Mississippi Flooding: Past and Future

... The political wake of the 1882 flood flowed into a Congressional debate over the annual rivers and harbors bill. Little federal aid had been given to what were called the "internal improvements" of the nation's rivers and harbors before the Civil War. In the post-war years, however, funding rose significantly to nearly $4,000,000 each year, 1866-1875. The annual rivers and harbors bill, however, became pork-barrel legislation in the House (where spending bills originate) as Congressmen tacked appropriations for their favorite projects onto the bill.

Despite calls for increased aid because of the recent flood, on August 1, 1882, President Chester Arthur vetoed the Rivers and Harbors Bill, explicitly labeling it pork-barrel legislation. Arthur did not oppose internal improvements on principle, and had endorsed the commission's report calling for federal aid to repair and extend levees along the Mississippi. However, he concluded that the legislation as drafted only benefited select localities, was not in the national interest, and would set a bad precedent for the "extravagant expenditure of public money."

Led by a coalition of Southern Democrats and Midwestern Republicans from flood states, Congress overrode the president's veto. The 1882 Rivers and Harbors Act included $5.4 million for the Mississippi River Commission. For the rest of the century, federal appropriations for rivers and harbors rose from $8,000,000 in 1880 to $29,000,000 in 1898. The levees rebuilt after the 1882 flood, relying on machine power rather than manpower, withstood flooding in 1884. A severe flood in 1927, however, was again disastrous for the lower Mississippi River Valley, and led to the federal Flood Control Act of 1927 (amended in 1936), the nation's first law that addressed the problem in a comprehensive manner.

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