abolitionist John Brown was hanged.
Abraham Lincoln’s “few appropriate remarks” at Gettysburg on November 19, 1863, which we now know as the Gettysburg Address (i.e., “Four score and seven years ago today…”) is a major milestone in Lincoln’s historical legacy. Less remembered is that Lincoln was weak and dizzy as he rose to speak, with the symptoms intensifying on the train back to Washington. Back pains developed, and by the fourth day of being bedridden he experienced a scarlet rash, which soon became vesicular. Lincoln had virus-induced smallpox, or at least a less virulent form called variola or varioloid. Over the next three weeks, lesions appeared and worsened, finally drying and peeling. He remained in bed recovering for weeks.
No doubt everyone in the Lincoln world has heard repeatedly about the document we’ve all come to know as the “blind memorandum.” But what about the “reveal party” when Lincoln showed his cabinet what he had written? That event happened on November 11, 1864.
“I am not an accomplished lawyer,” Lincoln wrote in 1850 notes for a law lecture. Continuing in this unpretentious vein, he noted, “I find quite as much material for a lecture in those points wherein I have failed, as in those wherein I have been moderately successful.”
During the U.S. Civil War, there were some who advised Abraham Lincoln to postpone the 1864 election. He refused to do so, saying:
