<Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This section needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (November 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This section needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (November 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> The Erie Canal greatly lowered the cost of shipping between the Midwest and the Northeast, bringing much lower food costs to Eastern cities and allowing the East to economically ship machinery and manufactured goods to the Midwest . The canal also made an immense contribution to the wealth and importance of New York City, Buffalo, and New York State . Its impact went much further, increasing trade throughout the nation by opening eastern and overseas markets to Midwestern farm products and by enabling migration to the West . </P> <P> The Erie Canal was an immediate success . Tolls collected on freight had already exceeded the state's construction debt in its first year of official operation . By 1828, import duties collected at the New York Customs House supported federal government operations and provided funds for all the expenses in Washington except the interest on the national debt . Additionally, New York state's initial loan for the original canal had been paid by 1837 . Although it had been envisioned as primarily a commercial channel for freight boats, passengers also traveled on the canal's packet boats . In 1825 more than forty thousand passengers took advantage of the convenience and beauty of canal travel . The canal's steady flow of tourists, businessmen and settlers lent it to uses never imagined by its initial sponsors . Evangelical preachers made their circuits of the upstate region and the canal served as the last leg of the underground railroad ferrying runaway slaves to Buffalo near the Canada--US border . Aspiring merchants found that tourists proved to double as reliable customers . Vendors moved from boat to boat peddling items such as books, watches and fruit while less scrupulous "confidence men" sold remedies for foot corns or passed off counterfeit bills . Tourists were carried along the "northern tour", which ultimately led to the popular honeymoon destination Niagara Falls, just north of Buffalo . </P>

What were the effects of the construction of the erie canal
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