ment is designed to be imputed,)—ought the con-
templated change lo be adopted is the question
of which he held the affirmative. To a correct
decision of the matters in controversy, a. brief
statement of facts was indispensable. Not of all
the facts bearing upon the question, many of
which have from time to time been repeated,
without contradiction, before this Convention
during its session, and are doubtless within the
recollection of the members; others are matters
of notoriety known to almost every body; the re-
maining facts, whereof a statement may bo re-
quisite, are but few, and about them there can be
no controversy. The advances made by the State
of Maryland on account of the Chesapeake and
Ohio Canal Company, principal and interest, now
amount to upwards of $11,000,000. That there
is a preferred debt now due from the company to
certain bond holders, of about $1,700,000, the
interest of which must bo paid before the State
is entitled to receive any thing. That the com-
pany's income from tolls is its only means of
making payments, except perhaps some inconsi-
derable amounts resulting from rents or sales of
water rights. That the entire works, subject to
the preferred debt of $1,700,000, is mortgaged to
the State of Maryland for a very large amount,
for the payment of which it may be sold, should
the State see fit to enforce its claim by proceed-
ings in the Court of Chancery.
That the State of Maryland has a similar claim
on the Tide Water Canal Company, and on the
Baltimore and Susquehanna Railroad Company,
in the latter of which, by its agents, it appoints
the president and directors. That the cities in
the District of Columbia own no stock in the
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company. That
upon the total suspension of the works on the
Canal, the State of Virginia refused to subscribe
for more of its stock, or to make further advances
of funds to aid in its completion; and that there-
upon Maryland unaided, was obliged to provide
the means by which the work was to be com-
pleted. That the $8,000,000 bill was passed by
the Legislature mainly by the influence of the
city of Baltimore, and the deep interest the State
took in its prosperity, and its desire that the Bal-
timore and Ohio Railroad should be completed to
the banks of the Ohio river. That in passing the
$8,000,000 bill, the State contemplated and de-
signed to make provision for the completion of
the Cross Cut Canal to terminate at the city of
Baltimore, and that the Treasurer of the State
was enjoined from issuing its bonds for any
part of the $3,000,000 designed for the Chesa-
peake and Ohio Canal, until he should be satisfied
that the entire stock requisite for the completion
of the Cross Cut Canal was subscribed.
From these and other facts which might be
mentioned, it is too apparent to admit of a doubt
that it was not the design of the Legislature to
build up powerful rival cities out of the State of
Maryland, which might sap the vitals and impair
the posperity of its great commercial emporium
the city of Baltimore, the pride, and ornament, and
treasure of the State. It is equally manifest that
the Legislature never intended that the Canal |
should ever be used as an engine by which the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company should be
subjected to so severe a competition, be so crippled
in its operations, as measurably to destroy its
utility to the city of Baltimore. If it had for
one moment, even dreamed of such a. condition
of things, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal would
ever thereafter have remained in the unfinished
condition in which it was at the time of the pas-
sage of the eight million loan bill. It is true that
the Legislature, in a spirit of munificence un-
equalled by any State of the Union, did exhaust
its treasure and its credit to construct the Chesa-
peake and Ohio Canal Company, as well fur the
purpose of making the city of Baltimore what it
desired it should be, as to increase the wealth and
prosperity of Allegany county by developing and
making available its immense mineral and other
resources.
A further or incidental object of the canal,
was the facilities and advantages which it would
confer on portions of Washington, Frederick,
Montgomery and Prince George's counties, lying
in its vicinity. Nothing could have been more
foreign to the views and intent of the Legisla-
ture, than that the canal should be so conducted
as to impair, if not wholly paralize the useful-
ness of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad; to
check the increasing growth, wealth and pros-
perity of the city of Baltimore, or to diminish
the practicable income of the State; or to operate
injuriously upon its pecuniary or general inter-
ests. Of these views and designs of the Legisla-
ture, the State's agents cannot have been ignorant,
and must be presumed to have been in-
formed; and ought so to have discharged their
duties as would most effectually protect and pro-
mote the interests they represented; and affectu-
ate the designs for which they were appointed.
They were the agents of the State, not of Alle-
gany county and the district cities, nor of the
Chesapeake and Ohio canal company. They
knew that the promises and assurances of those,
who from Allegany county and other places, induced
Maryland to encumber itself with this
immense debt, now so onerously saddled upon it,
were that the net income of the canal was to be
made as great as practicable, to meet the State's
interest on the public debt; and that the Legis-
lature had most solemnly assured that it would
be more than sufficient, not only to pay the in-
terest on that. portion of the public debt incurred
on account of the canal, but of the entire debt
of the State. Under such circumstances, the
obligation of the State's agents was too obvious
to admit of a doubt. The amount of the stock
held by the State, and on which their vote was
to be cast, being, comparatively speaking, the
entire stock of the company, the board of direc-
tors of the canal company should have been se-
lected from such parts of the State of Maryland,
as that no suspicion could rest upon the mind of
any well judging man, that they had any inter-
est or feeling which was opposed to the interests
of the State of Maryland. And yet, sir, what
have the State's agents done on such an occasion. |
