They were met by Madison’s veto. This act, although at first it seemed to affect most the interests of New York, was in reality injurious only to the Southern States. Had the government lent its aid to the Erie Canal, it must have assisted similar schemes elsewhere, and in the end could hardly have refused to carry out Gallatin’s plan of constructing canals from the Chesapeake to the Ohio, and from the Santee to the Tennessee River. The veto disappointed New York only for the moment, but was fatal to Southern hopes. After the first shock of discouragement, the New York legislature determined to persevere, and began the work without assistance. The legislature of Pennsylvania at the same time appropriated half a million dollars for roads and canals, and for improvements of river navigation, devoting nearly one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to aid the turnpike-road to Pittsburg. The fund established by the State of Ohio, as a condition of its admission to the Union, had in 1816 produced means to construct the National or Cumberland Road to the hundred and thirteenth mile. The indifference to internal improvements which had been so marked a popular trait in 1800, gave place to universal interest and activity in 1816; but the Middle States were far in advance of the Eastern and Southern in opening communications with the West; and New York, owing in no small degree to the veto, could already foresee the time when it would wrest from Pennsylvania the supply of the valley of the Ohio, while expanding new tributary territory to an indefinite extent along the Lakes. When Madison retired from the Presidency, the limits of civilization, though rapidly advancing, were still marked by the Indian boundary, which extended from the western end of Lake Erie across Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Southwestern territory. Only weak and helpless tribes remained east of the Mississippi, waiting until the whites should require the surrender of their lands; but the whites, already occupying land far in advance of their needs, could not yet take the whole. Not until 1826 were the Indian titles generally extinguished throughout Indiana. The military work was done, and the short space of sixteen years had practically accomplished the settlement of the whole country as far as the Mississippi; but another generation was needed in order to take what these sixteen years had won.