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as an independent proposition, they would spurn. This
subject had never been agitated before the people, and if
it had been made an issue in the call for this Convention,
that call would not have received 100 votes in Washing-
ton county. Could any member of this Convention put
his hand on his heart and say he would decide in favor of
this measure if he was acting as chancellor; and could he
excuse himself on this plea if called to account by his
constituents? This Convention was not in any position
to go into this question.
The bold and wicked proposition was made to sur-
render this work, which had cost the State $8, 000, 000 and
almost bankrupted it. is there any gentleman here who
will say that no agents to manage this work can be found
in the State of Maryland? The history of the Chesapeake
and Ohio Canal has, from its inception to the present day,
been one of miscalculation and disappointment. It is the
cry that has always hung around the company that it is
a failure, and this accounts for the complaints, for all this
hue and cry.
He admitted that there had been mismanagement, but
was that any justification for giving it away, not to our
own people, but to outsiders? Should they experiment
with a great work like this? They should hesitate be-
fore acknowledging our own inability and the necessity
of selecting foreign agents to manage our own affairs.
These trustees were not a part of our people; they were
not subject to our jurisdiction. They might pervert the
canal from its proper uses and to the injury of the State,
and being neither amenable to public opinion here or to
our jurisdiction, there would be no way of reaching them,
Is there any court in the State of Maryland, that could
take cognizance of any mismanagement ? Then we would
have bound ourselves hand and foot, and be handed over
to the mercies of those outside of our own limits.
Mr. A. continued his argument at considerable length
against the propriety and justice of the measure.
Mr. Dobbin said he had spent twenty years in close con-
nection with a canal, twelve years as president and eight
as director and counsel, in which position he still re-
mained. Whenever the people of a State sovereignty ap-
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