Zachary Callen’s book examines how federalism influenced American state formation and railroad infrastructure. While Callen is interested in studying these questions in the American political context, however, the book addresses broad questions that will interest anyone studying the state’s role in economic development, federalism, and state formation. Instead of examining how powerful economic groups influenced state formation, he is specifically interested in “how federalism interacted with American rail development to transmit more authority for infrastructure development to the federal government” (p. 9).
While federalism is often studied as a method for decentralizing policy decisions, Callen argues that federalism led to a form of policy learning whereby initial state-level policy failures led to greater political centralization. He does not focus on the ways in which economic crises, war, or external shocks influenced American state formation, but instead argues that state-level political actors were a driving force in transferring greater power to the federal government. State-level political actors turned to the federal government after recognizing their failure to successfully promote railroad development, as the “more capable” federal government’s powers were seen as an effective alternative to the fractured interests and policies that existed at the state level (p. 13).
Railroads and American Political Development has two principal empirical sections. The first (Chapters 2–4) examines how state governments conducted initial railroad development but interstate economic competition undermined construction of a national rail system. These chapters rely on quantitative analysis of data sets, many of which Callen created, and examine such measures as the amount of time it took to travel between different areas of the country as proxies for railroad integration. The second section (Chapters 5–8) examines federalism and the separation of powers in order to explain why the federal government intervened to promote the railroads at specific points in time. This second section includes qualitative analyses of presidential attitudes toward infrastructure spending, and discusses how federalism alters local policies in ways that contributed to the centralization of political authority.
After an introduction discussing federalism and American state formation, Chapter 2 argues that state governments’ promotional efforts often resulted in mismatched and fragmented policies that frustrated the emergence of a national rail policy. Local railroad promotion was not a consequence of policy diffusion but was driven by the availability of financial resources and the transit needs of the state (p. 29). Chapter 2 finds that while there were some successes, state-level rail promotion was rarely successful at expanding railroad networks. Callen then generalizes, suggesting that state-level failures ensured that “federal actions would become necessary” (p. 49).
Chapter 3 examines the specific strategies used by states when deciding how to support railroads, and argues that states sought to connect their markets to other states that were economically dissimilar. While this aided individual states’ economic interests, the strategy limited “the effectiveness of local contributions to national political development” (p. 57). Callen argues that this failure influenced the federal statebuilding process, as state-level lack of coordination led state actors to demand federal involvement in railroad promotion.
Although Chapter 3 carefully considers a range of variables related to railroad development, such as the number of rail lines crossing state boarders and the track gauge compatibility between states, it is difficult to determine the degree of influence that governments had over these aspects of railroad development from the influence of other factors, such as whether they were simply the result of railroads pursuing profit opportunities. As with subsequent sections, the quantitative analyses often must rely on measures that may not fully capture the variables of interest.
While Callen is focused on the American railroad industry and its implications for American state formation, Chapter 4 conducts a very interesting comparative analysis of the American, British, and French railroad networks. This chapter examines how effective each country was in linking its capital to its hinterlands. Callen argues that the American rail system was a compromise between the market-oriented British experience and the heavily centralized French state’s role in railroad development, and suggests that this position was influenced by features, including federalism, that were specific to the American experience.
Although this chapter is really quite interesting, some may question the quantitative measures used to assess each rail system. Callen compares each country’s rail system by measuring the amount of time it took to travel from various areas of each country to its capital. While this makes sense for London and Paris, it is not clear whether measuring travel time to Washington, DC, is meaningful, especially given the economic importance of American cities like Chicago and New York. Furthermore, if we are interested in assessing the comparative efficiency of different countries’ railroad networks, it would have been helpful to examine the costs of each country’s railroad system. If the United Kingdom and France had created rail systems at three times the cost of the American railroads, or if the per-mile cost of tickets were wildly different, it would be easier to assess each government’s promotional efforts.
Chapter 5 examines state actors’ efforts to use federal aid to develop railroads. This chapter examines efforts by states like Illinois to create congressional coalitions to secure land grants for railroads, and demonstrates that these coalitions were successful when they managed to enlist multiple sectional interests to support railroad aid. One of the most interesting elements of this chapter is how it links economic development and congressional coalition formation to the issue of slavery. Instead of finding southern states homogenously opposed to federal action, Callen demonstrates that southern support was critical for federal railroad aid to western states. Indeed, as different sectional interests pursued their goals in railroad development, this conflict became a means of allying southern and western sectional interests against northeastern industrial interests, which were reluctant to support aid for infrastructure they no longer needed.
Chapter 6 is a very interesting examination of presidents’ evolving views of the constitutional issues surrounding federal involvement in internal improvements. While active presidential policymaking has become a normal feature of American politics, Callen documents extensive presidential reluctance to promote internal improvements during the antebellum period. After closely documenting the reluctance of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and Andrew Jackson to enlist federal power to support infrastructure projects, Callen argues that Millard Fillmore represented a shift in presidential views of internal improvements. Although many scholars of American political development focus on cases of successful state development, this chapter offers a fascinating documentation of the constitutional limits to federal aid for internal improvements.
Chapters 7 and 8 examine how federal land grants influenced railroad development and expanded federal state authority. Callen argues that the states that were most successful in securing land grants were those lacking developed transportation infrastructure. Aside from facilitating railroad development, the expansion of transportation infrastructure also expanded federal authority, facilitating the transportation of troops and mail delivery. While the author demonstrates the characteristics of states that benefited from land grants, it is less clear how land grants influenced state power. While transcontinental postal delivery and troop transportation were novel, it is unclear whether these constituted new forms of state power, or if they were qualitatively as important as other transformations that were occurring in state authority during this period. At times, this chapter seems to suggest that the overall size of government was influenced by railroad expansion (pp. 194–95), but the causal relationships between these trends are not clearly isolated and they remain fairly speculative.
Aside from these specific issues, the largest counterfactual question that remains somewhat unresolved involves Callen’s treatment of state-level aid for railroads. At times, he treats state governments’ failure to develop a national rail network as prima facie evidence of a policy failure necessitating federal action. However, it is not clear that state governments ever sought to create a national railroad network, or that such a network was desirable prior to the Civil War. As Callen recognizes, state governments opposed policies that could have aided rival states that were their economic competitors (p. 87), indicating that states’ failure to develop a national rail network was the desired outcome for state governments reluctant to aid rivals states and sections. If this is true, however, it undermines the case that federal action was necessitated by state-level policy failures. Regardless, Railroads and American Political Development is a valuable contribution to our understanding of the ways in which federalism influenced railroad expansion and broader patterns in American political development.
