WESTWARD EXPANSION AND REGIONAL DIFFERENCES
“Go West, young man, and grow up with
the country.”
Newspaper editor Horace Greeley, 1851
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY
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ed a national system of roads and canals to link them with Eastern cit- ies and ports, and to open frontier lands for settlement . However, they were unsuccessful in pressing their demands for a federal role in inter- nal improvement because of oppo- sition from New England and the South . Roads and canals remained the province of the states until the passage of the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916 .
The position of the federal gov- ernment at this time was greatly strengthened by several Supreme Court decisions . A committed Fed- eralist, John Marshall of Virginia be- came chief justice in 1801 and held office until his death in 1835 . The court — weak before his adminis- tration — was transformed into a powerful tribunal, occupying a po- sition co-equal to the Congress and the president . In a succession of his- toric decisions, Marshall established the power of the Supreme Court and strengthened the national govern- ment .
Marshall was the first in a long line of Supreme Court justices whose decisions have molded the meaning and application of the Constitu- tion . When he finished his long ser- vice, the court had decided nearly 50 cases clearly involving constitu- tional issues . In one of Marshall’s most famous opinions — Marbury v. Madison (1803) — he decisively established the right of the Supreme Court to review the constitution- ality of any law of Congress or of a state legislature . In McCulloch v.
Maryland (1819), he boldly upheld the Hamiltonian theory that the Constitution by implication gives the government powers beyond those expressly stated .