Gallatin said in his report that the only work undertaken by the United States at their sole expense, and to which the consent of the States had been obtained, was the road from Cumberland to Brownsville. Further appropriations for that object were constitutional. As to other projects, he thought the National Government was empowered to do nothing more at present than to assist those undertaken by giving them loans or subscribing to their stock. Also the Federal engineers might be employed in making surveys for proposed improvements. It seems strange, in the light of modern Government initiative, to see statesmen blocked in a desired undertaking by constitutional quibbling. Having embarked in the work in the case of military and post-roads and in the Cumberland Road, they hesitated to go on. [Illustration: WRITTEN LAW OF THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORY. A law passed at Vincennes, now in Indiana, against gambling. In the absence of printing-presses it is said the judges were accustomed to nail up copies of the laws on trees for the information of the public.] This Cumberland National Turnpike is an excellent example of the constant menace to individualism and the irresistible tendency toward unionism resulting from the advance of population, the topography of the country, and the cupidity of the people. The portage across the watershed from the streams of the Atlantic plain to those of the Ohio valley had been a matter of concern from colonial times. Artificial waterways were impossible from lack of water-supply on the high levels. The Union inherited this problem when the policy of creating national Territories out of the back lands was inaugurated. Lack of funds prevented any extensive attempt to solve the problem. The State of Ohio was the first to be created out of the public domain. The unsold public lands lying within its boundaries remained in the possession of the United States, although sovereignty over them passed to the State. By an agreement between the two powers, the State refrained from taxing the lands for five years, in return for which the Federal Government promised to spend five per cent, of the proceeds of the land sales within the State in the construction of public roads. A portion of this was to be devoted to building a highway over the Allegheny Mountains to the State. Strict-construction scruples were satisfied by securing the consent of the States through which the road was to be built.