self, but I thought that if I did so some of these gentlemen would think they had frightened me off the track [laughter], and so I voted in a very small minority to keep it in, not, however, that I cared a sixpence about it.

After the corporation was stricken out, the first constitutional scruples that I heard of were brought forward against appropriating any money in the States. The idea started, and it rolled on with the fury of a hurricane, and out went that provision of the bill by a majority of two votes. The honorable Senator from California thinks that it made the bill a perfect instrument; made it an instrument by which the road could be built. There is a difference of opinion between us on this point. If I thought so, I should vote for it. It would be tolerably hard work for me to do it even then; but I would trust to Providence. As the bill now is, however, the road is divided up, and we have no means of controlling the ends of it. It is to be given by the States to railroad companies, who are to do as they please. We have no means of saying that passengers and freights shall pay only so much; the power has gone out of our hands, and we shall have no control over the subject in the States, because the very ground on which the amendment goes is that you have no constitutional power to control the road in the States.

Under such circumstances, believing that we have no further use for the bill, and, as the Senator from California does not appreciate my courtesy in keeping the bill up, I now announce to him distinctly that I want a favorable opportunity of putting my name on the record against the bill in its present shape, and that may go to the country also. Cock Robin is killed! As to who killed him I do not care six straws. He is dead. I expected to get a road, but I know that, under the provisions of the bill as it now stands, I cannot get one, and I do not care about the credit or discredit of it. I shall have the proud satisfaction of reflecting that I have performed my duty faithfully upon this important subject, and with that I must be content.

GEORGE BADGER [N. C.].-Mr. President, I am a very earnest and decided advocate for the establishment of this road, and in that I present no exception to the Senate generally. Everybody is in favor of the road.

SENATOR MASON.-No!

SENATOR BADGER.-The Senator from Virginia is not in favor of it?

SENATOR MASON.-Decidedly not.

SENATOR BADGER.-I am glad to hear there is one man not

in favor of it. Now I am sure that I am right since the Senator is against me in the main project. [Laughter.] I was about saying that everybody in the Senate was in favor of the road, but there were so many conflicting opinions as to the mode in which, conveniently, constitutionally, and consistently with the principles of the Democratic party it could be accomplished that it seemed as if the general wish for a railroad was an abstraction, and the general difficulties in the way of its construction, a reality, which made the abstraction of no value.

Well, sir, I have been in favor of any measure that is a practical one, that would accomplish the object which is of so great importance to the country. But I find that there are insuperable obstacles in what are called the principles of the Democratic party. I never hear of them without alarm, for I have generally observed that they are brought forward and operated precisely to the extent, and precisely for the purpose, of preventing the accomplishment of some great good to the country.

Now, Mr. President, it has been said over and over again that this bill is dead. Gentlemen on all sides agree as to that except the Senator from California [Mr. Weller] who has a manifest State interest in keeping it alive and who I think mistakes certain galvanic motions in the dead body for the evidence of life and conjures up for it future exertion and useful

ness.

It is agreed on all hands that, whether by what has been done or not, it is the general sentiment in the Senate, and the deleterious effect of the administration of Democratic principles upon the measure, that it is dead, and the only inquiry on all sides has been how it should be decently and respectably disposed of by an honest burial.

Now, instead of moving that this bill lie on the table as a test question, having very great respect for the bill as it was originally reported, and the greatest respect and kindness for my honorable friend from Texas, who reported it, and who has pressed it with so much anxiety, I think the best course we can adopt with this distinguished member of the once practical measures, but now abstractions and humbugs of the age, would be to treat it exactly as we treat a member of Congress when he is dead. And, by way of taking final leave of it and testifying our respect for its memory, I move that the Senate do now adjourn [laughter] with the understanding that that makes an end of the Atlantic and Pacific railroad at least for this session,

The motion to adjourn was passed by a yea-and-nay vote, Senator Douglas desiring to put the members on record.

COMPLETION OF THE PACIFIC RAILROADS

By 1855 the Government had ascertained by surveys the passes practicable for railroads through the Rocky Mountains.

In 1860 all parties declared either in platform or in statements of their candidates in favor of constructing a Pacific Railroad by the Government. The outbreak of the Civil War caused the Lincoln Administration to urge the completion of the road in order to bind the Pacific States more closely to the Union, even though this involved the expenditure of funds sorely needed for the prosecution of the war. Owing to the great Republican majority in Congress an act to this effect was pushed through that body on July 1, 1862, with only a feeble opposition from the few State Rights Democrats who remained in the House and Senate. This act was in favor of the Central Pacific, Kansas Pacific, and Union Pacific railroads. Vast tracts of land were granted directly to these corporations instead of to the States for the benefit of the roads. This method has been invariably followed since that time. The largest grants to single corporations have been 47,000,000 acres to the Northern Pacific Railroad, and 42,000,000 acres to the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. The amount of bonds issued to the various Pacific railroads, interest payable by the United States, was $64,623,512.

The Union Pacific Railroad was completed on May 10, 1869.

CHAPTER VI

NATIONAL ABOLITION OF STATE RAILROAD MONOPOLIES

[THE CAMDEN AND AMBOY RAILROAD]

Bill in Senate to Prevent Discrimination by State Governments between Railroads Debate on the Bill: In Favor, Zachariah Chandler [Mich.], Charles Sumner [Mass.]; Opposed, Reverdy Johnson [Md.], John P. Hale [N. H.]; Bill Is Not Brought to Vote.

D

URING the Civil War the Government was com

pelled by military necessity to seize and operate certain railroads. In addition to this executive action the House passed a bill in 1864 authorizing every railroad company in the United States to carry freight, mails, passengers, troops, and Government supplies on their way from one State to another, and to receive compensation therefor from the national treasury. This gave the Government precedence of private individuals or corporations whenever it so desired.

The bill, while general in its application, was designed especially to abolish the monopoly of the Camden and Amboy Railroad in New Jersey, which, in 1832, by a State charter, had received the exclusive right of transit through the State in consideration of a bonus of the stock of the railroad. The charter, with its grant of monopoly, was afterwards extended until 1869, upon the agreement of the railroad to charge passengers no more than three cents per mile for transportation.

The bill was brought up in the Senate on January 16, 1865.

STATE MONOPOLIES IN TRANSPORTATION

SENATE, JANUARY 16-MARCH 3, 1865

Zachariah Chandler [Mich.] supported the bill. He

said:

If the State of New Jersey has a right to levy a small tribute upon either passengers or freight passing through that State, she has a right to levy a large tribute, and if she has a right to levy a large tribute she has a right to prohibit their passing absolutely if she, in the exercise of her sovereignty, sees fit thus to prohibit it. No man would claim that the State of New Jersey possessed that right; probably she would not attempt to exercise it, but it is a well-known fact that she has exercised the right of levying a tribute for years, and this monopoly has been grinding upon the people of the United States, grinding upon every man who has had occasion to pass from the great capital of the nation [Washington] to the actual capital of the nation [New York].

Senator Chandler showed that the State government had recognized in the charter of the railroad the right of Congress to control commerce through the State by providing that the bonus of stock paid by the railroad to the State government in consideration of the exclusive privilege granted it should revert to the railroad if Congress should recognize another road through the State.

Reverdy Johnson [Md.] opposed the bill on constitutional grounds. Every State has exclusive jurisdiction over its internal commerce. Congress can exercise jurisdiction only with the assent of the State. It has been the unvarying practice of the United States Government to procure this assent in establishing navy yards, mints, etc.

There was at one time a doubt as to the true meaning of the clause to be found in the eighth section of the first article which gives to Congress the right "to establish post-offices and postroads." The question turned upon the meaning of the word "established," as there used. Some few contended that it gave to Congress the right to make roads as well as to say what roads already made by the States they would use for the transportation of their mails, but the received opinion after a while, which was adopted and has been uniformly acted upon, and since recognized as the correct opinion by the judiciary in every instance in which any analogous question has been before the Supreme Court of the United States and the circuit courts of the United States, has been that the meaning of the clause giving