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region: “The trade of this vast country must be divided between Montreal and New York, and the half of it lost to the United States unless an inland communication can be formed from Lake Erie to the Hudson.”7 Trade would be lost to the United States because it had to rely on the St. Lawrence River in Canada. The Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolution, guaranteed England free navigation of the Mississippi River but made no mention of American rights to navigate the St. Lawrence. Indeed, Americans did not enjoy smooth sailing on that river. Prior to Hawley’s essays, the Senate considered legislation authorizing the president to acquire “by negotiation, or otherwise, as he may deem most expedient,” free navigation along the St. Lawrence.

But the British were not the only impediment to navigation on the St. Lawrence. Boulders, rapids, and, in the winter, ice also hindered that waterway connecting Lake Ontario to the Atlantic. Canadians, equally aware of the vast market to be tapped by connecting the Great Lakes to the sea began to create their own series of canals.8

The Erie Canal also represented a means of further uniting the states. Despite the failure of the Articles of Confederation, which loosely linked the states, many Americans continued to cling to that document’s distrust of a national government. An 1822 article in the influential North American Review said of the idea of an Erie Canal:

It connects the east with the west by a reciprocal and advantageous commerce … and thus a strong but mutual interest will ultimately unite them with a chain which neither the fervors of party nor the mutual jealousy of state will ever be able to destroy.… The union of the states is our only safety.… Remove it, give an absolute independence to every state, and the promise of our youth is blasted, and with it the world’s best hope laid low.

The Great Lakes, if given access to the sea, would become more than lakes; they would become major avenues of commerce. Illustrating this fact on the American map, five states today have boundaries that were adjusted to provide access to the Great Lakes.

The boundary adjustment that most clearly reveals a state reaching for the Great Lakes was the tab at the western end of Pennsylvania’s northern border. But this adjustment cannot be ascribed to Jesse Hawley’s influence, since it occurred in a 1785 agreement between Pennsylvania and New York, more than twenty years before Hawley’s essays appeared. It was, however, after Cadwallader Colden’s report regarding connecting Lake Erie to the Hudson, and the numerous editions of his report published in the mid-eighteenth century indicate the high level of interest in the prospect of such a waterway.

That interest also contributed to Ohio’s boundary adjustment in 1805, though in this case Ohio’s primary goal was to possess the entirety of its western river, the Maumee. That goal could only have been augmented by the fact that the segment of the Maumee originally located in Michigan was its outlet on Lake Erie at Toledo. Congress allowed Ohio to adjust its border with Michigan to include this port. If this irked Michigan, the territory was too sparsely populated for its irk to be heard. But after the Erie Canal was built, its irk grew into fury. The land that had been transferred to Ohio was now so valuable it sparked the Toledo War (see “Stevens T. Mason” in this book).

Border adjustments for Great Lakes access

After the publication of Hawley’s essays, Indiana’s boundary with Michigan was moved north to give it access to the Great Lakes at Gary. Illinois’s boundary with Wisconsin was moved north to give it access at Chicago. And Minnesota’s boundary with Wisconsin was moved east from the Mississippi to the St. Croix River to give Minnesota access to the Great Lakes at Duluth.

While the impact of Hawley’s writing was thus surfacing on the map, Hawley himself went back to being the businessman he used to be. “Notice is hereby given that … the subscribers have been duly appointed as assignees of Jesse Hawley, an insolvent debtor,”