As for access to the sea, the Great Lakes and the Erie Canal certainly provided that -- the latter paid for by everyone.
Which did the people in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys no good. Or can't you read a map?
They had the same title everybody else did -- and they didn't steal anything. Unless you deem eminent domain and tax collection to be "stealing".
[You, quoting me] As for access to the sea, the Great Lakes and the Erie Canal certainly provided that -- the latter paid for by everyone.
Which did the people in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys no good. Or can't you read a map?
I'm probably better at it than you are, pal. And if you look closely, you'll notice a blue line on the map, denoting the canal that connects the Chicago River to a tributary of the Mississippi River system: the Des Plaines River rises near the small town of Bristol, Wisconsin and falls into the Illinois River at Joliet; the Illinois in turn falls into the Mississippi a few miles upriver of St. Louis. The Chicago River used to be the outfall of Lake Michigan, before isostatic rebound began rearranging some of the northern rivers. Even before the canal was dug, the overland portage from the Chicago to the Des Plaines amounted to all of about six miles along Cermak Road through Cicero and Berwyn.
That's assuming that nobody could hack the 20-mile portage from the upper Allegheny River and the French River to the town of Erie, on the lake.