A January 2, 1822, House Report from the Committee on Roads and Canals noted that Virginia, in 1816, enacted a law, creating a board of public works, with power to appoint engineers and surveyors, and, also, creating a fund, to be applied exclusively to the rendering navigable, and uniting by canals, the principal rivers, and more intimately connecting, by means of public highways, the different parts of the commonwealth.
The State had purchased a total of $48,000,000 worth of stock in turnpike, toll bridge, canal, and water and rail transportation enterprises.
Politicians Harrison H. Riddleberger of Woodstock, an attorney, and former Confederate Major General William Mahone, a railroad builder, organized the Readjuster Party largely based upon this issue.
Their coalition of newly enfranchised blacks, Republicans, and Conservative Democrats was a factor in state politics, electing William E. Cameron as governor, and sending both Riddleberger and later Mahone to the U.S. Congress.
Mahone held a powerful swing vote in the U.S. Senate during the short administration of President James A. Garfield, who was assassinated.