rates, (being $325,221,) it makes a total of | gle exception, the Committee advised no $ 3,577,433. In this amount are included the tolls of the lateral canals, the receipts of which, as kept separately, are about equivalent to their cost of maintenance. After making the proper allowance for the actual expense of repairs on the Erie Canal, the net revenue is $3,000,000 as predicted. The doctrine that no debt should be incurred by the State for the purpose of constructing public works, is comparatively of recent origin. It was neither the theory nor the practice of this State in 1838. At that time, the main question was, would their revenues pay the interest on a debt? In the annual message of Governor MARCY, of that year, he expressly recommended to the Legislature the expediency of making more rapid progress in enlarging the Canal than it was possible to do with the surplus tolls alone. Mr. Bouck and the other Canal Commissioners substantially recommended the same thing. This implied, necessarily, either borrowing money or direct taxation. Even Mr. FLAGG would not have recommended the latter method. The Committee then had only to show that an annual revenue of $3,000,000 would be sufficient to pay the interest, at five per cent. on a debt of thirty millions, and reimburse the principal in less than twenty years, or on a debt of forty millions and reimburse it in twenty-eight years. The soundness of this portion of the Report was not questioned until two or three years after it was made. The attacks were made upon what were called its "fancies" and "visionary" character. But the fancies have become facts. Is not our debt at this very moment in process of rapid extinction by means of these very revenues? And is not the much lauded financial provision of the Constitution of 1846, founded on the assumption of the adequacy of these revenues? Two years previous to 1838, the State had passed laws for constructing the Genesee Valley and Black River Canals, at an expense of at least $5,000,000, and for enlarging the Erie Canal at a cost which Mr. Bouck and his colleagues had estimated at $12,416,150, but which, for greater caution, the Committee raised to $ 15,000,000. The Canal Engineers had also reported most favorably of the enlargement. The surplus tolls, at that time, amounted to a little less than $800,000 annually. Should they not increase faster than was then admitted by Mr. FLAGG and others, the time required for the enlargement would not be less than fifteen years, even if its cost should not exceed $15,000,000. At a cost of $25,000,000, the work could not be accomplished in less than twenty-five years at least. To save interest, therefore, the Committee recommended a resort to loans. With this sin expenditure on any particular work whatever. They stated that if a debt of $40,000,000 should be incurred for public works, the money might be "safely borrowed, without imposing any burthens upon the people; and that if the views of the Canal Commissioners, as to the future revenues of the Canals, are correct, the whole amount, within thirty years, may be reimbursed and added to the productive property of the State." In 1838 the Barnburners and Hunkers commanded a large majority in the Senate, but the Report was favorably received by that body. An Assembly bill, authorizing a loan of $1,000,000 for expediting the enlargement, was actually amended in the Senate to $ 4,000,000, and in that shape it became a law. This law seemed to produce universal satisfaction throughout the State. The Canal Commis(sioners, in consequence of their scanty means, up to that time had been only able to put under contract a few scattered structures; but they were now enabled to operate with much more efficiency. Many aqueducts and locks had become decayed, and the safety of navigation rendered it desirable to rebuild them, and that of enlarged size. The three great aqueducts-two across the Mohawk and one at Rochester-were in a failing condition, and the expense of rebuilding them alone was nearly $1,000,000. The twenty-nine locks between Albany and Schenectady, when built, had been so clustered together as to cause most injurious delays in navigation; and the scanty supply of water afforded to the canal at Lockport rendering it necessary frequently to take from the manufacturing city of Rochester, the water from the Genesee river which was essential to the industry of its inhabitants, were evils which it was important to remedy with as little delay as possible. The work put under contract in the season of 1838, was directed chiefly to these points and purposes. The great effort was to relieve navigation of its most pressing embarrassments. The total cost of the works thus commenced under the law of 1838, including all that had been previously commenced, did not exceed $11,000,000. At the opening of the Session of the Legislature of 1839, the war on the policy of 1838 was fairly commenced. Governor SEWARD, the first Whig successor of DE WITT CLINTON, came into office the firm supporter of that policy, while Mr. FLAGG, in his Annual Report, used his best efforts to show that the calculations of the Committee of Ways and Means of 1838 were conjectural and fallacious, that the treasury could not safely rely on the rate of progress in the canal tolls which their estimate had assumed. Mr. GULIAN C. VERPLANCK, a gentleman of eminently conservative character, contended that the results predicted would be realized, and would warrant 1 an expenditure, if necessary, of $45,000,000, | left a vacancy in that body, and Mr. RUCGLES while Mr. ALONZO C. PAIGE, the organ of the opposition, and the confidential friend of the Comptroller, took issue on the accuracy of the estimates. Mr. PAIGE in an elaborate minority Report, stated as the result of his calculations, that the tolls would only increase at the rate of one and two-thirds per cent. annually, until the year 1886, but "to make the allowance more liberal," as he said, "ten per cent. is conceded for every period of six years." He then calculated the tolls at that rate, which gave for 1844, $1,555,400; for 1850, $1,710, 940, and he proceeded in the same ratio every sixth year, until the year 1886, when he finally brings out the sum of $3,031,032. He expressed his regret that he was obliged to differ from Mr. VERPLANCK by a period so wide as forty years! but challenged the Senate to try his conclusions. The history of the last twelve years has settled the question, for the was elected by the Legislature to fill his place. In the year 1839 Mr. Bouck still adhered firmly to the policy of enlarging the Canal ;he was indeed the projector of it, and in the final discussion in the Canal Board of 1835, which settled its future dimensions, he voted for a depth of 8, and a width of 80 feet. It was, however, decided to have a depth of 7, and a width of 70 feet. On leaving the Board in 1840, he exhorted Mr. RUGGLES to disregard all petty and partizan considerations, and stand faithfully by the great enterprise. As early as the year 1839, the columns of the leading journals opposed to the Canal policy began to be occupied with a plan to impair the credit of the States, and it was evident that an attempt would be made to create a panic on the subject of the public debt of the State of New York. Feeling the danger that was arising, it became important to con tolls in 1847 reached the sum of $3,635,381, ( fine the efforts of the State, for a time at least, passing the disputed point of $3,000,000, 39 years sooner than Mr. PAIGE had predicted. But it was reserved for Colonel YOUNG, the great leader of the opposition, to display his party in its strongest colors. In a Report which he made as chairman of the Finance Committee of the Senate, all ages and nations, and conditions of man-Turk and Christian Jew and Gentile-every field of literature, ancient and modern-scraps of verses, Latin and English-bits of French-the sayings of Zenophon and Thucydides, of Hume and Montesquieu-the highlands of Scotland-the plains of India-the pyramids of Egypt the vulture of Prometheus, and the awful maledictions of Holy Writ, are summoned to find suitable epithets for the "serpents and generation of vipers" that were seeking to enlarge the Erie canal. In his better days Col. YOUNG had been an advocate of Internal Improvement, especially of the Champlain canal, near which he resided. In 1825, he reported to the Legislature an estimate that in 1856 the canal tolls would amount to $4,000,000. From this time forward the Report and its author were made the subjects of every species of party ridicule and obloquy; and, as late as 1844, Mr. JOHN A. Dix, in a public meeting at Albany, with $2,500,000 of canal revenues then rolling in from the west and staring him full in the face, characterized the Report as a mere "work of the imagination," fit only to be classed with the Arabian Nights' Entertainments! In the session of 1839, the Canal Commissioners reported that the enlargement would cost $23,402,800-being $10,000,000 beyond their former estimate. This state of facts raised a new financial question. The death of the late General STEPHEN VAN RENNSELAER, long the honory and honored head of the Board of Canal Commissioners, within more narrow limits. It was, therefore, resolved to restrict the work of the enlargement to the locks and aqueducts. It was known that this would secure a considerable portion of the total benefits of the work, by an expenditure of little more than $12,000,000, and it would serve as a convenient resting point, should this alternative become necessary. The section work, including land damages, was estimated at $12,000,000; but little of it had been put under contract. In pursuance of this policy, the Whig Canal Commissioners, caused a section to be inserted in the law of April 25th, 1840, enacting that no "new work should be put under contract on the enlargement of the Erie Canal," except a section one mile long, through the city of Rochester, a lock which required rebuilding at Black Rock, and such work as should be necessary to render available the work then in progress. The next year a similar section was inserted at the request of the Canal Commissioners. The total amount of contracts on the enlargement, made by the Whig Commissioners during the whole time they were in office, does not exceed one million of dollars; while Mr. RUGGLES, on the Genesee Valley Canal alone, by reducing the unnecessary cost of some of its structures, saved upwards of six hundred thousand dollars. So much for the "spendthrift" policy of Governor SEWARD and his Whig Administration. In April, 1840, Mr. JOHN C. SPENCER, who was Secretary of State, and a leading member of the Canal Board, formed by uniting in one body the Canal Commissioners and the Canal Fund Commissioners, made a Report to the Assembly on the subject of the Canal policy of the State. The result at which he arrived was, that the increase in tolls, instead of being one and two-thirds per cent. as stated by Mr. PAIGE, would amount to seven per cent. per annum for every successive period of seven years; or seven and a half per cent. annually for every period of ten years. He estimated the tolls from 1840 to 1846, both inclusive, at ❘neral depression, the city issued seven per by party-and none of the inhabitants had any political object in destroying its public credit. Although feeling the effect of the ge $15,602,745-they actually amounted to $15,490,076; showing a variation of only $112,669 in this immense sum. He then expressed the opinion of the Fund Commissioners, that it would be safe to add to the debt of the State three millions annually, for the next five years. This sum would have fulfilled all existing contracts, and have brought into use all the locks and aqueducts on the enlargement. Under the law of 1838, the State had already borrowed $4,000,000 for that purpose; but they proceeded to authorize loans for the additional amounts of $2,000,000 in 1840, and $2,150,000 in 1841, making the sum total for the enlargement of $8,150,000. In the year 1841, a general depression of public stocks was experienced throughout the United States. The Ohio Six per cents were secured both by a pledge of the canal tolls of that State and a permanent authority of their state officers to levy a direct tax, should there be any deficiency. Such a provision could safely have been adopted in this State, and it would have silenced demagogues, who were loud in denying its pecuniary solvency. Protected by this provision, the Ohio Sixes sold in 1839 for 105 per cent. In April, 1841, they had fallen to 91 per cent. Within the same period, New York Six per cents fell from 97 to 85 per cent. In the autumn of 1841, the anti-improvement party, headed by Mr. MICHAEL HOFFMAN, were in the ascendancy in both branches of the Legislature. They had the power to control the public works, by either suspending them, proceeding with them slowly, or stopping them wholly. a cent. stocks to the amount of $1,900,000, and finished the work. Had the state policy been pursued, not a drop of water would have flowed through the aqueduct to this day. By the last Report of the Commissioners of the Canal Fund, it appears that the whole amount of loans made for the enlargement of the Canal, up to the 30th of September, 1848, was $10,122,000: of this amount, $8, 150,000 had been authorized previous to 1842. The balance, $1,972,000, represents the whole amount due to contractors on the 29th of March, 1842, including the damages paid for rescinding their contracts. MR. COLLIER, the Whig Comptroller, proposed to issue seven per cent. stocks for a moderate amount; but he was displaced, and Mr. FLAGG again succeeded to the office. No money was raised or sought for on any terms. The improvements of the public works were doomed, by the party now having the power, to be stopped, and they were stopped. The Canal from Albany to Buffalo was strewed with the wreck. The Legislature paid $10,000 for removing materials which encumbered the ground most required for immediate use in Lockport; and the contractor, for that very work, obtained $74,000 as damages for the rescinding of his contract. Although the law contemplated stopping all the public works, yet there was provision made for a limited class of cases, in which the State officers should deem the work necessary to preserve or secure the navigation of the navigable canal, of which it was a part-or to preserve work already done, from destruction by ice or floods or where the completion would cost less than the expense of preserving the part done. But even this clause was disregarded. The new Jordan level was an independent line of new canal 11 1-2 miles long, which dispensed with two locks, and united three levels in one. It had cost $530,429, and required but $42,178 to bring it into The old navigation was actually hazardous; but the State officers peremptorily refused to allow it to be completed. use. In January, 1842, two months after the election, the Ohio Six per cents fell to 67 per cent., and in March were sold at 52 per cent. The Five per cent. stocks of the city of New York, being the Croton Water Loan, which had been sold in April, 1841, at 85, fell to 75 in February, 1842, while the stock of the Bank of Commerce, proverbially conservative institution, was depreciated in a still greater degree. The city of New York, instead of laying a tax to pay the interest of the Croton Stock, compounded and added it to the principal, the policy being to expedite the work as rapidly as possible and render it productive, when a tax, if necessary, could be adjusted to make up the difference between the revenue and the interest. The city had expended about $11,000,000-a little more than the state had expended on the Erie enlargement. The city was receiving nothing from the aqueduct the state was receiving large and increasing annual revenues from the canal. The Croton Aqueduct had never been attacked ❘tioning the policy and necessity of enlarging The Scoharie creek, in times of floods, was dangerous for boats to cross, and often caused very serious delay to great numbers which, at such times, were obliged to wait for the stream to subside. To obviate this inconvenience a fine aqueduct, on ten or twelve stone arches, was completed, at a cost of $179,000, and it required only the expenditure of $37,617 to adapt it to the levels of the enlarged canal. This was also refused. In 1844, Mr. FLAGG and his associates, the Canal Commissioners, made a Report, questhe canal at all, for the purpose of cheapening | Add to this the loss for the useless movement As an avenue of trade, it now outstrips every channel of commerce, natural or artiThe only resource, then, which remains for ❘ ficial, in the New or the Old World; it far the exigencies of the State, so far as its pre-exceeds the Rhine, which flows through the transportation. This was intended as a death blow to the canal enlargement. Mr. HORACE SEYMOUR, of Utica, an eminent Hunker, and Chairman of the Canal Committee, strongly opposed it, and succeeded in passing a law compelling the State officers to complete, and bring into use, the Jordan level and the Scoharie aqueduct-but under the pretence of a repair of the Erie canal. At the same session, the Canal Committee also showed the importance of enlarging, without further delay, the remaining 15 locks between Syracuse and Rochester. The cost, they showed, would not exceed $1,350,000. Nothing was done. This measure would have been one of great value, for, by allowing boats of the increased size (of 105 tons) instead of 70 tons to pass between the Hudson and Buffalo, two boats would be able to carry as much as three of the present capacity. The number of miles run by the boats in 1844 was 6,740,740, which might have been diminished one third, or 2,246,913 miles, if vessels of the larger measurement had been employed. The economy of saving annually such an immense movement is obvi ous. Mr. RUGGLES proceeds to show the amount of useless movement that the boats and cargoes of the canal have been and will be obliged to perform in the "seven years" of folly which have followed the Stop law. Under the Whig policy, the locks could and would have been finished, at the farthest, by the spring of 1844. The movement of boats, independent of those from the lateral canals, during the five years from 1844 to 1848, inclusive, has been 39,831,550 miles; and by adding 1849 and 1850, there will be a total of 56,175,450 miles. Of this, 18,725,150 could have been saved to the community. This loss falls chiefly on the agricultural classes. To the loss of individuals must be added the loss of interest, which in these seven years of delay falls upon the treasury. The enlargement had cost in 1842, including interest, at least $13,000,000 To finish the locks and aque of 18,725,150 miles, and we approach to something like a demonstrable amount of the loss that the public will have sustained by the Stop law at the end of the seven years! But when will the work be completed? The future appears as full of loss as the past. We are full of amazement at the infatuation which could have led the people to submit to a policy so suicidal. In 1846 the three political parties in this State met in Convention to make a new Constitution. So long as the people are satisfied with the result, the Constitution will continue. Mr. HOFFMAN came into the Convention flushed with his triumph of 1842, and resolved to engraft its whole spirit into our organic law. But time and circumstances had dissipated, in a good degree, the clouds which had enveloped the public mind. After establishing a sinking fund out of the revenues of the canal to re-imburse the debt, he condescended, as an act of sovereign grace, to allow $2,500,000 in the aggregate, to be applied at some future period, not to the enlargement, but to the "improvement" of the Erie Canal. Black River and Gennesee Valley were left to their fate. Mr. Bouck had become Governor during the darkest hour of the Stop law, and was now a member of the Convention. Although the author of the Enlargement policy, he was elected Governor by the very party who were loudest in denouncing the policy to which his whole life had been devoted. It was a sorry sight to see him, in the Executive chair, sustaining the act of 1842; but such only was the tenure by which the office could be held! In the Constitutional Convention of 1846 he had regained so much of his former tone, as to oppose Mr. HOFFMAN, and he was supported by most of the Hunkers. The result was, that the provision was finally adopted which secured the ultimate completion of the Erie Canal Enlargement, and the Genesee Valley and Black River Canals. The "compromise," as it is termed, of the Constitution of 1846, consists in prohibiting the State from using its credit, except on conditions that virtually render it impracticablefor it assumes that the principal and interest of any debt hereafter to be incurred can only be discharged by means of direct taxes to be imposed on all the property of the State, and that the taxes shall be sufficient to pay the interest and redeem the principal in eighteen years. A tax of this kind would fall equally on those who are and those who are not benefitted by an improvement. And, moreover, the people would scarcely submit to a tax for eighteen years, when the State possesses ample revenues to pay the interest and extinguish the principal of a debt. The Constitutiontherefore, by adopting this provision, practically declares that no further improvement shall be prosecuted in this State by means of its credit, except when coupled with a tax. sent or future public works are concerned, are the tolls of the Erie Canal, and it is therefore more than ever important that they shall be carefully watched and vigilantly cherished. It is not a little edifying that those who most violently ridiculed the idea that the Canal revenues would suffice as a basis of a debt, are now comforting their friends on the lines of the Canals by the assurance that the tolls will not only pay off a debt of $25,000,000 in about twenty years, but in addition, will afford ample means for proceeding with all suitable despatch, to complete the public works. The sum annually set apart by the Constitution for extinguishing the principal and interest of the public debt, is $1,650,000, to which is added $200,000 on account of the ordinary expenses of the government. The remainder is to be divided between the Enlargement, the Genesee Valley, and Black River Canals, and it now is about $1,000,000. This is the result of the "compromise." There is, however, one feature in the Constitution which the friends of improvement regard as important-it is that the State officers who manage the Canals and their revenues, shall hereafter be elective by the people. At the opening of the Session of the Legislature in 1847, Mr. FLAGG announced the surplus tolls then applicable to the public works to be $117,000. In November, 1847, MILLARD FILLMORE WAS elected Comptroller, under the new Constitution. On examination of the public accounts, he discovered a sum of $500,000 which he decided to be justly applicable to the completion of the public works. Mr. WASHINGTON HUNT succeeded Mr. FILLMORE, and he has discovered sums amounting to $800,000, which, in his judgment, were also applicable to the public works. This makes a total of $1,300,000. With the moderate means the Constitution has left to our present faithful and patriotic officers, the locks of the Erie Canal may be finished and opened for the large boats by the spring of 1851. But the progress of deepening the channel and realizing its largest benefits, must necessarily be slow and painfully protracted. During the last season, the products floating on the Canals amounted to 2,736,230 tons, exceeding by 1,100,000 tons the amount transported in 1843. The amount paid upon the Canal in 1848 for tolls and freight was $5,800,000 dollars, and in the active season of 1847, $8,400,000. heart of Europe for 500 miles, and has its navigation carefully improved by the seven Sovereign Powers adjacent to its banks. Nor is s its activity impaired by the long line of Rail Roads lying on its margin. The whole descending cargoes passing over the Rail Roads during the year 1848, were but 29,999 tons. In seven months of navigation of the same season, the Canal brought 1,180,000 tons to tide water. The pecuniary amount of the Canal commerce, which in 1843 had reached 76,000,000 of dollars, ascended in 1848 to 140,000,000; and yet it was alleged in the Convention for making a Constitution, that the Canal revenues had about reached their culminating point. Mr. RUGGLES concludes his letter as follows: "For once the writer of this hasty sketch has ventured to believe, and yet continues to believe, that an immense interior region of unequalled fertility, and of truly imperial extent, - the destined centre of American population, commerce and power, -as yet but in the early morning of its days,--lies just beyond our western border, and plainly within our reach, --and that it does not fall within the narrow ken of the men of the present day, fully to encompass the vast extent of its future wealth and greatness. "To connect the ocean with a region thus wide spread and magnificent, by commodious, constant and ample means of intercourse, to bind in bonds of mutual and ever-enduring interest and affection, the far distant portions of our favored land, he has always believed, and yet believes to be the bounden duty of the government of this State, and the aim of the intelligent, generous, and patriotic Whig party, of which he claims to be one among the humblest members. "But the Constitution of 1846, in a great measure, renders future effort needless and hopeless. We may proceed slowly and patiently, and in a reasonable time accomplish a useful portion of the work, but the full measure of its benefits can hardly be enjoyed by the present generation. The next will be more fortunate, and may be wiser-and when they come to perceive and enjoy its multifold, ceaseless, and ever increasing blessings, some curious inquirer into the past, wondering why it was so long delayed, may possibly look back and calculate the losses sustained by their fathers in the fury of party conflicts, by the madness of party leaders. If the history shall chance to furnish a salutary lesson, it will not be studied in vain." |