Indeed!
George Washington invested in canals to take the produce of the Northwest Territories to Virginia ports. But the establishment slave-holders didn’t see any need for canals since it wouldn’t benefit them so nothing came of it.
Would have never been a civil war if they had. The South would have been able to compete economically.
Socialism ruins everything.
Trains would have eventually killed the canals but trains didn’t really hit their stride till immediately following the civil war when our attention returned to westward expansion.