What role did significant government involvement have in the emergence and sustainability of a market economy in the early 1800s?

Question

What might have been the consequences for the market economy if the scope of government involvement had been more limited or non-existent during this era?

Answer 1

Answer: An ideal answer will:
1. Offer a thesis statement about the importance of government involvement in the emergence of a market economy.
2. Discuss and evaluate the significance of the construction of the Erie Canal and other improvements in the internal transportation infrastructure financed, at least, in part by state governments and the federal government in helping a market economy emerge after the end of the War of 1812.
3. Discuss how specifically the Erie Canal linked the growing regions of upstate New York, western Pennsylvania and Ohio to the eastern seaboard, particularly New York City, permitting farmers expanded national and international access to markets for their goods.
4. Discuss how the federal post office's contracts with the packet ships, stagecoaches, and canals helped make their road and canal routes profitable.
5. Discuss how federal and state efforts to construct and improve roads, such as the National Road, the Lancaster Road, and the Pennsylvania Road, also helped to increase speed in travel and to provide efficiency in moving goods for sale in a market economy.
6. Discuss and evaluate the effects of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in 1819 and 1824 invalidating state taxation of interstate commerce, state taxation of the Second Bank of the United States, and state interference with private contracts on facilitating the development, financing, and growth of private businesses in the new market economy.
7. Discuss and evaluate the role of the Missouri Compromise in assuring at least some short-term interim political stability that permitted the emerging market economy to sustain itself without being overturned by sectional divisions over slavery.
8. Write a concise and persuasive conclusion evaluating what might have happened if states and the federal government had limited their influence in the market economy emerging during the early 1800s.