8

State, or by the city of Baltimore; and the undersigned cannot
appreciate the objection that his road is to be built by foreig-
enrs, or with foreign capital. The objections to the road which
and still is, proposed to be built through Maryland by the
authority of Congress, the undersigned has supposed to be
that Congress had no Constitutional power to authorize the
construction of a road in the State; and that the proposed
air line road from Washington to New York, which would
not pass through the city of Baltimore, would be injurious to
the commercial interest of that city; and consequently detri-
mental to the State at large. He always supposed that the
road proposed to be built by the authority of Congress from
Washington to Baltimore, was merely a laternal road from
the proposed air-line road; as it is certain that an air-line
drawn from Washington to New York, if it should pass
through Baltimore, would be supplied by the extension of the
road from the Camden to the Philadelphia station. The un-
dersigned submits that his road is not subject to either of the
objections urged against the Congressional road. It is not
authorized by Congress, but by the Legislature of Maryland.
Its terminus is Baltimore, and it could not, therefore, be used
as a link in an air-line road, to which the interest of the State
is opposed, but, as the undersigned submits, would offer the
strongest impediment to the Congressional road between the
two cities, as no capitalist would desire to invest his money
in a third road from Baltimore to the National Capital.

The undersigned now proposes to invite your attention to
the last and most important objection urged by the memori-
alist to the character of the Baltimore and Potomac Company.
It is, that to the extent that it would draw off passengers from
the Baltimore and Ohio Road, it would lessen the revenue de-
rived by the State from that road. The first inquiry will be
to ascertain the probable amount of the future receipts by the
State from the Washington Branch Road. The undersigned
submits, that you will be impressed with the dissingenuous
statement upon this subject in the memorial of the Baltimore
Road. That memorial says, that for the five years from 31st
December, 1861, to 31st December, 1866, the revenue derived
by the State from dividends on the Washington Branch of the
road, and from the per capita tax on passengers between Bal-
timore and Washington, amounted to $1,531,763.46, or up-
wards of three hundred thousand dollars per annum. Every
member to whom this argument is addressed will be surprised
to see in a paper emanating from such a source, a statement
(not intended) but so well calculated to mislead the Legisla-
ture.

It is true, the undersigned supposes, that the amount speci-
fied was received for the years indicated, but the deduction
i'rom that fact, that this is the just criterion of loss to the
State, by reason of the construction of the Washington Branch