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Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

Hon. F. Whittlesey of Rochester : Peterboro, February 1st, 1845.

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874.

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Call number: Smith 434

PETERBORO, February 1st, 1845.

Hon. F. WHITTLESEY of Rochester, -

DEAR SIR, -

The newspapers inform me of the plan of having higher rates of toll on the Oswego, than on the Western part of the Erie Canal: and they, also, inform me of your public advocacy of it. I can but wonder, that such a plan should find favor with such a man.

Your arguments for the plan do not surprise me. It is fit, that the arguments for an absurd position should be as absurd, as the position itself. Hence, in making their character correspond with, and worthy of, the character of your subject, you have shown your sense of the suitable, and honored the wisdom, which is so justly ascribed to you. I shall, therefore, expose the absurdity of your arguments, not with any design against your merited reputation for wisdom - for, as I have already intimated, this absurdity serves to establish, rather than to shake, that reputation but, I shall make the exposure, because, as these arguments have been put forth by a well-trained mind; and are, hence, in keeping with the plan, which they are intended to recommend, they go far to denote the character of that plan. The false reasonings of a wise man in favor of a given measure are, by no means, valueless, because false. Their very falsity gives them value, inasmuch as it argues, and to an extent commensurate with his wisdom, the unsoundness of the measure. The empty arguments of Frederick Whittlesey for the proposed discrimination in tolls are, because of the source whence they come, effective arguments against that discrimination. If there is a measure in behalf of which the wise cannot use their wisdom, it is because the measure is folly. If Frederick Whittlesey cannot talk and write good sense in behalf of the project under consideration; it must be because the very nature of the project forbids it.

You contend against the use of the Oswego Canal for the Western trade, on the ground, that not it, but the Erie, was made for that trade. You have bought a cat to kill your rats; and you, now, buy another to kill your mice. But the latter proves the better cat for both purposes. Nevertheless, you conclude, that, inasmuch as she was not bought for such big game, she shall not be permitted to kill your rats. Unsound as is the logic, which leads you to this conclusion, it is the very logic by which you forbid the participation of the Oswego Canal in the Western trade. That little Canal - that "mere side-cut"- as you contemptuously call it, was not made for big business; and, hence, however competent to do it, it shall not do it.

Another reason, why you would not allow any share of the Western trade to prefer the Oswego to the Erie Canal, is that the latter was made at "great expense." You have, doubtless, joined in the public laughter at the reluctance of my brother Dutchmen to give up their old fashioned ploughs for however great improvements in that department of farming; and at the unwillingness of the former navigators of the Mississippi to see their clumsy craft displaced by the Steam Boat. Nevertheless, the chief reason f'or the tenacity in both of these cases was but the same, as one of the reasons, which prompt you to cling so exclusively to the Erie Canal. Those old fashioned ploughs were made at "great expense!" So, too, that clumsy craft! The Erie Canal also! To an unbiassed mind, however, preference in these instances is to be decided by a comparison of merits. Which is the better kind of plough? Is the swift, majestic, Steam Boat, or one of its rudely constructed and snail-paced predecessors, most worthy oŁ the "Father of Rivers?" Is the Buffalo route more advantageous, than the Oswego, for every portion of the Western trade? If the Dutchman cleave to his old plough, he will, notwithstanding the fatness of his alluvial lands, see his Yankee corn petitor on the hills, who is less jealous of innovation, outstrip him in the race for riches. The former craft of the Mississippi might have been retained to the exclusion of modern improvements in navigation; but the Mississippi would thereby have lost her commerce. So, too, if the Erie Canal is the only Canal in our State, which is allowed a share of the Western trade; a part, if not indeed, all of that share may thereby be jeoparded. But, what I have said under this last head is, perhaps, not all pertinent: - for, whichever be preferable for the Western trade, the Erie or the Oswego Canal, neither should be disallowed to participate in it.

Another of your positions is, that to permit Western trade to pass on the Oswego Canal "is particularly unjust to Western New-York." You justify this positions by the fact, that the cheaper the transportation to market of the productions of the Western States, the greater will be the reduction in the prices of the like productions of Western New-York. The friends of your project are especially concerned to have the competition oŁ the wheat of the Western States with the wheat of Western New-York as light as possible. If the farmers of Western New-York wish to get one dollar and twenty-five cents a bushel for their wheat delivered in the City of New York, it is very natural for them to desire, that the transportation of the wheat of the Western States to that City should he so expensive, as to make its owners losers, if they sell it, any thing short of that price. But Western New-York should remember, that the Eric Canal, although made by the whole State, and for the whole State, has yielded but little benefit to any other part, if we except a few Eastern Cities. Its almost exclusive enjoyment of gains from the Erie Canal for a quarter of a century should make it willing, that other parts of the State have their turn of good from our "Internal Improvements." Does the Oswego Canal render the productions of the Western States cheaper to the people of our State, than, but for that Canal, they would be? - cheaper, too, than the like productions of the Western Canal Counties of our State have hitherto been afforded? Let this excite no jealousy in those Counties: but, let it be remembered by them, that the consumers in our State are more numerous than the producers of the staple of those Counties; that its landless are more numerous than its landowners; and its poor more numerous than its rich. In short, let the farmers of the Western Canal Counties generously bear in mind, that, much as they, are themselves interested in the maintenance of high prices, it is a majority of the people of this State, to whom low prices of food, rather than high, are a blessing. You ask for a legislation, which shall advance the price of breadstuffs in our State, when you ask to have the Oswego

Canal interdicted to the Western trade. I am aware, that the Carriers of Buffalo and Rochester are the persons most clamorous for that interdiction. They were the first to clamor for it. They are the nucleus of the party in favor of it. But, if not seconded by the wheat-growers of Western New-York, they would as soon think of compassing any other impossibility, as of effecting the proposed discrimination in tolls. I said, that you ask for a legislation, which shall advance the price of breadstuffs. And have you never thought how great a crime it is to make bread scarce to the mouths of God's poor? For the Government of our State to exert its power against the poor, and to make the "staff of life" still more difficult of their obtainment, would be to perpetrate a crime, at the bare thought of perpetrating which it should shudder, and at the bare thought. of asking it to perpetrate which you also should shudder. Humanity and Heaven require some better reason for shutting up the Oswego Canal against the Western trade than the reason, that this Canal cheapens the price of bread in our State. And, yet, so it is, as your candor will admit, that, but for that reason, the party for thus shutting up this Canal could not have been rallied. God be praised for the Oswego Canal, if the charge of its enemies, that it makes food cheap, be true. All the evil it can do will not overbalance this good. There can be no more honorable testimony in behalf of the "Internal Improvements" of our State, than that they make bread plenty and cheap within her borders.

In reply to my charge, that you would make food dear to the poor, you will, perhaps, say, that this consequence can be avoided by making the discrimination in tolls consist, not in increasing the rates of toll on the Oswego Canal, but in diminishing them on that part of the Erie Canal, which is West of Syracuse. I suppose your proposition would be to remit four fifths of the tolls on that part of the Erie Canal. I suppose so, because the other proposition is to make the Oswego Canal pay five times as high rates of toll, as the West two hundred miles of the Erie Canal. But, can you believe, for a moment, that our State, heavily laden with debt, as she is, would consent to such an extensive, or, indeed, to any considerable, diminution of her income from the Erie Canal? Still more difficult must you find it to believe, that the Western Canal Counties, which, with few exceptions, have had the exclusive enjoyment of the benefits of the Erie Canal, can have the impudence to ask, that this enjoyment be now followed up with the favor of their well nigh free use of their part of that Canal. Do you tell me, that the remission of tolls will be on the Western trade

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only, and not on that, which, for convenience sake. I may call the Home trade? A sufficient reply is, that this distinction cannot be maintained. The name and the show of this distinction would, doubtless, be kept up: for the knavery, that evaded the distinction itself, would, for the very purpose of covering the evasion, be industrious to keep up the name and the show of the distinction.

The advocates of the proposed discrimination in tolls make flair faces for themselves, by saying, that they are prompted to apply for it by their belief, that such discrimination is indispensable to prevent the rapid diminution of income from the Erie Canal. To make the application, however, whilst tire income is increasing, and fast increasing, is, to say the least, premature. But, for that portion of our State, which is more loud and frequent, than any other, in asking the State to sink itself deeper in debt by further expenditures on objects of "Internal Improvement;" and which, moreover, refers to the growing productiveness of the Erie Canal to reconcile the public mind to the idea of such expenditures: for that portion of tire State, I say, to sing so different a tune in the same breath, and to dwell so dolefully on the ill-doing and darkened prospects of the Erie Canal, is, certainly, to hazard its reputation for uprightness and sincerity.

That the Canals of our State should, if possible, be made to pay her unhappily incurred debt, is admitted. That, providing it can be paid in that way, arid in no other; the rate of tolls upon them should be increased, is also admitted. But circumstances are changed; and the question is, no longer, how high, but how low, shall be the rate of tolls on our Canals, to the end of their being made most productive. A dozen years ago, and we might, almost, have lamented that, for the sake of having more miles to charge with tolls, a more serpentine course had not been given to the Erie Canal. But, now, we would cut across its bends, and make it as short as possible. Time was, that we could talk of increasing the income from the Erie Canal, by increasing the rates of its toll: and we could talk so still, had it neither present, nor prospective, competition for the Western trade. But, now, that Philadelphia and Baltimore and New Orleans are putting in their strong claims for that trade; and, now, that the British Government is sparing no expense to draw the productions of the Western States down the St. Lawrence; the extent of income from the Erie Canal, and even from the Oswego Canal also, will, not improbably, so far as it shall be affected by the Western trade, be directly proportioned to the reduction of their rates of toll. It is a question, indeed, whether any, however great, reduction of those rates will avail to continue to us a large participation to that trade. The people of this State must have been very blind to what has, for several years, been going on around there, if they are now studying how to get a greater amount or tons from a given amount of Western trade. They might, rather, be devising and creating new attractions to that trade. Instead of filling up the Oswego Canal, which, as respects the Western trade, you would, virtually, have take place; it may yet, and ere long too, be found necessary to enlarge it, if we would save ourselves from the total loss of that trade. If the Black River Canal promises a cheaper route, than the Oswego, for the Western trade, it may be found necessary to hasten the completion of that Canal: and, if the projected Sodus Canal invites us to a still cheaper route; then, to catch the prize for which so many are striving, we may find it indispensable to build the Sodus Canal: and, if no Canal shall serve to bring that prize within our grasp; then, it is not improbable that our hopes will centre upon the New-York and Erie Rail Road. Nothing short of the pressure of a heavy debt upon the resources of our State should make us hesitate to reduce the rates of toll on our Camels one hall, or even three fourths, if need be to retain for our Buffalo and Rochester and Oswego and Syracuse and Utica and Troy and Albany and New-York the benefits of a large share of the Western trade. But, whilst that pressure exists, we must continue to, impose a heavy tax on the trade of our own State, even though the imposition of the like rates of toll on the Western trade (for they could not be less on the latter than on the former) should cost us the utter loss of the Western trade. And I would here remark, that the present great efforts to divert the Western trade, in one direction and another, from our great Atlantic emporium furnish another occasion for lamenting the error of loading our State with debt. Were our State now free of debt, we could do all, that abatement in charges for the use of our Canals could do, to twin the swelling commerce of the West; render it tributary to the growth of our great towns; and, so far as riches are an element in the public prosperity, make our whole commonwealth surpassingly prosperous. To say, that, in such case, the State would be without income from its Canals, would be to speak of a lack, which the growth of its great City would alone supply, were her share in the Western trade to be a liberal one. The gain, in wealth and population, to our whole State, consequent on the rapidity, with which that City would, in such case, donble and treble her inhabitants, would exceed the benefit to be derived from millions of tolls. Our State would then experience, in her commercial enrichment, how true, as well as terse, is the remark, that canals are made for commerce rather than for tolls.

We are strikingly admonished, in the present instance, of the power there is in concert and in appeals to local and - sectional interests. The agitation of this question, whether the Oswego Canal ought not to be closed against the Western trade, began, as I lave already said, with the Carriers of Buffalo and Rochester. Possibly, however, some of the Millers of Black Rock and Rochester, who would like to see the Millers of Oswego denied the right of sending to New-York their flour made of Western wheat, were not behind those Carriers. But, notwithstanding, they were but a handful, who began this movement; nevertheless, by acting in concert; by calling their private interest a public one; and by professing to seek the advantage of others, when, in fact, they were studying their own; they have succeeded in giving no little currency to their scheme. Thousands in Rochester and Buffalo, quick to believe, that what is the interest of their Forwarding Houses is the interest of their Cities, can easily bring their Cities to identify themselves with questions, which deeply affect such Houses. And, nothing, surely, is less strange, than that the neighborhoods of Rochester arid Buffalo - than that Monroe, and Erie, and other Counties - should sympathize with those Cities; take their tone from them; and espouse their side of a question. Now, the feeling, with which the Carriers of Rochester and Buffalo have pervaded a considerable part of Western New-York, may, perhaps, run all along the Erie Canal region to Syracuse. Something of it may travel as far as Troy and Albany and New-York, waking up there to their own interests the partners of these Carriers, and the Commission Merchants of certain Millers; and enlisting hundreds of others in those Cities, who are, personally, concerned in the property and business of Rochester and Buffalo. Still, it will be found true, that, however wide this feeling may yet spread, it had its little origin - little, most emphatically, in spirit; as well as space - in the covetousness of the handful, to whom I have ascribed it. It will also be found, that it was indebted for its progress, mainly to the covering over of private purposes with professions of the public good. In adverting, as I have done, to the fact, that the Carriers of Buffalo and Rochester, already in possession of four fifths of the New-York State share of the Western trade, covet the other fifth, out of which the Carriers of Oswego get their scanty living; I am far from meaning to say, that they make any uncommon, or peculiarly guilty, exhibition of selfishness. From the time, that Ahab, though already surfeited with riches, fastened his greedy eye on the little possession of his poor neighbor Naboth, there have been no illustrations of any passion of the human heart more numerous than of its covetousness. The envious disposition, that cannot rest, until the little rills of business, which keep alive the humble village of Oswego, are turned into the commercial floods of Buffalo and Rochester, is a disposition, which, hateful as it is, has vexed the breasts of men in every age and every land. The jealousy, which, looking forth from the large and thriving towns, and rich waving fields, that adorn the almost matchlessly fertile banks of the Western half of the Erie Canal, sighs, that its crowd of boats does not also include the solitary ones, which, at long intervals, disturb the stagnant waters of the Canal, that crosses the sterile County of Oswego, is a "green-eyed monster," belonging to a very numerous race. I, again, disclaim the belief, that the Carriers of Rochester and Buffalo are peculiarly imperfect men: and I, cheerfully, admit too, that there is not more selfishness to be appealed to in Western New-York, than in other parts of our State. The like temptation elsewhere would produce the like revelation of character. We are all proud of our Rochester and Buffalo.We rejoice in their magnitude: and, when, as we have done, until the last few weeks, during which time they have felt interested in calling the public attention to the deep poverty, that has come upon them so suddenly and mysteriously - when, I say, we have read in their newspapers of the erection of several hundred buildings in each of those Cities, the last year, we have rejoiced in their continuing prosperity and growth. We admit too, that in their designs upon little, poverty-stricken, Oswego, these large and wealth - abounding towns cart plead Scripture for their justification. "For whosoever bath to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but, whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath." Oswego deserves to be devoured by big Rochester and big Buffalo, because she is so little - by rich Rochester and rich Buffalo, because she is so poor. Folks and places have no right to be little and poor: and, if they presume to be, they shall be punished for it. We see, by the way, that the letter of the Bible can be quoted in behalf of things, which are very opposite to its spirit.

The scheme you advocate will be promptly condemned by our Legislature. Wise and disinterested bodies will scout it from them. For, it is a scheme, to the glaring injustice of which none can be blind, but those, whose selfish, or whose local and sectional spirit it has enlisted, And should our State ever be so unfortunate as to have a Legislature

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capable of being misled into the adoption of this scheme, a very little working of the scheme would prove it to be both impracticable and unavailing,

I say, in the first place, that it would be impracticable. You, of course, do not intend, that the productions of St. Lawrence, Jefferson and Oswego Counties, which find their way to market on the Oswego Canal, should be charged with the contemplated five fold rate of tolls; nor that the goods, sent by that route from the City of New-York to those Counties, should be thus burdened. There is, too, the Miller of Utica, or Troy, who has purchased ten thousand bushels of wheat in Ohio, and who would bring it to his mill through Oswego - I can hardly believe, that you would have him, a citizen of your own State, and the owner of the property, compelled to pay quintuple tolls on a Canal of his own State. But, would it not be found impossible to preserve a distinction between the property of the people of your own State and the property of the people of other States? To preserve it you would require Boards of Inquisitors, as numerous and as odious, as those, which illustrated the folly, injustice, and madness of bygone times. One of the duties of one of these Boards would be to distinguish between the flour, which an Oswego Miller makes from Western wheat, and that, which he makes from wheat of his own State. Who can doubt, that every fraud would be practised to elude a distinction, sought to be made for purposes so unjust and hateful? Who can but fear, that such aggression on natural rights might exasperate the sufferers to resort even to bloody violence?

I say, in the second place, that your scheme would be unavailing. No sooner would it be adopted, than the Western States, justly indignant, would retaliate upon it with counteracting measures. No sooner would it be adopted, than the British Government would hesitate at no sacrifice to increase the business of the Welland Canal, and to attract the Western trade to Montreal. And, so it might turn out, between the countervailing measures of the British Government on the one hand, and those of the Western States on the other, that the scheme, got up to rob Oswego of her little share of the Western trade, and to add it to the great one already enjoyed by Buffalo and Rochester, resulted in the losing, instead of the increasing, of what those covetous Cities had. And so, too, it might turn out, through the force of these causes, that this scheme, got up, as is most probable, for the further purpose of disposing of the competition of the Oswego Mills, resulted in fresh advantages to those Mills, and in losses and long faces to the Millers of Black. Rock and Rochester.

I observe, that the friends of your project, with the view of prejudicing the public mind against the Oswego route, stigmatize the Welland Canal as an "Alien Canal." But, it strikes me, that, whilst the objection to using an "Alien Canal" is altogether groundless and fanciful; the conversion of your own American brothers into Aliens - your treatment of them, as if they were Aliens - is deeply reprehensible. Arid does not the distinction, which your project would have made between the interests of the people of this State and of the people of the States West of it, amount to such a conversion?

Legislation by a State for the countervailing and destruction of the natural advantages of any section of it, is an enormously unjust, and palpably unconstitutional, invasion of natural rights. If the people of the hill-top would avail themselves of their better site for grinding their corn by wind; and the dwellers in the valley would use their water to grind theirs; let each party be left undisturbed in their respective advantage and preference: and, if the spirit of monopoly shall, on the one hand, demand that the water-mill be stopped, or, on the other, that the windmill be; let not the lawmaking power, nor any other power, consent to gratify it. If the Oswego valley presents one of the natural routes for the Western trade, the Legislature has no more right to shut out that trade from it, than to cut off the legs and arms of the men, who inhabit it. Those men have as good a right to the natural advantages of their location, as they have to the limbs, with which they were born. You will say, however, that it is not proposed to shut it out, absolutely. - To this I reply, that to shut it out is the very object - the sole object - of the agitation, to which you have, so conspicuously and effectively contributed. Were the agitators to get the rates of toll on the Oswego Canal multiplied, not five only, but even ten, or twenty fold; if; nevertheless, Western trade should seek that route, they would have come short of their object - they would have accomplished nothing of that, on which their hearts are set. They would still "see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king's gate." Again, you will perhaps, say, that the Oswego Canal belongs to the whole State, and not to the people of the Oswego valley. Admitted. But, it belongs to the State, not for the purpose of destroying, but improving, the natural advantages of the valley - not to be shut up, but to be used. The State has no more right to shut up that Canal, as you, in effect, would have it do so far as respects tire Western trade, than it has to build a high and immovably strong wall across the whole width of it. Another of your defences, perhaps, will be to say, that the State is not bound to keep open its Canal in the Oswego valley, especially since it finds this Canal to be a rival to its far more important and expensive Canal. Admit it. Let the Government abandon the Oswego Canal, and fill it up too. All, that is claimed, is, that. if Government will not have a Canal of its own there, it shall not hinder the inhabitants of the Oswego valley from building one there. It is not denied - at least, not in this place, that Government; has the right to appropriate, pay for, and build a mill on, the only mill-site in a given village. But, it is denied, that, having done so, it may lock up the mill, forbid its being used, and retain the site. A Turnpike Company, apprehend, that there is a more favorable route for travel than that, on which they have built their road. They, accordingly, get a charter for a road on this more favorable route. They build it: and then, to compel all the travel to take the former road, they forbid the use of the latter. They have as much right to do this, as the State has to forbid the use of the Oswego Canal, and thereby prevent diversion from the Erie Canal.

It is not claimed, that Government is bound to improve the natural advantages of the Oswego valley. All, that is claimed, is, that it shall not forbid their being improved. Now, for Government to build a Canal in the Oswego valley, and impose rates of toll on it, so high, as to prevent its being used, would be, in effect, to say, that there shall be no canal there; and that the natural advantages for having one there shall not be improved. It would be to perpetrate a barefaced and monstrous violation of natural rights - a violation, which no Constitution can so far surmount natural rights, as to sanction.

In fine, it is contended, in view of the principles, which so obviously govern such cases, that, whenever the State shall impose discriminating or prohibitory duties (they are the same thing,) on one of its canals; the so doing is to be construed as an abandonment of that carnal - as a surrender of it by the State to the people of the section, through which it passes. Let the Oswego Canal be thus surrendered to the people of Onondaga and Oswego Counties. If that people will not take the Canal, and keep it in repair; then let it go to ruin, and let them not complain of the State for, surely, it would be unreasonable to require the State, after it had decided it to be unprofitable to do so, to retain the Canal any longer as the property of the State, and to keep it in repair.

The friends of your project will meet with a signal disappointment. Nevertheless, they will have done great harm. It is of unspeakable moment to the prosperity and happiness of a people, that they have confidence in the rectitude and impartiality of their Government. The emphatic veto of the Legislature on your immeasurably unjust project will, indeed, tend to preserve that confidence; but, it would have been more full, and more difficult to shake, had it been seen, that no portion of our citizens could hope for - could believe possible - such flagrant wrong, at the hands of its Government. The bare supposition, that Government can be treasonable toward the rights and interests of a part of its subjects, goes to sully its purity, and cast suspicion on its integrity. That a crime, so heinous, is not supposable, is a most touching and beautiful reason, why an ancient nation did not enact a law against parricide. It would have been more fbr the honor of our Government, as well as more for the confidence of the people in it, had no portion of them thought it possible for tile Government to make itself guilty of the partial and unjust legislation, which the delusions of a sectional and local spirit, and the greediness and phrensy of avarice, are now calling for.

It must, also, be remembered, that, in this country, the people are identical with the Government. Therefore, if Government should increase the rates of toll on the Oswego Canal, the people of Onondaga and Oswego Counties would feel, that it was their fellow citizens - the other people of the State - who had done them this grievous wrong. And the Cities of Troy, Albany, and New-York, especially interested, as they are, in the freeest and fullest use of the Oswego Canal, would, very naturally and justly, charge the measure, which jeopards and diminishes, if it does not certainly and entirely destroy, a vital portion of their trade, on their own fellow citizens - on their own brethren of their own State. What heart-burnings, jealousies, and bitter hatreds, would, in the event of tile adoption of your project, exist between different portions of the people of our State, is more easily imagined than described.

Respectfully yours,

GERRIT SMITH.