he appoints gallatin as secretary of treasury. back then, the secretary probably did less stuff and they are responsible for now. gallatin comes up with a strategy, as part of his duties. fishman identifies this as a national planning strategy. the idea is that it is an infrastructure plan. gallatin, remember, this is happening in the early 1800s. this was written in 1808. the country is very new. the whole great thing is just being passed, implemented a little bit. we still don't have these western states. there is an undefined nature to what becomes the u.s. west of the mountains. one of the concerns jefferson has, in terms of how are we going to turn this into states, townships, farms, is how we connect these? the appalachian mountains were formidable. you can walk it now. back then, not so much. it was not clear how you would move goods. this was a big concern. he writes this report to jefferson, and this very dry, remarkably dry. but, it is critical. it lays out, in its dryness, a strategy, much like the ordinance, which says

that americans are kind of innately, inherently freedom loving democratic and gallatin egalitarian. we need to recognize the power of the sentiment. his critics offered a more sanguine take on the american creed, the notion that americans subscribed or had an abiding commitment to these notions of freedom and equality and democracy. they noted that myrdal demonstrated great skill in celebrity democracy as he detailed the breadth and scope of america's brand of racial apartheid. they charged that he underestimated the differences between all classes of whites upper-class and working-class whites. and the swedish sociologist treated racism and racist acts as vestiges of the bygone era, marked by pre-rational, pre-democratic, prescientific movements. in other words, the kind of rendered these problems of segregation as something kind of removed from the essence of american sentiment, something kind of not fitting with the american creed. african-american sociologist oliver carton in particular chided him for treating it as something specific to american culture and contended instead th