The Portage Railroad carried canal boats over the mountains in Pennsylvania.
True or False.

Answer:

Explanation:After the war of 1812, it seemed to men like Henry Clay and John Calhoun that the United States needed to find a way to become stronger and more independent.  They and people who shared their beliefs came to be called National Republicans.  By 1819, when a great economic depression struck the nation, it was extremely apparent that the current economic system was not working at all.  Also in 1819, when Missouri petitioned to join the Union as a slave state, officials realized that in order to maintain the union, slavery could not figure into politics.  Building on these ideas, the National Republicans created a system that concentrated on strengthening industry and infrastructure while ignoring issues like slavery . The system that Henry Clay spearheaded was called the American System.  It included a restrictive tariff on trade goods such as glassware, china, shoes, and tailored items.  The purpose of the tariff was to boost United States industry and crafting, which it succeeded in when placed in conjunction with advances in transportation.  In 1816, Congress passed bills to promote internal improvements.  As a result of this, many roads, canals, and railroads were built, including the National Road and the Eire Canal.  These revolutions in transportation made working in more rural areas more plausible as those same rural areas became accessible by road, rail, or canal.  Also because of these advances came large changes in manufacturing and land use. Originally, American crafting was much like European crafting:  it worked within the system of a Master, Journeyman, and Apprentice skill levels.  An apprentice would work for a master, learning the skill and eventually becoming a journeyman, crafters who worked for masters in order to earn enough money to open their own shop and thus become masters themselves.  With the revolution in transportation and the demand for large quantities of low-quality goods, the nature of crafting changed dramatically.  Instead of a few people knowing all of a craft and doing excellent work on it, masters began to hire people to do one small part of the job and pay by the piece.  In the end, they would have a lower quality finished product, but more of it.  These they could sell at a higher profit margin and in larger quantities, thus making far more money.  Land use likewise changed as farming began to fall out of favor and support moved toward industry.  Instrumental in supporting this change in the way land was used was the judiciary.

   During this period, the United States Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Marshall set several precedents and generally supported industrial use of the land, which was a far cry from the former common law idea of how land should be used.  Under common law, the general belief was that land should be used for farming, not industry.  Through several cases, one of which being the Dartmouth College Case in 1819, the court ruled in favor of Dartmouth College, which was selling land to local entrepreneurs.  This case redefined the definition of a corporation and strengthened the idea that the Supreme Court could overturn the rulings of lower courts, a precedent set in 1816 with Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee.