California, because gold will be purchased cheaper in Australia? The principle is precisely the same. The sacrifice of golden revenue would be even less ruinous than that of our wealth in iron.

Mr. President, it is hard, at least for the capitalist and the laborer, to pay for the support of this great and expensive government a government which extends itself broader and broader, and at an ever-increasing expense, across this continent, and grasps, if not domain, influence and power throughout both hemispheres. It is only just to them that they should be consulted, and have notice that you are going to adopt any measures which may seriously affect their interests; and what do we say here? Has any notice been given? Has any alarm been sounded from this capitol during the three months we have been in session here, to the miner in Pennsylvania and Maryland, and in New Jersey and Tennessee, giving him notice that the government was going, by one speedy, direct act, to suppress the branch of industry in which he is engaged? So, I say that the country is taken by surprise by this measure; all the persons engaged in this branch of industry are to be taken by surprise.

But again, do we suppose that we can disturb so great an interest as this, and leave other interests unaffected? I am sure that I am as liberal to the new states as any one, but I warn gentlemen of the old states that this is the beginning of a system which is, if pursued, to result relatively in depopulating the old states, in depriving them of their capital and industry, and building up the intermediate and western communities at their expense. It will discharge I do not know how many thousands of the manufacturers of Pennsylvania and Maryland, and what will they do? Where will they go? Will they stay in Pennsylvania to till the rugged surface of the mountain, when they are excluded from the mines which lie beneath that surface? No, sir. They must go west to make railroads, and to dig for gold in California; and when they have gone, their places will not be supplied. The foreign laborer comes here, and he only touches at the gate, and then marches on to make railroads, and to dig gold on the shore of the Pacific; and when the foreign and domestic laborer, and their capital, have been put in motion, making railroads, and digging gold in California, the farmers follow them, and the prices of agricultural productions diminish. You build

up the west to an unnatural growth. Every vote which I have given here upon western interests, has shown that it has been given upon the principle of encouraging the speediest possible settlement of the great western domain, at every hazard and cost, common to the whole country, not prejudicial to any one part. But that growth, desirable as it is, must be one that is regulated in harmony with the interests of the Atlantic states; and it is certain, that just as sure as you stimulate it to an excessive and more rapid growth, by affecting the vigor of the old states, just so sure that growth becomes sickly, and will result in the decline, not only of the east, but also of the west, and throughout the nation. The Atlantic states are the base upon which we must erect this great superstructure of empire in the west. We must make the base firm, solid, broad, perpetual, if we would have a structure which shall be endurable.

I ask, now, what is the apology for this extraordinary measure? It is that it will encourage the making of railroads. Sir, I have spent my life, what there has been of it spent in public action, in encouraging the making of canals and railroads. I am a friend to canals and railroads; but I show my fidelity to them in adhering to them when they are unpopular and need help, and support, and patronage, and not when they have patronage so great as to be alarming for its effect, not only upon enterprises of that class, but upon the country itself. Do you know how many railroads you are making? You are making twelve thousand miles of railroads in the United States already. You are making them so fast, that you do not rely upon your own resources for making them at all, but you are selling the credit of individuals, towns, counties, and states, throughout the Union, in untold amounts, and constituting an aggregate debt greater than any amount which any man ever presumed it would be safe for this country to owe to foreign countries. Your railroads are not now made chiefly by subscriptions to their stock. There are small substratum subscriptions, then mortgages on the road, then second mortgages, then third mortgages, until the credit of whole communities is pledged, and pledged to English capitalists.

We are pledged in London for the cost of nearly all our railroads. Our capital is being diverted, so that there is no place in the United States where there is not a railroad being made.

There are already half a dozen railroads from the point of Lake

Erie to the city of New York, all converging there, because railroads have become popular and profitable. So it is throughout New England and throughout the west. Now it is not possible that the railroad enterprise in this country can absorb capital in an exclusive degree without producing an injury, not only to that enterprise and those subservient to it, but also injurious to other enterprises which increase the vigor and promote the progress of the country. Does any man doubt it? What did we do ten years ago, when we embarked in building canals and railroads so deeply, and pledged our credit so far, that the construction of every canal and railroad had to be suspended? What happened in England on a like occasion, but that a great railroadking projected railroads all over the island, and so much capital was invested in them, that all at once the bubble was pricked, and the whole enterprise collapsed, bringing on general stagnation and bankruptcy? This is the tendency of things here now. I am not by habit a croaker; but I can see that, unless the national government shall act so as to restrain rather than encourage and stimulate this excessive spirit of speculation in railroad investments, just such a collapse will happen here. Railroads do not need protection; iron-manufacturers do need it. Through the town in which I live, and the towns adjacent, the people, carried away by railroad enthusiasm, have applied to the legislature for permission to mortgage their whole property for the making of railroads; and yet there is not one railroad which they are thus making, in which foreign capitalists will invest a dollar, except they have collateral, personal, or public security. But you will tell me that Congress has not encouraged railroads. Congress has already encouraged railroads by donations of duties on foreign railroad iron exceeding the sum of three millions of dollars. Congress has already, with almost a unanimous vote in this chamber, given to every western state land enough from the public domain as much as they said was necessary-to construct a web of railroads now in progress and advancing to its completion, covering over the whole of the territories of the United States from the shores of the Atlantic to the Mississippi river, and even crossing that broad line, and advancing precisely upon the same system and same policy toward the base of the Rocky mountains. We have done enough, unless we have some other - some other revenues which we can apply to this great

resources

and beneficent enterprise of the age; and we have no other, if the only other one is the sacrifice of the mining interest of iron. in the old Atlantic states. Sir, I have voted land by the square league across the continent, and twenty millions of dollars out of the public treasury for railroads. I will not vote one dollar out of the iron-mines of my country, at the cost of the owner, and of the miner who is engaged in drawing its wealth to the surface.

TEXAS AND HER CREDITORS.

MARCH 2, 1853.

MR. PRESIDENT: At the epoch of annexation, 1845, the republic of Texas possessed some property in public defences, a large domain of unappropriated land, and revenues derived from customs. It owed a considerable debt which had been incurred in establishing independence and organizing civil government. That debt was divided into two classes: first, what has been called a domestic debt, not distinctly charged on the revenues from customs; second, what was secured to creditors by a pledge of those

revenues.

Texas came into the Union as a state, under stipulations concerning her property and debts, namely: She ceded to the United States all public edifices, fortifications, and other property, pertaining to the public defence. She retained all her funds, and all of her public domain, but under a covenant that it should be applied to the payment of her debts, with the absolute right to any surplus; and it was agreed that in no event should those debts become a charge on the government of the United States. Thus did the United States, in the very act of union with Texas, bind her to pay her creditors, at least as far as her domain would furnish resources for that purpose.

In 1850, five years after the annexation of Texas to the United States, all those debts remained unpaid; and, adding interest thereto, they stood, on the 1st of July in that year, as follows:

Domestic debt..

Debts secured by customs pledged

Total..

.$4,138,733 80

8,293,947 52

.$12,432,681 32

During that intervening period, there had been war between the United States and Mexico, which had resulted in the annexation, by conquest and purchase, of New Mexico, a state adjacent to Texas. A border dispute existed between those states, and it was supposed by Congress necessary to adjust that dispute, in order to restore civil government in New Mexico, and even to prevent armed collision between Texas and the military force of the United States, which, it was apprehended, might terminate in a general civil war, subversive even of the union of the

states.

In the midst of this dispute the creditors of Texas appeared here, and urged the settlement of their claims as a condition of the proposed adjustment. They pleaded that the United States had become liable for those debts, by absorbing the sovereignty of Texas, and that at least they had become liable for them to the extent of the value of the revenues accruing from imposts which, although they had been specifically pledged to the creditors, had been diverted into the treasury of the United States by the act of annexation. Thus the debt of Texas became an element of the controversy which Congress undertook to settle in 1850. Congress settled it by compromise:

1. Texas ceded her claim to some of the lands before insisted on, and accommodated her boundary to the demands of the United States.

2. Texas relinquished all claim upon the United States for the debts of Texas, and all other claims for indemnity.

3. In consideration of these concessions, the United States stipulated to pay ten millions of dollars to Texas, in five per cent. stock of fourteen years. But

4. It was stipulated that the United States should not pay to Texas more than five millions of dollars of said ten millions until the creditors, who had taken pledges of her revenues from customs, should have filed releases of all their claims against Texas with the secretary of the treasury of the United States.

Thus it appears that there were three parties to this compromise-the United States, Texas, and the creditors of Texas. The United States and Texas bound themselves then. The consent of creditors, whose debts were secured by customs, although postponed, was nevertheless necessary; and so they were a third party, whose consent was afterward to be given by releases. The