They agreed that the states had the right to promote the common good, but demanded that it compensate those injured during the process. They reminded the middle class that "religious, social, and commercial progress "could not be separated (page.151). The sheriff argues that the middle class way to "direct market revolution away from the nightmare and toward the dream" (page.167). The sheriff saw the Erie Canal as an improvement. Sheriff saw it was something that increased the value of the land. She also argues that landowners and businessman scrambled for wealth, and were not above the state in subsidizing their efforts. It is a formidable argument, when sheriff links businessmen's participation in the bethel society to the culture of progress. "A moral justification for pushing their commercial benefit at someone else's expense" (page 134). When discussing conflicts over changes in the canal route, she notes, "Although most upstate businessmen would acknowledge that the state could change the Canal route for 'good and substantial reasons,' petitioners invariably failed to recognize the presence of such good reasons in case where their business investments depended on the waterway's original route" (page