33D CONG....2D SESS.

39

breaking up the long ages of Asiatic superstition and ignorance. The distinguished gentleman from Missouri [Mr. BENTON] well said in his letter to the people of Missouri, "this is a work for posterity and for three continents. Yes, Mr. Chairman, in all the aspects which I have mentioned, and in numerous others, this enterprise rises to the position and dignity of the great work of the age-a work to mark an epoch in history, opening not only new paths in commerce, but a new era in empire and civilization.

The next question is, Can the road be built? I shall not enter into the discussion of this question with any minuteness. I shall not attempt to demonstrate what has already been so ably and clearly demonstrated, by unanswerable facts and figures, by the gentleman from California, [Mr. MCDOUGALL,] and the gentleman from Missouri, [Mr. BENTON,] and other gentlemen on this floor. The work is practicable, financially and topograph ically so. I do not believe the half we hear in favor of any of these routes from their different advocates, and even we have reason to believe that the topographical engineers who have explored the routes, each anxious to extend his fame by having his survey selected as the route of the road, have given very fair colorings, and underrated the difficulties to be overcome. I would not have the committee believe that I think the work a light one. On the other hand I believe it a Herculean work, requiring immense energy, capital, and also time to complete it. But I look upon the very magnitude of the undertaking as the guarantee of success. It is worthy the genius and indomitable enterprise of the American people. We have enterprising men bold enough to undertake anything that promises to pay, either in money or in ame. They love obstacles, if it is only to overcome them, and are not deterred if in proportion to the magnitude of the work is the glory and gain of the achievement.

Sir, I am so infatuated with the idea of the valor, daring, and spirit of my countrymen as to believe them equal to almost any undertaking within the range of possible achievement. To American valor there is no Sebastopol, to American ships no ultima thule, and to American enterprise no obstacles of mountains, deserts, or snows which cannot be overcome. And, Mr. Chairman, though the difficulties in the construction of a railroad to the Pacific were greater even than they have been re resented, they can be overcome. Greater have been already overcome. The single fact, that from fifty to seventy thousand emigrants annually find their way overland to the Pacific in loaded wagons, on horse, and on foot, is to me conclurive evidence of the practicability of a road; for wherever man can travel railroads may go; yea, more, by the appliances of science and machinery ways are opened before inaccessible to him. Wit⚫ness the long trains of cars which now sweep, at the rate of forty miles per hour, along the cragged sides of the Alleghanies-the untiring tramp of the iron horse over rapid rivers, and through perfo sted rock, and cliff, and hill. Look at that magnificent work of art, the New York and Erie road, five hundred and sixty-nine miles of continuous rail through mountains all the way, spanning rivers with arched bridges, and with viaducts of hundreds of feet of solid masonry. Sir, unless the reports of all our travelers and explorers are vastly || exaggerated, then the routes to the Pacific present no obstacles as great as those which have already been surmounted, except the bare fact that this road will present a greater continuous length than any road which has yet been built.

That we may proceed upon reliable data, I call the attention of the committee to what American enterprise has already achieved. In 1827, the first railroad in our country, three miles in length, was constructed, and now, in a quarter of a century, she has completed 20,000 miles, and there is now in process of construction an additional 12,500 miles. In the last ten years, 12,806 miles have been completed; in the last five years, 10,967 miles; in the last two years, 5,686 miles; and in the last year, 3,938 miles. From these statistics we learn that the distance of the contemplated road to the Pacific is not one sixth of the length of the roads already completed in the last ten years, which is the length of time in which it is proposed the roid shall be built. In the last two years the

Pacific Railroad-Mr. Yates.

United States has completed near three times as much road, and in the last year near twice as much. The State of New York alone has constructed thirty-two roads, with an aggregate length of 2,345 miles, at a cost of $94,000,000, besides 989 miles of canal; the State of Ohio, forty-six roads, 2,367 miles in length, and 1,578 miles in process of construction; Massachusetts, 1.283 miles, at a cost of $55,602,000; Indiana, 1,400 miles, with 800 in process of construction; Illinois has her twenty-five roads, with an aggregate length of 2,500 miles completed, and near 1,000 miles in process of construction. In less than five years the greatest road now on the continent, the Central Railroad of Illinois and its branches, 704 miles in length, has been constructed, excepting 100 miles to be completed by the middle of the ensuing summer. The connection between Chicago and Cairo is now complete.

Capital exceeding $600,000,000 has already been expended in the construction of railroads in the United States. Estimating the length of the Pacific road at two thousand miles, and the cost per mile at $50,000, which is nearly twice the average cost per mile of all the railroads of the United States, and the sum required to complete it will be $100,000,000-only one sixth of the amount which has been expended in the United States in the construction of her railroads. The State of New York has expended that sum in the construction of her roads, and prospered all the while. The young State of Illinois, embarrassed by a grievous public debt, has completed, and in course of construction, a length of roads almost twice as great as the proposed Pacific road. With such astonishing results as these, can the practicability of the road longer be a debatable question?

It is true the road will run through an uninhabited country, and the cost will be increased by the distance over which supplies, materials, and workmen have to be transported. But the road can be commenced at both extremities, and the road will be its own carrier; and, passing through a country for the most part rich and fertile, susceptible of a dense agricultural population, it will not long remain uninhabited. As soon as the road is located, before the first spadeful of earth is cast, emigration will take up its march, and, as the road progresses, settlements will advance, and communities will nestle along its track; towns and cities will spring up, and before the end of ten years, the time prescribed for the completion of the road, it will be incased by new and flourishing States.

Mr. Chairman, I trust our nation will not admit that she is not equal to what any other nation ever achieved. And yet we are not without example in history of roads constructed at much greater cost and of much greater length. Rome maintained her supremacy over her conquered and distant provinces by means of her public roads, through which she maintained with them constant intercourse, facilitated the marches of her victorious legions, and received and transmitted intelligence with the greatest celerity. Her great highways, paved with stone, perforating mountains and arching the broadest and most rapid streams, extended from the city a distance of four thousand Roman miles. They reached to her remotest frontier, and pervaded her most distant provinces, established her supremacy and laws, and floated her imperial eagle over one hundred and twenty millions of subject people. They united to herself, as to a common center, all the distant parts of her universal empire. With such an example, shall our great nation consider herself unequal to a road of half the length, and extending all the way through our territory, and beneath our own flag, to our most important and most exposed pos

sessions?

Ho. OF REPS.

political elections. It is the unsleeping vigilance of private capital which will soonest and cheapest build the road. There are two difficulties to be avoided. Such a work ought not to be exclusively in the hands of a corporation, with power to subject the public to unreasonable extortions; and, again, since to complete the road and to equip it would reach, probably, to over $100,000,000, there is no company which has the capital to build and equip the road in as short time as the public wants and interests of the country demand.

To obviate both of these difficulties, the Government can donate alternate sections of the public lands, doubling the price of the reserved sections, and thus secure to herself the right of transportation for her mails, troops, supplies, and munitions of war, and prevent extortions upon the public by reasonable limitations upon the charges for transportation and travel. The company, on the other hand, by opening a thoroughfare through the lands, will give them a value, upon which means and credit can be secured to aid in the construction

of the road.

The last question is, where ought this road to be? In fact, sir, this is the only question. The only danger which confronts us is divided and jarring councils here. Rugged mountains, gorges of snow, and deserts of sand are obstacles, but they vanish before the appliances of human ingenuity and skill. The passions of men, party platforms, and sectional prejudices, are more powerful obstacles, and but too often defeat the noblest efforts of philanthropy and the wisest councils of statesmanship. Our only hope, sir, is in conciliation, in a patriotic disregard of all selfish consideration, and in the unselfish union of northern and southern hearts and hands for the country, the whole country, and nothing but the country. Let us resolve, that no considerations shall stand in the way of that rapid communication which is to be the bond of our Union and the inseparable concomitant of our national progress and prosperity. Mr. Chairman, I assume it as a fact, that no member of this body believes that more than one road can be built in any short number of years. There is not capital to build more than one road; the wants of the country do not demand more than .one road; it would not be prudent to undertake more than one road. My own State is a painful, illustration of undertaking, prematurely, too extensive a system of internal improvements. She now travails beneath a debt which her youngest child, now born, will not live to see totally extinguished, the result of attempting more than the wants or resources of the State would justify. It is idle now to talk of railroads to the Pacific in the plural. It is idle to talk of five thousand miles of railroad, when the wants or capital of the country are not more than equal to one. It is the main line we now want, leaving lateral routes and branches to be constructed to it from the different sections as their wants and means from time to time will allow.

I regretted very much that this view of the case compelled me, in some respect, to disagree with my friend from California, [Mr. MCDOUGALL,] because I fully appreciated the position of that gentleman. I can sympathize with him in his zeal for his young State, standing by herself, singlehanded and alone, on a distant coast, and separated from her sister States by two thousand intervening miles of mountain and desert, the road to which is marked at every step by the wrecks of broken wagons and the graves of poor emigrants, fallen by the way-side by the hands of hostile Indians. I have admired the zeal and eloquence with which he has battled, fearlessly and manfully, for his State; and I have known him too long and well to believe that a single pulsation sways his heart other than the highest patriotism and devotion of his own State and the Union. And I have no doubt it was this very spirit of patriotism-a strong desire to divest his proposition of even the semblance of sectionalism-which induced him to depart from his original plan of one road and bring in a bill for three-intending thereby to confer upon every section equal participation in this communication between the two

oceans.

Mr. Chairman, so important do I deem this communication, that I shall vote for whatever bill we can pass, whether it be for one, or two, or

33D CONG....2D SESS.

three roads, which is otherwise free from objection; but there are paramount reasons why only one road should now be attempted. The attention of the country should not be divided on different routes. Let us hold out to capitalists a single road. We want the benefit of competition in bids for a single road. Will capitalists be as likely to bid for a road, with the possibility that their profits are to be diminished by the competition of parallel roads? We want all the available capital of the country submitted to this great enterprise, and we can only secure this by satisfactory assurance to the capitalist that the profits of his investment are not to be diminished by parallel roads between the same commercial points. That the time will come, after the completion of one road, when the commerce of the country will justify another, and perhaps several more roads, I think not improbable; and when that time arrives, I hope Congress will be ready to extend to them equal advantages.

Well, if only one road is to be built, where ought that road to be? It ought to be as near direct and central as may be, central to the States, central to the Territories, central to population, and central to the business and commerce of the country. I do not desire to see a sectional route adopted, and while I would prefer that the route of the road should be over the section which I have the honor in part to represent, yet I would be willing to omit the arbitrary designation of any routes or termini, and to fix upon two points on the borders of our western States and Territories, between which such a road should terminate-one of them South, but not so far South as to be sectional, and the other North, but not so far North as to be sectional. I think, Mr. Chairman, we might feel assured that the vigilant eye of capitalists would select the route marked out by the topography of the country, by the channels of commerce and travel, and so near direct and central as to make it most accessible to affluent roads from both the North and the South. In such a case, I have no doubt that directness, centrality to territory, business, and population, easy grades, grasses, timber, wood, water, minerals, productive soil and temperate climate, would be the landmarks to guide the engineer, whose flag-staff was to be borne before him under the vigilant eye of private capital.

Mr. Chairman, I-am not the advocate of a route, but of a road; but I may be permitted to point out what I conceive to be the most desirable and central routes, without by any means assuming that such are the only routes which I would vote for. The present path of travel points out, in the main, the route of the road. I think there was a great deal in the remark of the gentleman from Missouri, that the buffalo is the best engineer. Upon this point I quote an interesting paragraph from the speech made by that gentleman in the Senate in 1850. He says:

"There is a class of topographical engineers older than the schools, and more unerring than the mathematics. They are the wild animals-buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, bears, which traverse the forest, not by compass, but by an instinct which leads them always the right way-to the lowest passes in the mountains, the shallowest fords in the rivers, the richest pastures in the forest, the best salt springs, and the shortest practicable lines between remote points. They travel thousands of miles, have their annual migrations backwards and forwards, and never miss the best and shortest route. They are the first engineers to lay out a road in a new country; the Indians follow them, and hence a buffalo road becomes a war path. The first white hunters follow the same trail in pursuing their game; and after that the buffalo road becomes the wagon road of the white man, and finally the macadamized, or railroad of the scientific man. It all resolves itself into the same thing, the same buffalo road; and thence the buffalo becomes the first and safest engineer."

Now, Mr. Chairman, it cannot be denied that the same inducements which would attract these first explorers of the country, the buffalo and the Indian, and afterwards the emigrant pioneer, such as good passes through the mountains, fertile country and equable climate, are the very desideratums to be sought by the constructors of the road, not only as assistants in its construction, but as the means of keeping it up, and imparting to it value after its completion. Now, sir, the route which all will admit is the path of emigrant travel, and which I believe is denied by no one to be practical, is the route commencing at the mouth of the Kansas, on the parallel of north

Pacific Railroad-Mr. Yates.

latitude 390, at the terminus of the railroad from St. Louis, now in process of rapid construction; or commencing at St. Joseph on the Missouri river, on the parallel of 400, the terminus of the road from Hannibal on the Mississippi, also in process of construction. It then finds its way up the valley of the Platte, and by easy grades to the South Pass; thence through the valley of the great Salt Lake, and thence by the emigrant route to San Francisco. This route possesses some advantages, certainly, which can be found on no other route. It would afford a junction at Kansas, or St. Joseph, with all the systems of roads from the Atlantic cities through the central and southern parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois at Kansas, and with all the northern roads through the same States, and through Wisconsin and Iowa, which are now converging and pointing to Council Bluffs, on the direct line to the South Pass. It would have the protection in its prosecution of the heavy emigration along the route; it would pass through the Mormon settlements at Salt Lake, where men and supplies could be obtained, and where they would be most needed, and it is the only central route which would afford a convenient branch to the Territories of Oregon and Washington.

The roûte advocated by the gentleman from Missouri, known as the central route, is also entitled to the greatest consideration. Since the exploration of Frémont, last winter, there can be no doubt of its practicability. The road, by this route, commences at the mouth of the Kansas, thence to Bent's fort, near the mouth of the Huerfano river, in north latitude 380, thence through the valley of San Luis, which is about half way between St. Louis and San Francisco; thence through the Coo-cha-tope pass of the Rocky mountains; thence through the valley of Colorado, in latitude 380; and thence to the pass through the Sierra Nevada, at the "Point of the California mountains,' (discovered by Frémont last March,) into the valley of San Joaquin river, and thence to San Francisco. The road, by this route, would run its whole length between two parallels of latitude; it would divide the Territories west of the Missis||sippi into two equal parts, and extended on the same parallel to the Atlantic, would be central to the States east of the Mississippi, and would be the nearest an air line from New York to San Francisco, the one the dominant commercial emporium of the Atlantic, and the other of the Pacific. would possess the same advantages which the route through the South Pass has, of traversing a country of rich pastoral and arable lands, abounding in lumber, coal, mountains and lakes of salt, beautiful valleys adapted to cultivation, and a climate so healthy and temperate, says Frémont, "that the valetudinarian might travel it in his own vehicle, on horse, or even on foot, for the mere restoration of health and the recovery of his spirits."

It

Mr. Chairman, I have not time now to refer to the routes further north and further south, which have been explored, nor do I consider it necessary, for while they cannot be shown more practicable than the routes to which I have referred, it cannot be denied that they would be more or less sectional.

But I repeat, Mr. Chairman, that Congress hould not attempt to make any arbitrary designation of the route. If she does, she will have no road. I consider the district of country which I represent as in no trouble about the route. Congress may locate the road where she pleases, north or south, and yet that section will be on the main route; it will intersect it, and through her road will flow the main travel and transportation between the two oceans. Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Columbus, Indianapolis, Springfield, Hannibal, and St. Joseph, are all on or near the parallel of 400, and a line of roads is nearly complete between all these points. It runs through the capitals of four of our largest States, through the heart of the most fertile country and the most enterprising agricultural population in the world; it is nearest an air line, of any route, between the Atlantic and the Missouri river. Legislation may designate a route, but it is trade and travel, it is commerce, it is directness, it is population, it is the fertility and productiveness of soil, and the business power of the country through which it is to pass, which is

HO. OF REPS.

to make the main trunk of the road; and these elements, possessed in a high degree by the route I have described, over all others, will make it the great inter-oceanic road, over which more of the commerce of the country is to pass than any other; a great continental road; the great central Mississippi to the States, the plains, the desert, and the mountains, throwing off its branches to the North and the South, and diffusing, all along its long lines, vitality, wealth, and prosperity to the whole country. A very short divergence from this line will take in St. Louis, the great commercial city and entrepot of the valley of the Mississippi, the head of perennial navigation, and the place of necessary trans-shipment of our river commerce; at which point trade would shoot in every direction through our great river and its affluents, and the various systems of roads which from every section of the country are converging to this point as a common focus.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I have but little more to say. I trust that this Congress will not let the golden moment pass, to achieve for itself the great merit of setting on foot an enterprise, which in its magnificent results, is to stand forth without a parallel in the annals of the world. Let us recollect that it is not an enterprise to be accomplished in a week, or a month, but it is a work of years. If we commence it now, many of us, in all proba bility, will not live to see it completed.

But, sir, above all let us not forget the solemn obligations devolving upon us, to open at once safe and speedy communication with our Pacific possessions. Complaint is often made of undue favors to California and our Territories on the Pacific. I think it is unjust. The demands of California are, necessarily, greater than those of our interior States and Territories. She has a coast extending from the 31st to 42d of latitude, a population of three hundred thousand souls, gathered from the four quarters of the globe, an empire, as it were, not solid and self-sustaining from the compact growth of years, but born in a dayspell-created; already in her harbor "rich navies ride;" a magnificent commerce already, swelling her ports; and an extended exterior frontier infested by Indians. It is to be expected, that her claims on the Government will far exceed those of our interior States.

There, too, sir, are "our kith and kin," men of bold spirits whom no perils of the sea or of the land could intimidate; the bold, undaunted pioneers of American civilization, the gallant and chivalrous colporteurs of American laws, liberty, and Christianity. And, sir, as I would legislate for Illinois, I would legislate for our Pacific possessions; as I would battle in defense of this Capitol and the starred and striped banner which floats above it, so I would battle for them. If we acquire territory we must prepare to defend it; we must open a way to it, though that way were all arid sands and solid rock. We must adopt the wisdom of Rome, who never considered a subdued province as added to her territory, until by roads it was rendered pervious, in all its parts, to her arms and authority. Wherever our gallant ensign shall float-whether upon this Capitol or the most distant continent-upon the decks of our merchant vessels, or in our most distant frontierthere must be borne, and felt, and seen, the undisputed supremacy of American law, and the ample protection of American power.

The union of our States will be most certainly maintained and perpetuated by increased facilities of commercial and social intercourse. If side by side with our acquisitions shall go our ships and our railroad cars, our commerce and our civilization, we may trust that our union will survive and flourish; our rivers and lakes improved, and railroads permeating our land throughout its whole extent, and uniting the oceans, will be stronger bonds of union than armies or navies, or all the charters or constitutions which nations have ever formed.

And then, sir, is there nothing in the idea of securing to ourselves the commerce of the Indies? -a commerce which, for forty centuries, has enriched every nation which possessed it, and at the bare mention of which mighty memories rise upon the mind-visions of grandeur, power, and splendor, the mighty cities of the past resplendent in letters, arts, and in arms-nations rising to the

33D CONG....2D SESS.

highest pinnacle of power, or sinking to decay as they secured or lost the rich trade of the Indies. This, I repeat, is the great work of the age. Let us meet in patriotic harmony, abjuring all sectional jealousies, and provide for its construction, and this Congress will reap the glory of a measure which is to revolutionize the commerce of the world, and to perpetuate to the latest posterity a monument to American genius, skill, and enterprise.

THE TARIFF QUESTION, &c.

SPEECH OF HON. C. M. STRAUB, OF PENNSYLVANIA,

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

February 15, 1855.

The Tariff Question-Mr. Straub.

surprised, if, in consequence of those difficulties which surround us on every side, and the difficulties which may arise out of the war now being carried on in Europe, your Treasury should be found nearly empty at the close of the present fiscal year, and that instead of your twenty-odd millions of dollars in it, it would be found without a dollar over and above the amount required for the necessary appropriations. The Treasury should never be caught with a less sum in it than from ten to twelve millions, particularly in times of war, even if that war be between foreign nations. The revenue has fallen off over six millions within the last three months, as compared with the corresponding time a year ago. Is this fact not a sufficient reason to induce Congress to pause and reflect well before they act on this question? Again, there is a proposition now pending which contemplates the building of some six or

Mr. STRAUB said:

Mr. CHAIRMAN: I am opposed to a change or modification of the present tariff at this time, and desire to give the reasons for my opposition. Under the rules of the House, when in the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, it is in order to speak on any subject, whether it be a National or State question-whether it be of a general or local nature. Having this privilege by the rule, I shall, in my remarks, refer to one or more subjects that are not germane to the question before the committee, and more particularly to the tariff question.

Nothing but an imperative duty due to the people I have the honor to represent, could induce me to consume the time of the House. But, sir, there are no people in any district in the Union who have a deeper interest in the tariff question than those of the eleventh congressional district of Pennsylvania; and I will also venture to say, that there is no question more knotty or difficult to adjust: indeed, it is beyond the scope of human invention so to regulate it that each section of the country will be alike benefited by its operations, however it may be adjusted.

Mr. Chairman, if I had my own wish gratified, I would say do not touch the tariff at this time; keep" hands off." To my mind the present is a most dangerous time to meddle with it. The first and best thing we can do now is to keep peace with all nations, enter into entangling alliances with none, but mind our own business. The next is, to let the people alone. Do you not know that there is a bloody war now raging, and that, before it terminates, it is more than likely all Europe will be in arms? How this war will ultimately affect the interests of the people and Government of the United States, and whether we will not be inveigled into it, are grave and momentous questions, the solution of which, it seems to me, ought to be known by us ere we attempt to change the tariff. We should not grapple in the dark on so important a subject-a subject which must unsettle our revenue laws, and again throw them into chaos. Do you not see the dark cloud hovering over our usual prosperity? A revolution is going on in our monetary affairs at home, and how it will affect our Treasury other than by daily reducing it no one can doubt. Banks are breaking, the necessaries of life are rising in price, whilst mechanics and laboring men are, in many places, thrown out of employment by thousands and tens of thousands, some of them not only suffering, but almost, or quite, starving. It is asserted by good authority that, in the city of New York alone, there are twenty thousand souls dependent on alms for subsistence.

I am aware that the idea of a prohibitory or high protective tariff, particularly in times of peace, has become an obsolete idea with all statesmen whose opinions are worth a straw; but I am confident that that man does not live whose foresight into the future can discover what will grow out of the existing difficulties, or how they will, in the end, affect us financially and commercially, or what the upshot of the present disarranged state of our money market, high prices of the necessaries of life, and the want of labor in the United States will ultimately be. I would not be

ure be adopted, several millions of dollars will be needed to build and equip them. Then there is your Texas debt, some six or eight millions will be required to pay it. The French spoliation bill, too, provides for a draft on your Treasury of five millions of dollars. And besides all this, it is proposed to increase the Army some three or four thousand men to protect your western frontier, and to protect your emigrants to the West against being slaughtered by the Indians.

I am almost persuaded that the alteration proposed at the present time, after all, is to be merely a one-idea alteration, to wit: a repeal of the duty on iron. The reason for this opinion is, that, at the commencement of the first session of the present Congress, the very learned gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. CLINGMAN] introduced a bill which had for its object the repeal of the duty on railroad iron. This measure was pressed with more than his usual ability. Immediate action was demanded. It failed, however, to receive the sanction of this body at that time; but soon thereafter the colleague of the honorable gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. KERR] offered a resolution for the same purpose. This, too, was negatived. The able gentleman from Alabama [Mr. PHILLIPS] has since tried the same experiment, which met with a like success; and another proposition, during the same session, was introduced by the gentleman from Texas, [Mr. SMYTH;] but the same fate a waited it in this House. It was laid on the table.

On the first day of the present session, we have on record a resolution offered by the gentleman from New York, [Mr. WALBRIDGE,] which contemplated a repeal of the duty on coal, but which, it seems to me, is in reality intended for the purpose of ultimately reaching the iron interest.

But

a day or two after the resolution was offered by the gentleman from New York, the gentleman from Alabama [Mr. PHILLIPS] tries his experiment again. He made a similar proposition to the one which he offered at the last session. It was, as it should have been, served in the same manner as that one was-it was laid on the table." The principal reason I give for the opinion I entertain, that the duty on iron alone is sought to be stricken off, will be found in the following statement, which speaks for itself. It seems that it was got up and signed by men who, but a few years ago, were high protective tariff men. Some of them, I have been informed, are ex-Governors and ex-members of Congress. It would appear that the boot is on the other leg now. From prohibitory or high protective tariff men they have become the advocates of free trade on iron-borers to Congress-and perhaps it might not be too severe to say paid servants of railroad companies.

Hear what they have to say. Mr. Azariah Boody, and numerous railroad friends with whom he is associated in the great State of New York, and elsewhere, held a meeting to devise the ways Their plan of operations is set forth in this resoluand means necessary to accomplish their objects. tion, which will inform the people of the mode by which legislation in Congress is sought to be controlled:

"Resolved, That this company will cooperate with the committee appointed by the meeting of railroad companies, held in the city of New York, on the 25th day of February, 1854, consisting of Samuel F. Vinton, Noah 8. Wilson,

HO. OF REPS.

John Stryker, George Ashmun, and Henry V. Poor, in their efforts to obtain a remission and repeal of the duty on railroad iron heretofore or to be imported, or a suspension, for a limited time, of said duty; and that the president remit said committee $100; and that, in the event of a repeal or suspension of the existing duty, or of a remission of the duty on iron, heretofore imported, this company hereby obligates itself to pay to said committee, or its treasurer, on demand, in cash, five per cent. upon the amount of duty so remitted, and also five per cent. upon the amount saved to the company by said repeal or suspension on such iron as the company shalt import or contract for prior to July 1, 1855; and that a certified copy of this resolution be forthwith forwarded to said committee."

This committee are to receive from each railroad company in the United States the sum of $100, for the purpose of enabling them to meet such obligations as they may incur, and such expenditures as they may make, in getting Congress to remit the duty on railroad iron. In entering upon the discharge of their important duties, this committee have issued a circular to all the railroad companies in the United States, informing them of their appointment, and requesting immediate action, "as the session of Congress is already far advanced." I do not design now to read the circular, but will embody it in my printed speech. I desire to have members posted up, to let them know who these gentry are, so that when they shall come here and take members by the elbow, they may know that they are the disinterested representatives of Azariah Boody, and his railroad friends.

NEW YORK, March 21, 1854.

SIR: In entering upon the duties, agreeably to appointment of the meeting of railroad companies held in this city, the proceedings of which were duly forwarded to your address, we find it necessary, in the outset of our proceedings, to correspond with all the railroad companies of the United States supposed to be interested, for the purpose of obtaining accurate and reliable information, and of ascertaining whether they cooperate with us, in order that we may know to what extent we may incur obligations and make expenditures in furtherance of our objects.

To make provisions for the expenses unavoidably incident to the prosecution of the measure, it was agreed at the mecting that each company coming into the arrangement should advance for this purpose the sum of $100; and that, in case of success, there should be paid by each company to the committee, for the further expenses that may be incurred, and as a compensation for their time and services, (in addition to the above advance,) five per cent. on the amount of duty remitted, or which may be saved touch company, on railroad iron heretofore imported by it, or which it may import or contract for prior to July 1, 1855, by the passage of the law or laws repealing, remitting, or suspending for a limited time, the duty on such iron.

If a sufficient number of companies should not be found to come into the measure to make it expedient, in the opinion of the committee, for them to undertake to carry it into effect, then the $100 advanced to be returned by them to such companies as shall have paid the same.

We inclose a copy of the resolution, which we send to all the railroad companies in this interest, with the request that it be offered for consideration to your board, or other proper authority, at you earliest convenience, and that we be advised of the result, and, if adopted, that we be furnished with a certified copy of the same.

Will you also please furnish us with information on the following points: The length of your road; the number of miles in operation; the number of miles for which iron is to be provided; the weight of rail to be used; the number of tons upon which duties will be refunded, if a retroactive law is obtained, to take effect from July 1, 1853, also of January 1, 1853, also from July 1, 1832; a list of the directors, superintendents, and engineers of your company, and the post office address of each, as the committee may wish to correspond with each of them on the subject.

As the session of Congress is already for advanced, it is important that your company should take immediate action, and advise us of the result, as the answer to this communication must necessarily be the basis of our action. Please inclose your communication to Henry V. Poor, Esq., No. 9 Spruce street, New York. Very respectfully, your obedient servants, S. F. VINTON, GEORGE ASHMUN, NOAH L. WILSON, H. V. POOR, JOHN STRYKER,

Committee.

By this resolution and correspondence it will be perceived what the "modus operandi" of the signers was. It was nothing less than a proposed conspiracy to be entered into between the honorable gentlemen who appended their names to the address, and certain railroad companies. Well, if those gentlemen had succeeded, they would have received for their disinterested labor about a million of dollars, much of which was already paid into the Treasury several years ago. A handsome congressional borers to filch from the Treasury. operation that, for a few select, stock-jobbing, Five per cent. of the amount of duty on railroad iron collected since July, 1852, and five per cent. on all to be hereafter paid, was also to go into the pockets of these honest and modest gentlemen. But it seems they were not satisfied with the

33D CONG....2D SESS.

prospective operations of the law, by which they would have been exclusively benefited after the law went into operation, but, it must have a retrospective effect; the Treasury must disgorge, so that they could pocket five per cent. of moneys already collected. What a beautiful operation! But these gentlemen missed their mark. When they came to Washington, at the last session, their nefarious plans were exposed, and they have not been heard of since; but if the truth was known, they probably are at their old tricks again. I am exceedingly opposed to special legislation. Sir, it is unfair and if I may be allowed the term, it is wicked-to stab at and strike down a just and honorable interest in order that you may build up another upon its ruins.

In connection with this subject, I will read a paragraph which I noticed going the rounds of the papers generally, and, if true, it exposes a most extraordinary extravagance:

"EXTRAVAGANCE. As an indication of extravagance which prevailed in the country for some time, an importing house in New York has written a letter stating that the amount of duties paid for French artificial flowers, for the first quarter of the current fiscal year, was almost double the amount of duties paid on railroad iron."

If this information be correct, I think it would comport more to the honor of Congress to adopt some plan of legislation by which gew-gaws, trinkets, and unnecessary articles would be dispensed with, and appropriate the funds thus saved to the relief of railroad companies. Where are the iron men to-day? Why, sir, many of them are lying at the feet of railroad companies. 1 understand that some of the best and most honorable firms in the country have been already prostrated.

Under this unfortunate state of things, you propose now to cripple or ruin the business entirely; and this is, no doubt, precisely what the gentlemen who signed the circular aim at.

I will now call the attention of the committee to the quantity of coal sent to market for the year 1850. Since that period no correct data can be furnished as to the quantity of bituminous coal consumed in the United States; and any attempt to get at the quantity must be guess-work altogether. By a blind and mistaken policy no coal statistics appear in the census report of 1850. I have a table, compiled by carrying companies, which has been certified to, and which exhibits

the whole amount of anthracite sent to market since 1820, including 1854, which I will read presently. For the year 1850, there were 3,796,808 tons of anthracite and semi-bituminous coal sent to market, and 35,088.197 bushels of bituminous. Total in tons, 5,049,954, the total value of which was $7,239,110. The proportion of bituminous to anthracite is as one to four. Admitting the quantity of anthracite to be 6,000,000 tons, in round numbers, for the year 1854, you will then have in all, anthracite and bituminous, for that year, an aggregate of 7,500,000 tons, there being but 1,500,000 tons of bituminous.

Table showing the quantity of Anthracite coal sent to market since 1820: 365 tons. 1,073 "

739,293 tons. 819,327 **

865,414 958,899 ..1,108,001 " 1843.. ...1,263,539

1844.........1,631,669 66

1820.

1838.

1821.

1839.

1840.

1841.

1842.

1825.

34,893 66

1845.

1828.

77,516 "

1846.

1829.

.112,083 "

1847.

.2,023,052
.2.343.992

..2.982.3.9 ..3,089.238 " .3,242,860

.4,429,458 .4,993,471

66

1853.........5,195,151 1854.........5,847,369 "

48,907,860

The Tariff Question-Mr. Straub.

ment of prices for 1853 and 1854, which exhibits the fact that some articles, necessaries of life, were, in December last, and are at this time higher by two hundred, or one hundred and seventy-five per centum, and none less than fifty per centum than they were in 1853. I will here say that no man in the trade has had a better opportunity than Mr. Silliman to know the state of the coal trade; no one has more experience, and no man more willing to do justice to all interests. Mr. Silliman furnishes the prices, as follows:

Sir, I cannot forego the present opportunity (it being the last in my political life) of putting upon the national record a few remarks in reference to the difficulties and dangers attending the coal operations; these are only known to the man who engages in the business. I was at one time connected with the business, and I will never forget that time, for it was to my sorrow; I lost a large sum of money at it. To my mind, there is no business followed, on sea or land, which is attended with more peril to life, limb, and capital. And this remark will apply to every branch of the business, and to every man connected with it, from the time of striking the first pick in mining until the coal is delivered at the place of destination. The hundreds of miners and laborers in Schuylkill county alone, who annually lose their lives by being crushed, or burned to death in the mines, is frightful to record; and add to these the lives that are lost on the different railroads and

canals, and by coming in contact with the machinery at the mines, and in various other ways, and you will have a loss of life and limb that is appall

ing.

Go with me to Pottsville, Minersville, or Tamaqua, and you will see, at every square or turn of the street, a cripple, a lame man or boy, some with one leg off, some two; others deformed with the loss of an arm, or both; many, by being burned in the mines, or the accidental discharge of a blast, have lost their eye-sight.

I cannot be restrained from mentioning a painful occurrence which took place a few days previous to my leaving home, and in the immediate vicinity of it. It was an accident which happened on a railroad near the mines by which a hard working, industrious, honest, and enterprising man, whose name is Temple, in the "twinkling of an eye," had three splendid first-choice mule teams killed, fifteen in number; and his loss is over three thousand dollars, a sum that will require years of hard mental and manual labor to recover. The enormous amount of capital, too, required to open and put mines in working order before any profit can be realized, no estimate can be made of. I have known a single mine to cost from $100,000 to $150,000, and that, too, before a ton of coal could be shipped. None cost less than from $10,000 to $20,000; these are of the smallest kind; and often after the investments are made the whole capital is sunk or lost, not by bad management, but by running into faults, and from many other unforeseen causes. It is a fact, that more money has been lost, irretrievably lost, in these enterprises, than has been made.

The gentleman from New York [Mr. WALBRIDGE] told us that a population of seven hundred and fifty thousand uses coal for domestic purposes. This is true; and it is also true that twenty-five millions of people in the United States use some other articles as well as coal "for domes

pensed with, we find that of sugar the most prominent. In speaking of the article of sugar, and the amount of duty paid on it, I do so not out of any unkind feeling toward our southern friends or their interests, but because I think nothing can be lost by stating to the people the quantity used annually,

1854, estimated

It will be seen that the sugar imported between the years 1849 and 1854 amounts to 2,244,588,414 pounds, and the aggregate cost is $73.276,345, unon which the consumers paid a duty of $21,982,903 50.

For the year 1854, I have set down the quantity and value of sugar as that of 1853, not being able, at the time I made out the table, to procure official information upon the subject; there is no doubt that the value, in the aggregate, will equal, if not exceed, that of 1853. Certainly it will not be less; and now, what comparison does the duty paid on sugar and molasses bear to that on coal for the same period? It is within a fraction of ten to one; that is, you pay ten dollars duty on sugar and melasses to one on coal; bat not a word pro or con was said by the gentleman from New York [Mr. WALBRIDGE] in reference to this matter, although the greater proportion of duty on sugar and molasses was paid by the poor and laboring classes.

I wish now to call the attention of the committee to the item of molasses, which is also entitled to be classed among the "necessaries of life;" for it is not at all likely that our eastern friends can possibly do without molasses, at least so long as pumpkins grow. Since 1850, there has been imported 155,989,417 gallons, the cost of which was $17,562,667, and upon which an aggregate duty of $4,268,800 has been paid. Add to this the duty paid on sugar, and you have a sum total of $26,250,703 paid for duty on sugar and molasses.

But this is not all. The sugar crop of Louisiana alone for the year 1853 was 368,129,000 pounds, and 22,100,000 gallons of molasers. The value of sugar at four cents per pound, and molasses at twenty cents per gallon, will make together the sum of $19,145,160. The increased value or advance caused by the duty paid on for. eign sugar and molasses, estimated at only twenty per cent., would amount in the aggregate to the sum of $3,600,000, to which add the duty on imported sugar and molasses-$5,500,000—and you have a total of $9,100,000. The importers and merchants must be allowed at least twenty per cent., which, on that sum, amounts to $1,820,000, making a grand total of duty on sugar $10,920,000 in one year. The gentleman's figures will not compare with these. And yet he complains that the consumers of coal have paid within the last four years $591,075 70, but entirely overlooks the amount paid as duty on sugar and molasses annually, which is ten to one.

You may travel where you will in the United States, into the most densely populated districts, or the most sparsely settled; you may go into the wilderness, north, south, east, or west, and you will find sugar and molasses used as among the necessaries of life. It is true, as. has been said by a writer on the subject, that "the consumption is, perhaps, inordinate, but its use is a fixed and general habit, and the tax, therefore, falls on everybody. It is paid by the inmate of the humblest logcabin, and falls much more heavily upon him than upon the owner of the proudest mansion." lo sickness, in health, in plenty, in scarcity, in prosperity, and in adversity, no family can do without sugar. And for every dollar's worth purchased the people pay nearly one third of a dollar as duty. Notwithstanding this, the gentleman seems to have overlooked this important fact; he has failed to come to the relief of the masses while professing to make that his intention. I have seen several statements in which the profits on capital invested in the manufacture of sugar and molasses were exhibited. If they be erroneous, the gentleman can correct me; but if true, the profits are enormous, running from thirteen to twenty-five per cent., averaging nineteen per cent. annually. This

33D CONG....2D Sess.

is a very handsome interest, and a much larger one than is realized on capital invested in the coal or iron business.

The aggregate value of imported iron, manufactured, for the year 1854, is $15,278,208, and the value of sugar and molasses for the same period, is $16,822,795; showing an excess in value of sugar and molasses over that of iron of $1,544,577. Here we have the extraordinary fact exhibited that the duty paid on the latter is more by $463,731 10 than that paid on the former. Under such circumstances where is the cause of complaint? I have an answer which I think appropriate. It is, that we do more than "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." We give them an Oliver for which we receive a Roland.

The official report of the Secretary of the Treasury, exhibiting the quantity and value of wool imported since 1850, shows the aggregate cost to have been $12,973,462; on this sum a duty of $3,892,038 60 was paid. I understand that, in consequence of the tariff on this article, not a single yard of broadcloth is now manufactured in the United States, every broadcloth establishment having ceased operations. Notwithstanding this dark picture, the gentleman from New York never referred to it, or suggested relief to this branch of industry. How this could have escaped his sagacity I cannot divine.

BANKS.

At the commencement of my remarks, I called the attention of the committee to the fact that there existed a severe pressure, at this time, in the money market. The history of the United States, I believe, in common with every country, is subject to monetary revolutions at times. They are

s certain to occur as that the sun is to rise and set, or the tide to ebb and flow. And that there

are various causes, and often a combination of causes, is just as true. The gentleman from New York [Mr. WALBRIDGE] seemed to be cautious of speaking on the subject of this monetary pressure. He said:

"It is not for me, on the present occasion, to trace out the unlooked for events which have contributed to produce the present state of our monetary affairs. It is sufficient for us to know that severe pressure exists, and it is our duty to interpose for its relief to the extent of our constitutional ability."

He says, "it is not for him to trace out the unlooked-for events which have produced the present state of our monetary affairs;" that, "it is sufficient to know that severe pressure exists, and it is our duty to provide relief to the extent of our constitutional ability." In the admonition contained in the latter sentence I fully concur; but let the "constitutional ability" be void of special legislation; let it be justice to all, and partiality to none. I have my doubts whether the advice given in the former sentence, is such as would prove the most advantageous to the people; "tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon," says the gentleman, that after getting ourselves into a "tight place," it is wrong to reason together, although we might by doing so, extricate ourselves. It seems to me, that it is a duty devolving upon us to endeavor to get at the bottom of the difficulty. The evil cannot, as the gentleman supposes, be remedied by smothering the truth, and by striking a side blow at a friend.

The cause of the present pressure, the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. GOODRICH] says, as I understand him, is owing entirely to the excess of importations over exportations. This, of course, is one of the causes, but there are a combination of them-extravagance, an inordinate thirst for speculation-a desire to get rich in a week, or a day, the construction of too many railroads, overtrading at home, in almost every branch of mercantile business, and the war between the allied Powers and Russia. All these have had more or less effect, in bringing about disarrangement in our business and commercial affairs. Loss of confidence, confusion and excitement, as a matter of course, have followed. I believe there is a key to most, if not all of this distress, and the name of it is Banks. You issue too many bank notes, you make too many promises to pay-too little preparation for paying. This, most assuredly, is one, if not the greatest cause, which has heretofore, as well as at the present time, involved us in all these difficulties. Is it not notorious that in times NEW SERIES.-No. 14.

We have two good banks in the eleventh district of Pennsylvania, one in Pottsville, called the Miner's Bank, and one in Northumberland, called the Bank of Northumberland. I am perfectly satisfied that they are sound to the core; and if it were in their power to relieve the community in which they are located from the present monetary embarrassment, they would do so. But the greater portion at such times-times of severe pressure-play the part of boa constrictor, having coiled around you, contract, press, screw, and screw until life is extinct. And another portion having issued "Wild Cat," "Red Dog,' and bogus paper, (I mean such as will not, or cannot pay,) will close their doors upon the holders of their promises to pay, place the keys in their pockets, and laugh at your calamity. This lesson has been experienced over and over again in all parts of the Union. This imposition is being practised at this very time in various parts of the country. Why, then, smother the truth, or refuse to publish it to the world? This kind of banking, and another species of which I shall speak presently, are a cheat and a curse wherever they exist.

Sir, I take pride and pleasure in having it in my power at this time to state, that so far not a single bank failure, during the present crisis, has occurred in Pennsylvania, and I believe, take them as a whole, they are in as sound a condition, probably more so, than those of any other State in the Union. That there are exceptions, however, I am convinced. A few of them are bolstered up by false or artificial means, or borrowed capital. I have said that the principle of special and ex parte legislation is a principle that may be, and to every man's knowledge is, at times, abused. When "bold bad men' are made the recipients of its favor, (and to our misfortune this is generally the case,) they may, for selfish and sinister purposes, disarrange all business, if not ruin hundreds of honorable men who may have the moral courage to act for themselves. Certain gentlemen have a chartered privilege-take a bank for instance they turn it from its legitimate business, enter the political arena, and prostitute its funds to aggrandize its officers, or be revenged upon political opponents. No plague can be more abhorred, no curse greater. Far better for a community that it be visited with the plague of London, or the lice of Egypt, than to allow such an establishment to insult it with impunity. These remarks are justified and indorsed by the conduct of the late Bank of the United States-Daniel Webster's "obsolete idea." The fearful and sanguinary struggle between the patriot Jackson and that institution, when the hero and statesman took the "monster" by the horns, and the result of that struggle, after he assumed the responsibility, is well remembered by the people of this country. It is fresh in their recollection. War, pestilence and famine would have been a blessing compared to the defeat and downfall of " Old Hickory" in that contest.

In his connection, I conceive it to be a bounden duty, due to the constituency I have the honor to represent, particularly those of Schuylkill county, who are immediately interested, to speak of the injurious and deleterious effects which a political bank has upon an honest,confiding, and uncontaminated people. One would suppose that since the bank then failed in its efforts to control the political destinies of the nation, the practice of forcing,

Ho. OF REPS.

coercing, and purchasing influence by smaller institutions of a similar kind for similar purposes, would have ceased entirely, for the reason that the lesson taught in the contest referred to, ought to have been a caution to all banks who meddled in politics. Not so, however; to the knowledge of the people of the eleventh district of Pennsylvania there is a political bank that seems to live by political huckstering and legislative boring. Immediately after its organization it entered the political field, and from that day to this it has continued to wield all its ill-gotten power to elevate and aggrandize the gentleman who controls it, and this, too, against the expressed and known will of the people; and having been complimented several times by them, this gentleman has at last found that "Jordan is a hard road to travel," that the noblest blood of the best bred steeds have occasionally the wind knocked out of them while running the last quarter, and are thus unfited for use, and must of necessity be "turned out to grass.'

Sir, show me a political bank, such an one as we of Pennsylvania are cursed with, and I will show you "Pandora's box," whose keeper is a modern Cataline, with the arms of a Bríareus whose stock in trade consists of paper promises to pay, poisonous as the Upas; the surrounding air of which is contaminated with sirocco. Again, show me a political bank, whose inception commenced in fraud, its chief officer an arrogant, selfish politician, and I will show you an institution controlled by one man, a majority of its offi. cers, if not to be likened unto paper, straw, or wooden men, will, at all events, do as the automaton does, move, march, wheel, and halt, at the bidding of its keeper. Yes, sir, I will then show you an institution in the secret subterranean conclave of which pseudo party men are manufactured to order on short notice. Where men are "Wheedled, to be sold,

Exchanged for rags, or bogus gold,

Where lucre wins, and holds its prize, And men are shambled by surprise." Where, after a mysterious conversion by spirit rappings, or some other hocus-pocus or legerdemain, men are drilled and exercised as so many regular soldiers, and told by their master which of them are to have front, and which back seats; in the basking beams of his regal assemblies, whose turn for promotion comes first, and whose last; who is entitled to a smile, and who a frown from his royal highness; who is to be beheaded, and who pardoned; who shall figure at the head, and who dangle at the tail of their master's inveterate faction; where weak-minded men are inveigled to be dealt with as merchandise, to have the cost paid for each, when purchased, and to learn the price obtained when knocked off; where taxes for gas-lights and water-rents are assessed; where servants to alms-houses and turnkeys to lock-up are appointed; where it has been said that orders and edicts have been issued to control the Executive of the State, and where it has heretofore been boasted that the power and influence existed to tarnish, with impunity, the ermine of the highest judicial tribunal in the State; where the fact is confessed that the taxes paid into the county and State treasury are deposited to be used for electioneering and shaving purposes, by the use of which the influence of politicians, of all parties and factions, (boys in particular,) are purchased.

And thus are the people, through the weakness and unfaithfulness of their public agents, (who furnish the means for this unholy purpose,) made subservient to the nod and caprice of a wily political trickster, a heartless politician. Yes, sir, with their own money are they made slaves. Better than that this state of things should exist and prevail as it has, and does now, that the first bank chartered should have been overwhelmed and smothered with the burning lava of Mount Vesuvius; better all such were sunk ten thousand miles beneath the bottom of the ocean; and better, far better, for the people, that every town and city in which such a bank is located should meet the fate of Sodom and Gomorroh.

The gentleman from Georgia [Mr. STEPHENS] and the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. CAMPBELL] have severally spoken of the comparative prosperity of their respective States. I also avail myself