Bender, Thomas. "Law, Economy, and Social Values in Jacksonian America: A Maryland Case Study."
Maryland Historical Magazine 71 (Winter 1976): 484-97.
Annotations / Notes: Bender examines the legal and economic assumptions underlying the conflict between the Chesapeake Canal Company and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the 1820s and 1830s to illustrate his argument about the triumph of "modernization" in the period. The conflict pitted the interests of the canal company to protect rights granted to it by its prior charter for westward development against the interests of the railroad in developing a competitive alternative. While the Maryland Court of Appeals applied conservative assumptions in ruling for the former, supporting the principle of monopoly, the state legislature, believing that competition advanced the interests of the state, applied "modernization" assumptions to force a compromise which permitted the railroad to proceed.