this reduction, [the water being shut out of the
canal during the succeeding month,) these direc-
tors and agents, before or about the commence-
ment of the spring navigation on the canal, hold
another meeting and reduce the tolls from seven-
ty-five cents to thirty-seven and-a-half cents per
ton for the next three years, on condition that
sufficient surety were given them that five hun-
dred thousand tons of coal would be transported
in each of the three years. Why this security
was not given, he was at a loss to conjecture, as
it is stated that there is a contract now entered
into by the Maryland Mining Company, to furnish
to a concern or company in New York, five hun-
dred thousand tons of coal per year.
That last mentioned toll reduction, we now
hear, is at an end. as is alleged, (but of which
there may well be doubt,) by reason of the re-
quired security not being given. It is more
probable that our State's agents upon prudent
second thought began to think that they had
been "going it rather too strong" (to use a very
common but nut inexpressive saying,) and that,
upon calculating the results of this arrangement,
the amount of lolls which the company might
receive, would be but $187,500, of which $102,-
000, the interest on the 1,700,000 being deducted, the
balance of the years receipts being $85,500
would, after meeting the existing wants of the
company, and paying off the salaries and wages
of its officers and agents, prove insufficient to
meet the current and contingent expenditures of
the canal, required to keep it in good navigable
condition.
Upon failure of this contemplated reduction
of tolls to thirty-seven and a half cents per ton,
the directors and State's agents have fixed the
rate of tolls at fifty cents per ton. If the State's
agents, instead of representing the interests of
Maryland, had been the representatives of Alle-
gany county, the district cities, and those por-
tions of Washington, Frederick, Montgomery
and Prince George's counties, contiguous to the
canal, nobody could hesitate in admitting that
they had acted in ,the best possible manner to
promote the interests of their constituents, by
making the canal, as nearly as they had the
power to make it a public highway, free of tolls,
except such tolls as were indispensably necessa-
ry lo keep the canal in running order, and to
raise the annual interest on the bonds of the
company for $1,700,000, the failure to pay which
interest, would have induced a sale of the entire
works of the Chesapeake and Ohio canal com-
pany.
But when we regard these State's agents as
exclusively the representatives of the State of
Maryland, and therefore, bound to render the
receipts from tolls on the canal as great as they
consistently could make them, can any impar-
tial, judicious man upon the facts before this
Convention, hesitate to say that the State's
agents erred, nay so egregiously erred, that they
ought no longer to be continued by the State in
their present appointment ?
He, (Mr. D.,) from his personal knowledge of
the State's agents and those directors who con-
55 |
curred with them, from their high and elevated
characters and unimpeachable integrity, did not
for one moment mean to intimate that they had
knowingly violated their duty or designedly
sacrificed the interests of the State, but he must
be permitted to say that in his opinion they had
shown such want of a just comprehension of
the interests of the State, and of the means by
which they were to be promoted, that their con-
tinuance in office is utterly inconsistent with the
interests of the State.
He was satisfied from what had passed during
the discussion on the question now under consideration;
that whilst the present State's agents
remained in office no change beneficial to the
Baltimore and Ohio rail road, the city of Balti-
more or the State at large, in the policy and ad-
ministration of the affairs of the canal company
would or could be made; and if a similar admin-
istration of the canal company were to beper-
petuated, the State might as well abandon the
the claim of upwards of $11,000,000 which it
now has against the Chesapeake and Ohio canal
company, and save the sum of $500 per year,
now paid to the State's agents.
Under the auspices of those who now manage
the concerns of that company, he had not a sem-
blance of hope that the State will ever receive the
first dollar; whereas, had a policy been adopted
which the State's right demanded, he felt confi-
dent that at the end of the present year the Slate.
would receive the sum of two hundred thousand
dollars; during the next year nearly double that
amount and a largely increasing amount for eve-
ry year thereafter. And to whose benefit does
the sacrafice of the State's interest in the canal
mainly enure ? To that of the cities in the Dis-
trict of Columbia, [as it lately existed,] which
have no claims upon us, and to that of Allegany
county, the conduct of which and the delegates
thereof in this Convention, have shown that they
are too astute in perceiving and occupying this
vantage ground for its own benefit, to be selected
by the counties of this State, either as their beneficiary
or fiduciary. It has shown itself too
unkind, not to say ungrateful, for past favors so
lavishly conferred upon it by its sister counties
and the State at large,
In 1789 the county of Allegany was created.
Its population the year afterwards, as shown by
the census of 1790, was 4809; about one half of
that of the smallest county in the State of Mary-
land and less than one-sixth of the population of
the largest county, which was 30,791; and yet,
sir, the representation of Allegany county in the
General Assembly of Maryland, was at that
time made equal to that of the largest county in
the State, and so continued down to the amended
Constitution of 1836. In 1790 the population of
Charles county was upwards of four times that
of Allegany county, being 20,613. Montgomery
had then a population of 18,003, nearly four
times that of Allegany county, and St, Mary's
15,544, more than three times that of Allegany.
in 1800 the population of Allegany county was
6308; in 1810, 6909; in 1820, 8654, less than
that of any other county in the State, little more |
