Receipts into the Treasury in the year ending
30th September, 1863.
From the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from
passengers on the Washington Branch,
tor one-fifth of the receipts.....$207,540 51
From the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad for interest on divi-
dend bond No, 141............... 750 00
From the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad for interest on sterling
bonds, converted.................. 42,229 00
From Northern Central Railroad
Company for annuity and ar-
rears....................121,703 33
From Susquehanna and Tide Water
Canal Companies for ac-
count of arrears of interest,.... 90,000 00
From Annapolis and Elkridge
Railroad Company for amount
of surplus remaining in their
hands December 1, 1862 ....... 14,286 72
From Annapolis and Elkridge
Railroad Company for interest
refunded on bonds redeemed by
the State........................12995
Total..................$476,639 51
When it is ft notorious fact, that the State
of Maryland is receiving all this income from
these public works, which after a long period
of time, are now just becoming useful and
bringing money into the treasury of Mary-
land, we turn round and want to sell that
very stock which is productive, and keep that
which is unproductive.
The debt of the State of Maryland was in-
curred in completing these great works of in-
ternal improvement, and the people were
taxed to complete them. What was the
object of the State of Maryland in aiding
these works of internal improvement? It
was not to make money. It was not to go
into stock-jobbing operations for the purpose
of keeping the stock until it Was hulled pretty
high, and then selling them and putting a
little money into the treasury. It was not to
keep the band upon the throat of these cor-
porations. it was to develop the interests
and material wealth of the State.
What does the Chief Justice of the Court of
Appeals say (6 Gill, 296) in relation to this
matter?
' ' It is a matter of notoriety and of history,
that in chartering the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad Company, the legislature and the
people of Maryland regarded the completion
of the work as a great State object, leading
eminently to promote the future wealth and
prosperity of Maryland, and particularly of
the city of Baltimore, and to contribute to
the permanence of the union of the United
States. They also were duly sensible that
this gigantic and patriotic undertaking could
not be accomplished but at great expense and.
hazard of pecuniary loss to its undertakers.
As an encouragement to the enterprise they |
were willing to confer upon it every immu-
nity, privilege, and exemption which could
reasonably be required and tend to its com-
pletion."
Still, when the State of Maryland, or the
people of Maryland, through the legislature,
had gone to work and made this large in-
vestment, in order to develop the resources
of the State and bring them to Baltimore
city, yon now go to work and concoct a
scheme to put the whole interest in the Balti-
more and Ohio Railroad Company into the
hands of a private corporation, it may be be-
longing to Maryland, or it may be to Penn-
sylvania or New York, who may divert the
whole trade of Western Maryland and West
Virginia, Ohio, and the whole west, which
now comes to the city of Baltimore, away
from us. We all know what the mammoth
corporations of the North are now doing.
The Central Pennsylvania Railroad is grasp-
ing day after day for more power, more power,
until at last we shall be in the power of the
Northern Central Railroad, and then the city
of Baltimore can bid good-by to any interest
she may have in that railroad. They will
divert the whole of that trade to the city of
Philadelphia. If you sell the stock of the
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and allow any
corporation to acquire it, by some hocus-pocus
it may fall into the hands of the same com-
pany having an interest in the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad Company, and they may make
such a discrimination that you cannot bring
your coal from the Allegany region along
your canal; but the whole of that coal trade
instead of coming down to Baltimore city,
will go direct to the city of Philadelphia;
and the city of Philadelphia and the State of
Pennsylvania, will be built up by the great
internal mineral resources of Maryland, in-
stead of our own State.
Is there any gentleman here who desires to
see the prosperity, mercantile, mechanical and
otherwise, of Baltimore city, dwindled down?
Ought not every Maryland man, no matter
from what part of the State be comes, to feel
a just pride in the prosperity and growth of
the great commercial city of the State?
Gentlemen tell us that there is no fear of
this thing. Why is there no fear of it?
We have the history of every single corpora-
tion that has gone before us. We have the
history of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
up to the pregent time. I care not how much
gentlemen may tell me that the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad Company has not dis-
criminated against the city of Baltimore, and
in favor of other States; I know that she has;
and I know that she has not only discrimi-
nated against Baltimore, but against other
sections of the State of Maryland, and in
favor of Wheeling, Pittsburgh and Philadel-
phia.
As to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, I
admit, that is unproductive. The State of |
