Why was the opening ceremony called the marriage of the waters?

The opening ceremony of the Erie Canal was called the "marriage of the waters" to symbolize the historic connection established between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean.

Upon the completion of the canal in 1825, Governor DeWitt Clinton and other dignitaries traveled the length of the waterway aboard the Seneca Chief. At the conclusion of the journey in New York City, Clinton ceremonially emptied a keg of water taken from Lake Erie into the Atlantic Ocean. This act served as a powerful metaphor for the union of these two major bodies of water, marking the creation of the nation's first east-west water trade link and celebrating the engineering achievement that facilitated westward expansion and economic growth.1