> The US industrialized without much in the way of large scale state industrial policy.

What? From funding the Lewis&Clark missions, to forcing japan open, to clearing out the natives for railroad companies, to helping found colleges ( check out many engineering/tech focused colleges like MIT was founded in the 1800s ). You can even argue that american independence and the civil wars were about expanding state industrial policy.

> The federal government was quite weak in the 19th century

So "weak" that we went from 13 small states on the east coast and expanded 3000 miles all the way to the pacific? What the hell are you talking about?

> I can't think of any explicit policies it established that were intended to foster industrial capacity.

The US became the dominant industrial power in the 1800s and you can't think of any policies that helped? You think all the territories in the ohio valley, texas, oklahoma, california, etc chock full of oil were just given to americans by overly generous natives, brits or mexicans? Are you a moron?

If the US didn't have state industrial policy, the US would have never become and industrial power. We'd have just gone down the jeffersonian agrarian paradise road.