Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1888 Excerpt:...should be stated, which shows how harshly the Constitution deals with its own canals and with the boatmen who toil upon them. If, in consequence of a break in its banks, or of a desire on the part of competing routes to destroy them and the persons who own or navigate boats, their receipts should be reduced for a single year below the cost of maintaining;hem, the Constitution will not let the Legislature vote a single dollar to make up such deficiency, no matter how small it may be. This hostile and menacing attitude of our State towards canals and boatmen prevents the building of vessels and their use. It has lessened the receipts for tolls, for men will not engage in a business where they are liable to be ruined by an accident or by the designs of rich competitors. These will find it profitable to carry at losing rates for one year, if they can destroy forever the boatmen or the canals which keep down their own rates for carrying the products of our own people. When they have destroyed their competition they can ever after put up their own charges to suit their own interest. If relief is sought from such action, their agents must be sent into the lobby and excite suspicion, which may be unjust, that members are corrupted. When these suspicious become general they will lead to disastrous results. I am truly, etc., Horatio Seymour." Horatio Seymour was more than a party politician. He was a man wh loved his country more than any party and he died lamented by men of all political opinions, and among those things for which his name will honorably be remembered will be his position in the canal question. It has been suggested that the counties through which the canal passes, might without constitutional change acquire the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and imp...