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Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

Speech of Gerrit Smith, on discriminating tolls : made in the Capitol at...

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874.

Digital Edition.

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Call number: Smith 504

SPEECH

OF

GERRIT SMITH

ON

DISCRIMINATING TOLLS

SPEECH

OF

GERRIT SMITH,

ON

DISCRIMINATING TOLLS

MADE IN THE

CAPITOL AT ALBANY,

MARCH 25, 1857,

BEFORE THE

CANAL AND RAIL ROAD COMMITTEES

OF THE SENATE.

SPEECH.

GENTLEMEN:

I will consume no time with an introduction. I will come by no indirect nor tardy steps to the one great grief of these Buffalo gentlemen. The Oswego Canal, including, of course, the little city at its Northern termination, is the sole occasion of all this wide-spread agitation, and all this pressure upon the Legislature. But for that canal, Buffalo had been entirely quiet; contented with her own rapid growth and great prosperity; jealous of no city, and fearing no rival.

Pray, what is the Oswego Canal, that it should grieve so many hearts, and be so much complained of? Frequently do we hear it said that it is a bad canal; that it never should have been dug; and that it should be filled up again. But what makes it a bad canal? The honest answer of its enemies would be, that its doing so much business makes it such; that its being built upon a route very natural and favorable for trade, makes it such; that its being an effective competitor with other channels of trade makes it such. Strange reasons these for calling it a bad canal! What better reasons could be given for calling it a good one? So it is, however, that the Oswego Canal is a bad canal, because it is a good one; and, alas ! the better it is, the worse it is! Ill starred canal! Its greatest merits but serve to aggravate its criminality; and

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every accession to its business, instead of affording fresh proof that it is a good canal, is only another occasion for pronouncing it a bad one, and for demanding the prohibition of its trade.

We should not, however, be astonished at this treatment of the Oswego Canal. Thus has it fared with great improvements in every age. For some uses, especially for the transportation of Onondaga salt, this canal turns out to be far more serviceable than the Western part of the Erie Canal:- and hence, and hence only, all this clamor against it. The first steamboats were denounced. The owners of sloops on the North River, fearing the effects on their interests of these new-comers, denounced them. The owners of the clumsy craft on the Mississippi, unwilling to have it displaced by any other, denounced them. Nevertheless the great public welcomed the advent of the majestic steamboat, notwithstanding that here and there local and individual interests were damaged by it.

All of us should be so wise, as to lay our account with liability to loss from the frequent improvement in tools, machinery, means of transportation, and a thousand other things. The plow we buy the present year may, from the introduction of a superior kind, lose all its value the coming year. The carriage, which was of the best model when we bought it, we would now be glad to sell at half price, because a so much better one has been invented. But we must be patient under such losses, remembering that they are overbalanced by a vast public benefit. So, too, if the Oswego Canal proves more attractive to some kinds of trade than does the Western part of the Erie, they, who dwell near that part, must not so magnify their injured sectional and individual interests, as to forbid the use of the Oswego, and to demand that the general interests shall give way to their own.

A poor, but worthy, seamstress of my little village came to I me a year ago to consult me in regard to her contemplated purchase of a sewing machine. The price of it was a hundred dollars. I was afraid to have her venture upon the machine so large a share of her little all. I pointed out to her some of the risks in the case. But I learned soon after that her eagerness to buy the machine had prevailed against all my cautions. She

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paid for it the hundred dollars ;- and I now see in the newspapers that there is a newly patented sewing machine quite as good as the old one, and that the price of it is only ten dollars. What in these circumstances, shall my poor sewing girl do? If she will take my advice, she will cultivate christian patience, and console herself with the reflection, that what has brought loss to her has brought gain to the public. But if she goes to the Buffalo people, she will get very different advice, that is, if they are consistent with themselves, and counsel her to act on their own principles. With handkerchiefs to their eyes, they will say to her: " Dear Madam, our painful situation is but too like your own. You have to work an expensive machine, and we have to navigate a long canal. You have to encounter the competition of a cheap machine, and we the competition of a cheap canal. This two hundred miles of canal from Syracuse to Buffalo is our old-fashioned and expensive machine, and this plaguy little Oswego Canal, which is not forty miles long, is the new and cheap machine that works against us. Now, dear Madam, our fellow in affliction, if you will be advised by us, and will plant yourself on the everlasting rock of our principles, and copy our enlightened and sublimely disinterested policy, you will, without delay, get up a memorial, which shall embody your stern and solemn protest against the further using of this new sewing machine, which works so much cheaper than the old one. Our memorial for shutting up this cheap working Oswego canal, we send to the State Legislature. Yours for restraining the use of this new sewing patent you will send to the National Legislature, which you know, is the great Patenting power."To see that the Buffalo advisers carry the day against me requires no great effort of imagination. Under the influence of their advice, my sewing-girl clenches her fist, and declares that she will not submit to her gigantic wrongs. She gets up her memorial and sends it to Congress.

I notice some smiling at this parallel which I have run between my sewing girl and the people of Buffalo. I know that, compared with big Buffalo, she is, in Bible language, but " a little one." Nevertheless, I can see no difference in principle between her with her memorial in her hand and the people of Buffalo with

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their memorial in theirs. The like unreasonable, selfish, narrow view gets up the memorial in the one case and in the other. It is true, that she does not ask to have the old sewing machine tolled. She asks to stop the working of it. But what else than to stop the working of the Oswego Canal does Buffalo aim at in this further tolling of it?

It is true, too, that the wrong to be done in the one case is upon a much larger scale than the wrong to be done in the other. The only wrong, of which my sewing girl would be guilty, is to make clothing dearer by making sewing dearer. But to make bread dearer by making the transportation of grain and flour dearer, is only one of the innumerable wrongs chargeable upon the Buffalo memorial. Indeed, the Buffalo scheme, instead of being claimed as the way to get money to finish the canals, would have been far more ingenuously and truthfully characterized as the way to make bread scarcer to the mouths of the poor in New York, Brooklyn, Albany, Troy, Utica and elsewhere. But it is not only by compelling wheat, corn and flour to take the more expensive route,-viz: the whole length of the Erie Canal - that the Buffalo memorial would make bread dearer. That memorial also asks for the imposition of additional tolls on wheat and corn. There is one inquiry which just here I must not forget to make. Why is it that Buffalo would let flour, but not wheat, come from the West without paying additional tolls? Why is it that she would so strongly encourage the grinding of the wheat by mills in the Western States? Is it because jealous Buffalo is afraid, that even if her war upon the Oswego Canal should be successful, the mills of Oswego might still get the grinding of a little of that wheat, were Western flour to be also subjected to additional tolls? Oh, shame to you big Buffalo, that you are willing to leave nothing whatever of all the great West to little Oswego!

I said that the memorial of the Buffalo people goes for shutting up the Oswego Canal. This may have sounded in some ears like the language of exaggeration. But is it such? Is it not the aim of Buffalo that, so far as she is concerned, the Oswego Canal should be shut up? Does not her memorial ask, in effect, to stop that transportation on the Oswego Canal, which she seeks to monopolize? Certainly it does. It is far more than a

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prayer to increase the cost of such transportation. For, however greatly it might be increased, Buffalo could be helped only by stopping the transportation. She would not thank you for a discrimination in tolls, unless it were so great, as to shut off from the Oswego Canal the transportation to and from the Western States, and drive it through Buffalo. Yes, so far as concerns that transportation, and so far as she is interested in this movement, and so far as she had any motive to set it on foot - yes, to all this extent, Buffalo is asking you to do what in effect would be to build a high and impassable stone wall across the Oswego Canal. Nothing short of this could realize her aims. She made her calculations before drafting her memorial; and she then asked for a discrimination wide enough to accomplish her object of withdrawing from the Oswego Canal the through trade between the Western States and tide-water, which now seeks this canal. I know that Buffalo denies this. I know that she is incessantly employing figures, which serve to deceive the public into the belief, that the Oswego route, even with the proposed five-fold tolls upon it, will be cheaper than the Buffalo route. But what are all these figures in the face of the fact, that the transportation through Buffalo is several times as great as that through Oswego, notwithstanding that Oswego has for nearly thirty years put forth the most industrious efforts to have it otherwise. Remember, too, that the completed enlargement of the canals will operate to reduce the cost of transportation through Buffalo far more than through Oswego. How lamentable that even the Canal Board should, in its recent Report, have followed this bad Buffalo example, and gone into this deceptive figuring! I say not that Buffalo will always have this immense advantage over Oswego. It would, perhaps, be greatly reduced by a large accession to her capital, and by a better ship canal between Ontario and Erie.

No, Buffalo would not care for the success of her memorial, were she not convinced that it calls, in effect, for the withdrawal of the Western trade from the Oswego Canal. Were she not convinced of this, Albany would not be swarming with Buffalo people. By the way, I have been told that agents of the New York Central Rail Road Company are also here in great numbers

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for the purpose of arraying the mighty influence of that Company on the side of this selfish scheme. But I cannot believe it. For that Company to espouse such a scheme would be to put itself in the most unreasonable, ungracious, unenviable attitude. A few years ago, this Company, or what was substantially this Company, prayed the Legislature to exempt it from the payment of tolls. It argued (and soundly, as I admit,) that the public good requires the free competition of the railroads with the canals. Surely, it could not now have the face to forbid the free competition of the canals with the railroads. It asked, at that time, to be allowed to come untrammeled into competion with the Oswego Canal. It cannot be, that having, by means of its liberation from the payment of tolls, been able to attract from this canal no very small share of its Western business, it is now ready to join with Buffalo in this scheme to force from it all the remainder. For this Railroad Company to do this, would be to push its selfishness quite too far for its safety. It might be arousing a public indignation, and provoking a retaliation, which, instead of leaving the Company with gains to rejoice over, might leave it with losses to lament over. But I repeat my conviction, that this Company has not involved itself in this shameful Buffalo scheme. It is too reasonable and just, and honorable, to have any part in it. This Company will confine itself to its own concerns, and leave the canals unmolested and free to do all the business they can. So, and I might add, so only, will it be left, unmolested and free to do all the business it can.

I have imputed this movement of Buffalo to selfishness, notwithstanding her ostensible motive in it is the patriotic one of increasing the revenue of the State. For one I cannot believe that all the patriotism of the State is confined to Buffalo. Nevertheless if these repeated attacks on Oswego are nothing but ebullitions of patriotism, then, inasmuch as they all originate in Buffalo and are all sustained by Buffalo, I own that it must follow pretty logically that all the patriotism of the State is to be found in that city. To be serious, I cannot doubt that all this Buffalo show of patriotism and disinterestedness is the merest affectation. In my eye, this professed concern for the public

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good does but thinly disguise her unmitigated selfishness. This taking the State into her especial keeping; this presenting herself as the protector and champion of the State, instead of the plotter of the robbery and ruin of Oswego; this shedding of so many tears over the State embarrassments and poverty, which she alone has been able to discover, strikes me as excessively ridiculous.

Buffalo would spread the alarm that the State is on the brink of ruin, because she has not all the present means for finishing the canals. But as a one mill tax for one year would nearly or quite supply the lack, there is certainly no cause for alarm. Who will know that he pays this slightly additional tax if he is not told that he does? Buffalo would frighten the State with the idea that the canals will not be able to pay the interest on the canal debt. But they already pay far more than this ; and when they are finished they will rapidly pay the principal. In no event, however, need the State be frightened - not even if so improbable a thing should occur as the necessity of its paying back to the canal some little part - some hundredth or rather some thousandth part - of the money which the canals have earned and will continue to earn for it. But for these vigilant watchmen of Buffalo who are quick to sound the alarm, the State had not know that it was hurt or was even in danger of being hurt. These watchmen are, however, more cunning than vigilant. They are not looking out to guard the dear people from harm; but they are looking out for opportunities and means by which they may terrify the dear people into the belief that something must be done. All that they mean by this something is a war upon Oswego: and they hope to enlist the people in it by masking the war with patriotic appearances, and by professing the sole object of it to be the relief of the people from burdens, on which these watchmen are wont to wax eloquent, but which are nevertheless as unreal as they are unfelt.

Is there in any point of view a reasonable expectation that the measure called for by Buffalo would increase the revenues of the State? There is not. The sharp competition for commerce which has come to be waged with us on all sides, makes it too late in the day to hope to increase the revenues of our State by

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increasing the cost of transportation through it. Now, when the Canadas and Maine are doing their utmost to draw trade to the St. Lawrence - to Montreal, Quebec and Portland; now when on the South and West every effort is making to draw it to Philadelphia and Baltimore and the Mississippi; now when in regard to the already vibrating trade of a very broad and fertile belt of our Western country, it is so very uncertain to which attraction it will ultimately and mainly yield - so very uncertain how much of it will finally settle toward the St. Lawrence; how much toward Philadelphia and Baltimore; how much toward New Orleans; and how little toward New York; -now, I say, is not the time to propose to increase our tolls. It is rather the time to study as rapid a diminution of them as is consistent with our circumstances. Moreover, if we are so foolish as to forget that canals are made for commerce and not for revenue - that commerce is the object and revenue but the incident - nevertheless we can hardly be so foolish as not to understand that the surest way to increase revenue is to increase commerce.

What madness it would be to impose any extra tolls on the Oswego Canal! What a suicidal policy that for the State to adopt! Why, even with its present tolls, it carried the last year but twice as much grain and flour as reached Ogdensburgh and Montreal. Who cannot see that with only very slightly increased tolls on the Oswego Canal, twice as much would reach Ogdensburgh and Montreal as Oswego? But if it would be madness to propose any extra tolls on the Oswego Canal, how shall we characterize this proposition to impose prohibitory tolls upon it?

In my opening remarks I said that the objection to the Oswego Canal is that it does so much business. It this moment occurs to me that this unhappy canal has to encounter the most opposite objections. A few days ago, I saw it argued in a New York City paper, that it is so poor and unproductive a canal as to be a constantly growing burden upon the State. By what ingenious process did the writer arrive at this conclusion? First, by refusing to credit the Oswego Canal with any of its contributions to the business of the Erie Canal. Second, by charging

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against the Oswego Canal its own business, on the ground that it was guilty of diverting it from the Erie.

I referred to the Canadas. They will look upon this war on their Welland Canal as a war on themselves; and sooner than suffer it to be successful, and to turn all the trade of the Western States away from Lake Ontario, they will remit all the tolls on that canal. Who does not see that such a measure would flood Montreal, Quebec, and Portland, with the commerce of the great West?

But what if it were so that the revenue of the State might be somewhat increased by this measure, which is now urged upon you? Nevertheless it would be far better for the City of New York - for both her rich and poor - if, instead of your adopting the measure, she should be compelled by a direct tax to pay the whole amount of the increase. Yes, better that she be compelled to pay the whole of the three millions needed to finish the canals than that her poor should have to pay so much more for their bread, and that her rich should lose so much of their present and prospective trade. Indeed the bill for carrying through this measure might very suitably be entitled :" A Bill for building up Philadelphia and Baltimore and other cities at the South; Montreal and Quebec at the North; Portland and Boston at the East, at the expense of the city of New York, and the other cities on the North River."

I said that the present is the time to study to diminish rather than increase the cost of transportation through our State. Will the Sodus Canal have the effect to diminish it? Then let it be built without delay. Will the Sackets Harbor & Saratoga Railroad have that effect? Then let no time be lost to build it also. But just here let me say that there will be but poor encouragement to build the Sodus Canal, if, when it is built, the State may, as it is now asked to do in the case of the Oswego Canal, virtually forbid the carrying of property on it to and from the great West.

I asked whether the proposed measure would increase the revenues of our State. I have shown that it would not. I also said a little to prove that it would reduce them. I believe it would reduce them greatly. Manifestly, not as much Western

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property would pass through our State then as does now. For then it would have to pass the whole length of the Erie Canal, and, then too, Buffalo Forwarders, relieved of the competition of the killed-off Oswego Forwarders, would feel at liberty to charge much higher rates of freight. And even if some part of the Western produce which now enters at Oswego, should still be saved to our State, and should enter it at Buffalo, nevertheless the railroads, which last year carried from Buffalo some twenty times as much flour as did the Erie Canal, would doubtless get the carrying of the most of that produce. But as no tolls are paid on what the railroads carry, how much better for the treasury of the State, that the produce in question be left to go through Oswego, and thus pay tolls on two hundred miles of canal!

But were there no other objections to this Buffalo scheme, it is enough that it would be found very difficult to execute - very expensive, very corrupting, very oppressive, very disgraceful in execution. All merchandize going from New York to Oswego, and so also all salt going there from Syracuse, would, in order to prevent the violation of the law, need to be taxed with tolls to Buffalo. Then, if, at some subsequent period, the owner or carrier could prove that the property had not been taken through the Welland Canal, he would be entitled to debenture. This would be introducing into our inland trade the complex and hateful machinery connected with tariffs and foreign trade. This would require an army of office-holders and furnish occasions for perjuries and corruptions innumerable. But this is not all. If, in spite of discriminating tolls, a cargo of wheat should now and then come through the Welland Canal to a solitary mill or elevator, that remained among the general desolations of Oswego, how difficult, nevertheless, would it be to prevent the mixture of it with wheat that had not come through the Welland Canal!

What a strange and disgraceful scene the harbor of Oswego would present in that case! Free trade between Great Britain and America - but taxed and trammeled trade between our State and her sister States. Great Britain and America would meet in that harbor as friends. But New York and Ohio would

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meet there as foes. There were a few of us who spared ourselves no pains to bring into being and effect the Reciprocity Treaty, which is now benefitting and blessing the Canadas and this country. How little, whilst we were then laboring to produce a more free and friendly intercourse between two great nations, did we apprehend that the day would ever come when it should be proposed to shackle the mutual commerce of the States composing one of these nations!

I have now shown that this Buffalo measure would diminish the revenues of the State. I have also characterized, in fitting terms, its revolting, and well nigh impossible, execution. I will proceed to show that it would be unconstitutional. I do not forget that, according to the Buffalo memorial and certain newspapers, I am estopped from denying its constitutionality by the fact that seventy-two men, a part of whom lived in the village of Oswego, did, in the year 1826, admit that discrimination in tolls could be resorted to. But is it so, that the opinion of a handful of the inhabitants of a little village of six hundred souls has power to compromit the rights of the city of twenty thousand people into which that little village has expanded during these thirty-one years? Certainly not. Let us see, however, whether this concession of this handful of men does even so much as involve in great inconsistency any of themselves who may be still alive, and who may now be against discrimination.

First. They were frightened into this concession by the threat of Buffalo, that the building of the Oswego Canal should be stopped. Shall Buffalo be allowed to profit by this unrighteous threat which she made thirty-one years ago?

Second. Railroads had not yet been built, and this handful of men therefore supposed that all Western property must con tinue to pass through the Erie Canal. They had no conception that the cheap route of the little Oswego Canal would be necessary to withstand the competition of routes out of our State. They assumed that discrimination against the Oswego Canal could work in favor of the Erie Canal only, and not in favor of a dozen channels of trade out of the State. But however the concession of this handful of men is to be accounted for, so it was, that the State built the Oswego Canal without any stipulation

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or understanding that its trade should be restricted - built it to get all the commerce it could. Again, when, only six years ago, the State determined to rebuild and enlarge this little canal, did it then provide for the limitation of its commerce to Lake Onta rio, or for any other limitation of it? Oh, no! And did Buffalo ask for any such limitation? Oh, no! Then, if ever, was her time to ask for it. And, I add, if the people of the city of Oswego are bound to hold their peace, under this threatened outrage upon their rights, because of what a handful of men in the village of Oswego acquiesced in thirty-one years ago, much more should Buffalo hold her peace because of what her thousands of men acquiesced in only six years ago.

Third, But there are two explanations of this admission of this handful of men, that no candid person can look at without being satisfied that the admission leaves all who made it but little blameworthy, even on the score of consistency, for opposing discriminating tolls now. The first of these explanations is, that in the memorial to the Legislature, in which they admit that discriminating tolls can be resorted to, they refer to the Welland Canal as a private enterprise, (it very soon after passed into the hands of Government,) and express the opinion that because it is such, it will abound in frauds. Their admission, therefore, that the State has the power to discriminate in tolls is to be taken in a very important point of view, as their admission that the State could, in this wise, protect itself and the nation from fraud. The second of these explanations is that the burden of their memorial was the inculcation of the doctrine, that canals are to be made not for tolls but for commerce; and that, therefore, the canal, however short and cheap it may be, which is the best for commerce is to be the most valued and cherished canal. Assuming, however, that canals are made for tolls - assuming this great wrong - they admit the power, not the right, to do the other great wrong of discriminating in tolls. In other words, they admit that one great wrong may be the logical sequence of another great wrong.

I said that Buffalo did not in 1851, when the State entered upon the rebuilding and enlarging of the Oswego Canal, propose the restriction of its trade. But what if she had proposed it?

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Great as Buffalo is, the State is still greater, and it is enough that the State both built and rebuilt the Oswego Canal, without any restriction. Moreover, in 1853 and 1854 the people of the State, not having the fear of Buffalo before their eyes, so amended the Constitution, as to provide for the finishing of the Oswego Canal. But what the State thinks of this policy of restriction and discrimination may be certainly inferred from her unrepealed law of 1841, which required the tolls on all the canals to be uniform. It can also be certainly inferred from the fate of the application, which Buffalo made to the Legislature in 1845 to impose discriminating tolls on the Oswego Canal. That application was rejected by an overwhelming vote in the Assembly, and it was not acted on in the Senate.

I said that when the State, in 1851, determined to rebuild and enlarge the Oswego Canal, Buffalo did not ask to have its commerce restricted. So too, in the same year, the State authorized the building of the Sodus Canal without imposing restrictions upon the range of its commerce, and without being asked by Buffalo to do so. Moreover, two years after, the State chartered a Company to build the Niagara Ship Canal, and set no limits, and was not asked by Buffalo to set any, to its business. What more need be said to prove that the policy of the State has ever been against this restriction and discrimination; and that even Buffalo has but rarely remonstrated against it?

But I will delay no longer to argue that this measure, which Buffalo calls for, is unconstitutional.

The Constitution says:" The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." Let us see if the Buffalo scheme is not in violation of this provision. An inhabitant of Milwaukee concludes to remove to Boston. He goes to Oswego by the way of the Welland Canal, taking with him his family, his furniture, his horses and carriages, his barrels of provisions. At Oswego he falls in with an inhabitant of that city who is also about to remove with his family and effects to Boston. They take the same canal boat; and when, if I may so express myself, they step up together to pay their canal bills to Albany, the Milwaukee gentleman finds, to his astonishment, that he has to pay nearly twice as

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much toll per ton per mile as the Oswego gentleman. Now does not this inequality violate the constitutional provision in question? But it will be said, that there would not have been any of this inequality - any of this difference in the rates of transportation - had the Milwaukee gentleman entered our State at Buffalo, instead of Oswego. The Constitution, however, does not require the citizen of one State who visits another State, to enter it at a prescribed point, in order to save his rights from violation. It is not so nominated in the bond. It will also be said, that there would have been nothing of this inequality, had not the Milwaukee gentleman come through the Welland Canal. But does the Constitution allow a man to be deprived of his rights, because he comes into a State by the way of a canal? No - nor is this so nominated in the bond. Perhaps, too, it will be said, that if a citizen of this State should be in Milwaukee with his family and effects, and should bring them through the Welland Canal, to Albany by way of Oswego, he would be subjected to the same unequal treatment as the Milwaukee gentleman. I admit that he would be, and that the law, which Buffalo calls for, would in this respect be entirely impartial. Nevertheless no injustice which the State of New York does to one of its own citizens, can be allowed to work or justify the forfeiture of the rights of a citizen of Wisconsin. I admit that the intent of this Buffalo scheme is not to distinguish between men as belonging to different States - but only as having, or having not, when on their way between Oswego and the West, passed through the Welland Canal. Nevertheless, the scheme is stamped with unconstitutionality, if its practical operation is to distinguish between the person who is a citizen of another State and the person who is a citizen of our own. It is not enough that the Wisconsin man is placed by the scheme on the same footing with the New York man, who has also come through the Welland Canal. The scheme is unconstitutional if it does not place him on the same footing with

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the most favored New York man - on the same footing with the New York man who has not come through the Welland Canal.

I pass on to another point in my constitutional argument. The Buffalo memorial calls on our State virtually to regulate commerce between the States. But the provision of the Constitution bearing on this point clothes Congress, and not a State, with the right to regulate it. Moreover, Congress has not lost this right, nor have the States gained it, by the omission of Congress to legislate under this provision. It is entirely unnecessary to the argument to inquire why Congress has not legislated under it. The reason given why an ancient people did not enact a law against parricide, is perhaps suggestive of the reason why there has been no legislation in the present case. The possibility of such a crime did not enter into their conceptions. And why Congress has never in a Statute ordained free trade between the States is perhaps because it never could apprehend that any State would be guilty of so sinning against this sisterhood of States, as to interrupt free trade between them. But whatever the cause of the omission in question, it is reasonable to say that Congress, having from the organization of the Government to the present time permitted commerce between the States to be free, has thereby willed it to be free. For our State then to shackle this commerce would be both to usurp a power that belongs to Congress, and also to exercise it in a direction contrary to the will and policy of Congress. But it will, perhaps, be said, that what proves too much proves nothing, and that, in arguing for absolutely free commerce between the States, I do, in effect, deny the right of our State to impose any tolls upon her canals. I mean not to deny that right. I admit that she has the same right to impose tolls upon her canals, that railroad, and plank-road, and turnpike road companies have to impose tolls upon their roads:- the same right, AND NO MORE. These companies have the right

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to charge for the use of their roads, and she for the use of her canals. Nevertheless every citizen in the Union is entitled to a free right of way all over the Union. It does not follow, however, that he is entitled to the unpaid and free use of the improvement of every or any way. A citizen of Pennsylvania enters our State near Binghamton with his boxes of goods. On reaching that beautiful and thriving town, he goes to the railroad depot, and, in virtue of what he deems to be his right of way, and his right of free commerce, he demands a free seat in the cars for himself and a free space for his boxes. Or he goes to the Chenango Canal, and, by means of the same misconstruction of his rights, he claims free transportation in a boat. Our Pennsylvanian has manifestly mistaken his rights. His free right of way is indisputable. So is his free right of commerce. But neither, nor both of these entitle him to use without charge either the expensive improvements of the natural way, which the railroad company has made in the one case, or the State in the other. His claim to use either the railroad or canal without contributing to their cost is no less absurd than would be his claim that the citizens of New York are constitutionally bound to harness their horses and carry him free of charge into whatever part of their State he may choose to go. But although our Pennsylvanian can be allowed no such claim as this, there nevertheless is a claim, and a very important one, which he is at entire liberty to put forth. It is the reasonable, constitutional claim, that for using the railroad from Binghamton to Syracuse he shall not be compelled to contribute to the building and maintenance of the railroad from Vermont to Albany; and that, for using the Chenango Canal he shall not be compelled to pay ought for building and maintaining the canal from Lake Champlain to the North River. To compel him to do either of these would be to sacrifice, or at least impair, his rights of way and commerce, in order to help the citizens of Vermont to his Albany railroad, and

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Champlain Canal. It would be in principle a denial of these rights. The simple truth is, that whilst, on the one hand, our Pennsylvanian should be willing to pay for the use of the railroad or canal on which he travels, and should indeed regard these improvements as helping him to enjoy his natural and constitutional rights of way and commerce; he should not, on the other hand, be required to pay for anything beyond these improvements. If, when using one railroad, he is made to contribute to the expense of another, then on the same principle may he be compelled to contribute to the expense of ten railroads; and then too, on the same principle, may the charges against him be so multiplied and onerous, as to drive him out of the State.

Am I asked whether I see to what results my argument leads? I answer that I do; and that my confidence in its soundness is not at all shaken in view of these results. I see, for instance, that my argument involves the denial of the right of the State to make the Erie Canal do more than pay for itself. And why should it not be denied? To tax the Ohio merchant, or farmer, who uses that canal, for anything more than his use of it in the light of the cost of it, would be to invade his natural and constitutional right to a free way and to free commerce. If Government has the right to tax him at all, beyond this, then has it the right to tax him for its general expenses, or for anything else:- then, has it the right to tax him to so great an extent for the use of any and all our highways, as shall, in effect, forbid his remaining in our State.

The Buffalo memorial substantially admits the right to the free use of "natural waters." But every citizen in the Union has, as I have already intended to argue, a perfect constitutional and natural right to every highway in the Union, be it on land or water. If the highway is unimproved, he is to he allowed to enjoy it without tax. If improved, he is not to be required to pay for anything but the improvement. In fact, I know not why Government

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should have the right to limit the charges on a railroad, or plankroad, or turnpike road, to what it deems a reasonable interest on the cost of the improvement, or, indeed, to limit it in any wise, or for any reason, except it be on the principle that every way belongs to the public, and that the public are entitled to use it by paying for the improvement only. On no other principle than this has the Legislature the right to limit the profits on road stock more than on merchandize.

To recapitulate under this head : 1st. Congress has willed that commerce between the States shall be free. 2d. The Buffalo scheme proposes that our State shall usurp the right and frustrate the policy of Congress, and impose a tax upon the commerce of other States, which shall seek the Welland and Oswego Canals. 3d. A tax to pay for the improvement of the channel of trade, through which the commerce passes, no one would have right to complain of. But the tax, with which the Oswego Canal is threatened, is expressly to make up for the lack of business on another channel.

Thus far my constitutional argument has been in respect to the rights of those who live beyond the limits of our State. To me it appears sound. To some it will appear unsound-for there are some who, in the language of the Buffalo memorial, hold that our " State has a perfect right to pre scribe the terms " she will, for using her canals. I now proceed to deny that the State has such unlimited right even in the case of her own citizens. Even in their case do I deny her right to discriminate in tolls.

Not if this Buffalo measure were so modified as to operate upon the citizens of this State only - not even then could it be adopted with the least show of either natural or constitutional right. For this State to subject her different citizens to different tolls, would be to violate the equality which is ordained in the very first Section of the very first Article of her Constitution: "No member of this State

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should be disfranchised or deprived of any of the rights or privileges secured to any citizen thereof, unless by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers." I need not say that this phrase, "law of the land," means far other than a statute.

But not content with what I have said at this point, I go on to say, that the State cannot acquire title to ground, on which to build a canal that she may discriminate against, in any such sense, as she is now called on to discriminate against the Oswego Canal. I grant that, in virtue of her right of eminent domain, a State is at liberty to take the lands of her citizens. But she can take them only for legitimate and necessary uses. Certain it is that she can take them only to use them. For instance, if Government owns the gristmill in a certain neighborhood, it cannot, in order to confer a monopoly of grinding on that mill, take into its possession and leave unimproved, the mill site of the next neighborhood. No matter what it may pay for it, it has no right to obtain it for such a purpose; and it can hold it only on the condition of improving it. If individuals may monopolize in this wise, nevertheless Government may not. If Government owns the railroad on one side of the Hudson River, it may not, for the sake of securing to that road all the trade and travel of the Hudson Valley, purchase and leave unimproved the route for a railroad on the other side of the river. It cannot retain the route without building the road upon it. So when Government took the ground necessary for building the Oswego Canal, it had no right to take this natural canal route into its possession for the purpose of preventing the building of a canal there, and of securing to the Erie Canal a monopoly of trade and travel, and of keeping down a rival to it. The people of the Oswego Valley had an excellent route for a canal. No earthly power was competent to deprive them of this natural advantage. The State could take it and improve it. But the State could not take it, leave it unimproved, and yet hold it. The State

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could build a canal there: - but it could not prevent the building of a canal there. Nevertheless the principle is contained in this Buffalo movement, that the State can take and retain this Oswego Valley canal route, and yet have no canal there. I say that it is contained in it. Nothing short of this principle would answer the purpose of those who originated the movement. No principle less comprehensive would cover their broad claim. For, surely, if Government has not the right to fill up the canal, it has not the right to forbid the people of the Oswego Valley to use it for any of the proper purposes of a canal. If Government has no right to forbid all use of the canal, it certainly can have no right to forbid any legitimate use of it. But if this movement shall succeed with the Legislature, then Government will virtually be saying to the people of the Oswego Valley: "You may use the canal to carry the wheat you grow on its banks, but not that which you buy in Ohio, or grow on farms which any of you may own in Ohio." Not their Ohio wheat - for that would be excluded by the imposition of five fold tolls on the Oswego Canal - Buffalo having, as I have already said, satisfied herself before asking for these five fold tolls, that they would amount to such exclusion. But if the State can forbid the people of the Oswego Valley to carry their wheat on the Oswego Canal - then can it forbid their carrying anything upon it - then it can fill it up.

Let such a statute be enacted as the Buffalo memorial calls for, and our judges could not fail to pronounce it unconstitutional. In the meantime, however, half the business men in Oswego might be ruined by its operation. I am not a lawyer, and I have communicated with no lawyer, and indeed, with no person, on these points which I have made against the constitutionality of the proposed measure. But one need not be a lawyer to see that such a measure is utterly at war with plain and important natural and constitutional rights.

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Am I asked whether I hold that the State is bound to keep up the Oswego Canal forever? I answer that it is not - no, not for a day. But I do hold that it is bound to keep it up, or let it go into other hands either by sale or abandonment; and I repeat, that until it does let it pass into other hands, it is bound to let it be used for all the business proper to a canal.

Just here I would ask Buffalo if she would be willing to have the principle, which she is applying to the destruction of Oswego, turned against herself. This principle, in her present application of it, is that the State may forbid the use of one canal in order to feed the monopoly of another. What if the State owned the water power at Oswego and also that at Buffalo, (for I believe that Black Rock, with her immense water power, is now a part of Buffalo,) and what if the State, having improved that at Oswego, should decide that it is better to bless her Oswego mills with a monopoly of grinding than to improve her water power at Buffalo ? Would Buffalo approve this policy? Would she meekly take her own medicine? - such medicine as she is now in tent on administering to Oswego ? Far from it. She would promptly and indignantly deny the right of the State to adopt this policy, or to hold the property without improving it.

But is there no conceivable case in which discrimination, or, I should perhaps rather say, difference, in tolls would be justifiable? There is - and let this admission modify what I have said to the contrary. Where a road, owing to the unusual natural obstructions in the way of building it, was five times as costly as an ordinary road, there might be no injustice in making the tolls upon it five times as great. If to build the Oswego Canal cost five times as much per mile as to build the Erie, that might justify the Buffalo proposition to make its tolls five times as great. But all know that the Oswego Canal cost comparatively little. For half its length it is natural navigation. Indeed, the Oswego

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Canal is, properly speaking, an improved natural navigation. By the way, do not the peole of Buffalo go somewhat in the face of the admissions of their own memorial, when they claim unlimited power for the State to toll this canal? Can even the people of Buffalo ask that the use of natural navigation shall be taxed with any thing more than the cost of improving it?

What, however, shall be done to increase the revenues of our State, and to pay the canal debt? Shall we reimpose tolls on the railroads? Certainly not. Although if they had not been taken off, and their business had been no less, nearly three millions more would have come into our treasury; and although here, and not in the Oswego Canal, is to be found the cause of our deficient income, nevertheless I would not have tolls reimposed on the railroads. The freest competition of railroads is indispensable to cheapen transportation. Moreover, there never was any more constitutional right to impose State tolls on railroads than on plank roads, or turnpikes. I trust, that I shall not be suspected of saying these words with the interest of a stockholder in the New York Central Road. I never owned any stock in it. Ere leaving the subject of tolling railroads, I would have our railroad companies remember that if the State may claim a constitutional right to impose discriminating tolls on a canal, it may with equal propriety claim a constitutional right to impose tolls on a railroad. If it may tax transportation on a canal, with any other reference than to its cost, then may it tax transportation on railroads to defray any or all Governmental expenses. The Oswego Canal may be the first victim of such oppressive, and outrageous legislation. But it will not be the last. The doing of this great wrong to a canal will open the door to do the like wrong to a railroad.

But the question returns - "What shall we do to replenish the treasury?" I am not here for the purpose of answering any such question. I am here but to expose and char-

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acterize the amazing and wicked injustice toward Oswego, of which Buffalo would be guilty. Moreover, the Legislature is entirely competent to provide for the treasury, without any enlightenment at the hands of either the assailants or defenders of Oswego. Least of all does it stand in need of the wisdom of the quacks, who would have the State improve her condition by devouring one of her own children.

I do not, however, object to add to what I have already said in regard to the revenues of the State, that, in my judgment, nothing would serve them so well as the hastening of the completion of the wide canals. When that completion is accomplished, we shall have the cheapest, and, therefore, most productive of all the means of transportation. Where speed is required, they will not be preferred. In other cases they generally will. That in their present condition they can so well withstand the competition of railroads, convinces me that when they are finished, railroads will have much more to fear from them than they from railroads.

Suppose, however, it should turn out that the rivalry of our railroads is too sharp to permit the income of our canals to increase? What then? Why we must then rejoice in railroads; and, if anything better than railroads to promote the commerce of our State, and the growth of our metropolis, shall be invented, we must rejoice in that better thing still more than we did in railroads. Let stupid conservatives cling to the old, simply because it is old, and refuse the new simply because it is new. Be it ours to remember that the motto of our noble State is "EXCELSIOR," and that if we would show ourselves worthy of that proud motto, and keep ourselves in harmony with it, we must welcome every improvement upon our present means of usefulness, and happiness, and joy in the thought that the inventions of a coming day will render useless the most valuable and cherished inventions of the present day.

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I remark, in passing, that it is a wonder that the conservatism, not to say old fogyism, of Buffalo did not remonstrate against the shortening of the Erie Canal. I believe that they, who have in hand the widening of it, have made it several miles shorter. The Buffalo people, believing that canals are made for tolls, rather than for commerce, and being, therefore, so much in favor of long canals, and so much opposed to all short cuts, must have grieved greatly to see the sinuous parts of the Erie Canal straightened.

One of the most amusing evidences of the old fogyism of Buffalo, is to be found in the repeated declarations of her memorial, that the great current of commerce " belongs legitimately" to the Erie Canal. Legitimately! How absurd the use of this word in this connection! As if, in any just sense, commerce could belong to any other channel of trade than that which it finds its own advantage in seeking. There is a horse race. The little bob-tail nag beats the horse of noble proportions. But the Buffalo witnesses of the race are angry, and cry out : "Kill that little bob-tail nag. The victory belongs legitimately to the big horse." It is in this same spirit, that Buffalo cries out for the virtual filling tip of this little bob-tail nag of an Oswego Canal, and for the concentration of all commerce upon that long canal, to which, simple- because it is long, she claims that all commerce legitimately belongs. The truth is, that a bad education has spoiled Buffalo. She has come to glory in everything that is big, and to despise everything that is little. She glories in big horses and despises nags; in long canals and despises short ones. But most of all does she glory in big Buffalo, and despise little Oswego.

I must hasten to a close. How unhappy, in all its broad and prolonged influences, will be this attack of one city upon another - this attempt to array one portion of our State against another! The men of this vast commonwealth, however distant from each other, and however diverse their callings and interests, should, nevertheless, be

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as brothers to each other-rejoicing in, and never jealous of, each other's prosperity. Buffalo should not be jealous of Oswego. She should not compass her destruction, but should be glad to let her little sister live. Buffalo should see with pity, and not with pleasure, that the success of her inordinately selfish proposition would annihilate more than half the value of the mills and elevators and warehouses of Oswego - ay, and more than half the value of all the American shipping on Lake Ontario, and sink into poverty and distress the industrious little city, which owns so large a share of it.

Brothers of Buffalo! will all that you are to gain from the success of your proposition compensate for inflicting this wron; and wretchedness upon your sister city? State of New York! will all that your treasury is to gain from it make such compensation? All that your Canal Board can promise your treasury from it is but one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. Will that little annuity suffice to atone for the destruction of Oswego? - yes, and of the Oswego Canal also? Will it repair the loss of weaning from the State, not only Oswego but other localities, which will deeply sympathise with her, and be affected in common with her? This Buffalo measure is one in effect to annex Oswego, Ogdensburgh, &c., to Canada, inasmuch as they would find there that free trade, free intercourse, and friendship, which are denied them in their own State. Ere leaving this topic let me say, that the Canal Board had come much nearer the truth, if, instead of estimating the gain from this Buffalo measure at one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, it had estimated the loss from it at three times one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Let us leave the different parts of the State to enjoy their respective natural advantages. We may legislate to improve those advantages:- but in the name of common sense, justice, and humanity, let us not legislate to countervail and destroy them. Ay, in the name of religion also, let us not

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do so. To forbid, for instance, the use of Lake Ontario - to forbid the use of that natural navigation, which the Father of us all has spread out for the free use of all His children is nothing short of downright impiety. But this blocking up of the Oswego Canal is only a way to prevent the navigating of Lake Ontario - an ingenious contrivance to toll natural navigation.

New York has unsurpassed natural advantages for a great city. Leave her in the full possession of them. Buffalo, so long called " The New York of the Lakes," and " The Queen of the Lakes," has also great natural advantages for a great city. Let her enjoy them all. The Genesee Valley surpasses every other part of the State in the production of wheat. Do not legislate to cheapen her wheat lands, which are at once her wealth and pride. Leave cold Essex and Clinton counties to make the most they can out of their excellent iron ore. And as to hard soil Oswego county which cannot grow the wheat she eats - do pity her poverty so far as to leave to her the canal route which nature gave her. Do not take from her, her "one little ewe lamb " to give it to the "rich man who has exceeding many flocks and herds." I find myself quoting Scripture. Let me not be supposed to intimate that Buffalo, because opposed to this Scripture, is opposed to every other. There is at least one which she is not opposed to - at least one which she would have enforced. It is that which says: "For whosoever (Big Bufalo) hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundantly; but whosoever (little Oswego) hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath."

I cannot leave this stage of my argument without saying that the notion that it is the duty or liberty of Government to contrive to adjust and provide compensations for the differences in the natural advantages of different sections of the State, is totally absurd. It is true that the Oswego Valley has a better route for a canal, or rather a route for a better canal, than the Genesee Valley has. But shall the State therefore, in order to bring about a balance at this point,

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discriminate against the Oswego in favor of the Genesee Canal? If it shall ursurp this power, it can do no less on the score of consistency, than discriminate against the fine wheat lands of the Genesee in favor of the poor wheat lands of the Oswego Valley. The farmers of the Oswego Valley would perhaps be very willing to have Discriminating Tolls put upon the Oswego Canal, provided they might, in turn, be allowed to draw every year one bushel of wheat per acre from those fine Genesee wheat lands.

This fallacy, that men should be made to pay for their natural advantages, is contained in the recent Report of the Canal Board. From this fallacy largely flow the false reasonings and false conclusions of this Report, and also the false reasonings and false conclusions everywhere met with in the arguments for the Buffalo memorial. This Report says:-"Tolls upon the canals should be in proportion to the advantages which those using them derive from such use. "Now, I admit that the people of the Oswego valley derive ten times the advantages from the use of their canal that the people of a valley in wild, cold, sterile Hamilton County could from a canal in their valley. But I deny that they are, therefore, to be made to pay ten times as much or even any more, for the use of their canal. It is owing to their superior natural advantages, that the people of the Oswego valley find their canal worth so much more than the other. I admit that they owe payment for these advantages. But it is payment in the shape of gratitude to God, and not of tenfold canal tolls to men.

There are at least three important truths, which the defeat of this Buffalo measure will teach. 1st. That the Government of this State will show no partiality to any of its towns or sections. 2d. That this Government has not, and claims not, any more right than an incorporated company to charge for the use of a canal or road with any other reference than to the cost thereof. 3d. That this Government will aim to keep itaelf within the limits of Govern-

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ment; and will obey no calls, come they from Buffalo or elsewhere, to legislate in matters, which lie outside of the province of legitimate legislation.

How unhappy for Buffalo herself should she succeed in gratifying the selfish, grasping, gormandizing spirit which now actuates her? Her success in her present guilty undertaking would most surely react upon her. It could not fail to lead to revengeful and effective combinations against her. And if she does not succeed, nevertheless, when hereafter she shall apply for however just legislation in her own behalf, she may (though I hope she will not) find herself encountering combinations, that would delight to defeat her, in order to punish her for having dared to invoke on the present occasion, such enormously unjust, and cruelly oppressive and crushing legislation. Indeed if Buffalo, may raise the question whether the State had better not make war upon the Oswego Canal, others may be provoked to raise the question whether the State had better not make war upon the Western section of the Erie. I would have neither the one nor the other warred upon. I would have each left to do all the business it can. "Success to Buffalo ! Success to Oswego ! Success to every part of the State !" is a motto to which every true son of New York cordially responds,

I would say here, that I am not sure but Buffalo has abandoned the plan in her memorial - the plan of increasing the tolls on the Oswego Canal. A New York City paper was shown to me last evening containing a communication signed "Buffalo." If I understand the writer, he would have the tolls on that part of the Erie Canal west of Syracuse reduced so low, that the tolls on its whole length would but equal the tolls from the North river to Oswego. Is this your plan now, Gentlemen of Buffalo? Is it? As you do not deny it, I assume that it is. There is not time to explain, nor even to state, the numerous and fatal objections to it. All I will do is to glance at two or three of them.

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1st This plan would, of course, be no less unjust and ruinous to Oswego than the former plan.

2d. It would be no less unconstitutional than the former plan. 3d. It would diminish revenues much more than would the former plan, For, in the first place it would no less effectually than the former one, throw Oswego out of competition with Buffalo, and thus leave the Buffalo Forwarders at liberty on that hand to increase their charges for freight. But on the other hand, the reduction of tolls would tempt them to a greater increase of these charges. Hence the practical operation of this new plan, so far as the treasury is concerned, would be, not to transport more tons at less rates of toll, but fewer tons at less rates of toll. The deficient tons would be found upon our railroads or upon routes out of out State. No doubt, should Buffalo ever come again to the Legislature on this subject, she will come with this new plan. It would be worth far more than the old one to fill the pockets of her Forwarders. But inasmuch as they will be filled at the expense of the treasury, will not the Legislature show still less favor to the new plan than to the old?

I have done. Doubts were entertained whether, inasmuch as I have property in Oswego, I am the right person to stand before you on this occasion. But with all deference, I think that my ownership of property there makes it peculiarly fit that I should defend the perilled rights of Oswego, and seek to shield them from the destruction which Buffalo aims at them.

There is too, an especial reason, growing out of the fact, that I am one of the original purchasers of the site of Oswego, why I should call upon the Legislature to resist to the utmost this purpose of Buffalo to destroy Oswego. Let us see if there is not. The State owned the site. When the year 1827 had come round, and the Oswego and Welland Canals were nearly finished, she wisely judged that the very best time had arrived for selling it. It was sold in lots at public auction; and the great prices for which they were sold, surrounded though they were by woods, and a large share of them still covered with woods, astonished the, whole country. Why did they bring such great prices? Because the State and the purchasers all agreed that the Oswego and Welland Canals would soon build up the little village into a

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busy city. And now the State is called on to fill up the Oswego Canal so far as the Western trade is concerned, and to cut off all connection of Oswego with the Welland Canal! Yes, called on to deprive Oswego of the very two advantages, which enabled the State to sell the site for so large a sum - and but for which advantages it could not have sold it for one-tenth of that sum. Now, I do not hesitate to say, that the State, if guilty of yielding to this call, would be guilty of fraud and treachery toward the purchasers - a fraud and treachery, with the possibility of which none of them could lay their account, since none of them could suspect that their great State was capable of it. As I was one of these purchasers, it is incumbent on me to speak in these plain terms.

Let me, in conclusion, say, that for one I have not the slightest fear, that the Legislature of this State will ever lend itself to this guilty scheme-not the slightest fear that the people of this State will ever give it their countenance. No fear what ever have I that it will succeed. It will utterly fail. It will be rebuked - and so signally and overwhelmingly rebuked, that Buffalo will never more repeat the folly_. and the sin.