USA > Indiana > Early Indiana trials: and sketches. Reminiscences > Part 38
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"'That the vessels of a nation are considered a part of its territory, with the exception of the belligerent right only, is a principle too well established to be brought into discussion. Each State has exclusive
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jurisdiction over its own vessels. Its laws govern in them ; and offen- ses against those laws are punishable by its tribunals only. The flag of a nation proteets every thing sailing under it in time of peace; and in time of war, likewise, with the exception of the belligerent rights growing out of the war. An entry on board the vessels of one power by the cruisers of another in any other case, or the exercise of any other authority over them, is a violation of right, and an act of hostil- ity.' It is incumbent upon us to maintain this principle of the law of nations inflexibly, and in its undiminished integrity. The inviola- bility of the deck of an American vessel on the high seas, under all circumstances, in time of peace, and in time of war, with those limited exceptions only which are established by the acknowledged laws of war as affecting neutrals-is a doctrine indissolubly connected with our national honor and security. To admit a right of entry on board an American vessel on the high seas, in any case in time of peace, is to surrender the principle, and to open a door for the most dangerous abuses. On this subject, we may learn useful lessons from the history of the past. In our long and bitter controversy with Great Britain respecting impressment, unable to find any principle of the law of nations which gave her the right to enter on board American vessels in quest of British seamen, she defended the practice under cover of a right to entry, acknowledged to exist in time of war, for a wholly different object. She said, that by the acknowledged rules of inter- national law, we have a right to board and search neutral vessels in time of war, for contraband and enemies' property ; and being, in the exercise of this unquestioned right, lawfully on board an American vessel, if we find British seamen there, we may lawfully impress and carry them away; though we had no right in the first instance, to go on board for such an object. This was the British argument, in jus- tification of the impressment of seamen on board American vessels, gravely put forth to the world in the memorable declaration of the Prince Regent of the 9th of January, 1813.
" Now, Mr. president, if, contrary to the whole current of doctrine and authority by which we have been heretofore guided, on this sub- ject of maritime rights, we yield a right of entry into an American vessel in time of peace in any case, upon the plea of suspected piracy or any other-do we not afford a cover, under which Great Britain, if her pride or policy should dictate, may be emboldened to renew her claim of impressment, even in a time of general peace? She might well say (after the formula of the Prince Regeut's declaration), that being rightfully on board, upon suspicion of piracy by your own admission, and finding there those we claim to be our seamen, we will
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impress them, in the name and by virtue of that natural allegiance which our laws declare to be permanent and unchangeable, and which is due in peace as well as war.
" Of all the pretexts for the violation of our flag, the loosest and most susceptible of abuse in practice, would be the plea of suspected piracy. What are the external indices of a pirate ? A low, long, black-looking vessel, we are told; and, under this description, every Baltimore schooner would be subject to be boarded and overhauled. In what, in the modern use of language, consists piracy itself? In the plastic hands of diplomaey and power, nothing is susceptible of a greater variety of protean shapes. We ean not have forgotten, that in a solemn official communication which the late British Principal Secretary of State for foreign affairs (Lord Palmerston) caused to be addressed to this Government, in justification of the destruction of the Caroline, within the limits of our territory, the citizens of the United States who took part with the inhabitants of Canada in the late insur- reetion in that province, were gravely characterized as 'American pirates ;' and an elaborate argument from Mr. Webster was necessary to prove that this application of the term was not proper. In the dis- cussions which took place between the same Minister and our Repre- sentative in London, on this very subject of the right of visit, he habitually denominated vessels supposed to be engaged in the slave trade, as 'slave-trading pirates ;' and he repeatedly and emphatically appealed to the denunciation of the trade as piracy by the laws of the United States.
"It is easy to foresee therefore, how, under an admitted right of visit, and search also, according to the message, upon suspicion of piracy, with a little of the dexterity and boldness of diplomacy in the use of language, the whole of our growing and important commerce on the coast of Africa, might be driven from those seas by insupportable vexations. The only security to the rights of American navigation on the ocean, and for the honor of our flag, is to adhere inflexibly to the doctrine which was maintained by our fathers, and which has been delivered down to us from the great oracles of public law in Europe and America-that in time of peace there is no right in any case what- ever, on the part of a foreign cruiser, to enter and detain on the high seas (whether under the name of visit or search), a vessel which bears our national flag; by which, of course is meant the legitimate and bona fide flag of the United States."
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PACIFIC RAILROAD.
ABSTRACT of the speech of the author, at the St. Louis Railroad Convention in October, 1849, Judge Douglass, President.
Mr. President, I listened with all the attention due to the subject, to your opening speech, and also to the able speech of Col. Benton, yesterday. I am complimented by the request of the convention that I should take the main stand, showing a disposition to hear me. This is a great national question, and involves the practicability of building a railroad that shall be for all time the connecting link, iuland, between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. This question being settled, we come to the minor questions, whether there shall be more than one road con- structed, at which point shall the Eastern terminus be, and how the means shall be raised to construct the work. I desire to address a few remarks to the convention upon these questions ; and, first, Mr. President, let me say a word upon your suggestion that to avoid Con- stitutional difficulties, the commencement of the work should be in one of our territories, beyond the States of Missouri, Iowa, and Wis- consin. This is assuming that the road will be built, as a Govern- ment road, or under authority of the General Government, and that there is no Constitutional power to construct it in the States; and, therefore, to secure the power, the road must be made through terri- tories exclusively, if this position is maintained. If this road can not be placed on national grounds, so as to relieve it from all Consti- tutional objections, it at once ends the question, and all argument in favor of its ever becoming a national work. It drives it from Con- gressional action, and leaves it to private associated enterprise, like all the other works in the States; for it is very clear that it requires as strong an exercise of Constitutional powers to keep up, and run the road, and take tolls, after the road is built, as it does to construct it in the first place; and it is equally clear that to commence the road in a territory will not relieve it of the difficulty, as these territories will soon be States, and if the State sovereignty shall strike down the arm of the Government, for the want of Constitutional power in the Government to uphold it, the question is settled. It never should be undertaken by the Government. This is a question that has divided the Statesmen of the United States. I have held, that wherever the main question is settled, that the work is of national importance, the power of the Government to construct it, under the enumerated Con- stitutional powers, follows as much as to build a light-house, establish a post-road, or a military road, in a State. Having said thus much, Mr. President, on the question of power on the part of the Govern-
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ment to construct the work, if it shall be of a national character, I proceed to say something on the other questions involved.
It seems to me but as yesterday that the Eastern press announeed the completion of the then wonder of the age, the Pennsylvania Maneh Chunk railroad. Far and wide was the news spread, and thousands from every part of the country came to see the first rail- road ever constructed in the United States. The road was about eight miles in length, built upon an inelined plane, without eross-ties, heavy cast-iron chairs, a foot apart, bolted to rocks; cars holding six pas- sengers, drawn up the grade at the rate of two miles an hour by mules, to be returned in the ears of the down train. The idea of steam engines had not then entered into the brain of any one as a propelling power on land.
From this embryo idea have the railroads of the United States pro- gressed, until we have more miles of railroad than all the world besides. We now have seventeen thousand eight hundred miles of first- class roads, costing over five hundred millions of dollars, and traversing twenty-three States, in full operation, while the railroad spirit is push- ing its enterprises into every part of the nation. In lien of the six- passenger car drawn by mules, at the rate of two miles an hour, we now have lightning trains with their thousand passengers propelled by their flying locomotives.
From the mere local operations of that small beginning, our rail- roads have already passed the barriers of the Alleghanies, the Ohio, and the Mississippi, and are soon to connect the Atlantic with the Pa- eifie, almost annihilating time and space, and binding the States together in bonds of common interest as durable as the Union-but a few years ago a band of pilgrim exiles on a roek-bound coast in the New World ; now, a mighty nation, whose flag floats in every eommer- eial port, whose fame fills the world, and whose temple is dedicated to the true and living God.
The great valley of the Mississippi, whose fertile soil, if properly cultivated, would feed the inhabitants of the globe, is rising in wealth, population, and power at a rate unparalleled in the history of our raee, giving conclusive evidence that it is yet to contain a more dense population than any other part of the earth. Where the bread is, there will be the mouths to cat it. Indiana, with a population barely enough to be admitted into the Union as yesterday, now numbers over a million and a quarter. From a western frontier State, she now oceu- pies the central portion of the nation ; from a single delegate in Con- gress, she now has eleven representatives; and from being without a sin- gle mile of railroads, she now has some twelve hundred miles in full
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operation, and others in process of construction. Such was her begin- ning, and such has been her progress. How greatly have the rela- tive positions of that State changed within a few years. A very short time since, the valley of the Mississippi was viewed as our western boundary, and none were so visionary as to look further west for prac- ticable purposes. Now that vast country on the Pacific embraced by Oregon and California-that land of gold and of promise, is rising in wealth and importance, with a rapidity withont precedent in the his- tory of the world. We in the East are united to that distant part of the Union by all the tics of common interest, common brother- hood, and a common country. It is not strange, then, that the pub- lic mind, both in and out of Congress, should be turned to the impor- tance of a railway connection between the Atlantic and the Pacific? The ocean route around Cape Horn has long since been abandoned as too tedious, and attended with perils too great. The Panama and Nicaragua route, now principally traveled, can be tolerated only until the more direct route shall be prepared for the public. The overland emigrant route is one of great difficulty and peril. It is obvious, therefore, that neither of these routes will answer our purposes. As was to be expected, the enterprise of connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific by direct railway, has called forth the great minds of the nation. Some favor the idea of making it exclusively a national work ; others of making it a joint work between the Government and individuals; others of building it by a joint-stock company. All these plans have their advocates, and while all agree as to the grand idea that a road should be built, the danger is that any work will be defeated by the number of plans and routes that will be brought for- ward. There are some who think that the Government will make the work, and that it is unnecessary to invoke associated enterprise. If there were no other objections to this view, the question of route alone will always defeat any efficient action of Congress in making it a national work. Many routes and many plans will be proposed. Sur- veys and reports will be made ; politicians, great and small, will ride and fall on the hobby of a national Pacific railroad, and hopes deferred will sicken the soul so long as it remains a subject of political conten- tion. The final result will be, that the Pacific railroad will be built just as the other great enterprises of the day have been-by associated stockholders, either with or without the collateral aid of the Government in the shape of lands or otherwise. In the hands of such a company, actively, energetically, and honestly engaged at an early.day, a com- pany that could command the confidence of the public at home and abroad, the work, however immense and however costly, can be built ;
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and when in operation, no human foresight ean measure its impor- tanee to the stockholders and the public.
There are three routes already prominently before the country,- the Northern, or Whitney route, adopted by Governor Seward ; the Missouri route insisted upon by Col. Benton ; and the Southern, or Gila route, favored by Robert J. Walker, Senator Gwin, and their associates. The Northern route makes Chicago its eastern terminus ; the Missouri route St. Louis ; and the Southern route Memphis. All these routes are maintained by their friends, as practicable. The friends of the Southern route, however, claim for it great advantages over either of the others, in view of the mild latitude of its probable location, being so far south as to be protected from the deep snows that eover the northern mountains. They say that passes through the Rocky Mountains, on their route, with moderate elevations, can be obtained, through which the road can be constructed upon easy grades. These matters should be fully tested before any route is adopted.
The friends of the Pacific railroad are much indebted to Mr. Whit- ney for his untiring efforts to arouse the people of the United States to its importance. He visited the most, if not all, of the States, held public meetings, delivered able addresses, obtained memorials and petitions to Congress favorable to his plans, procured reports from committees in Congress strongly advocating his views, enlisted for a time the advocacy of the ablest presses in America, including the New York Tribune. He visited England and laid his plans before com- mittees there with some prospect of success, and at one time it really looked as if his plan would meet the favor of the nation. But the more closely it was examined, the less favor it obtained, until at this day there are very few who openly avow themselves in its favor. The radical objection was two-fold. The first was, that its location was too far north to make it a national work; its starting point was at the Northern Lakes ; the route was upon a highly northern parallel of latitude liable to be incumbered by deep snows ; it passed extensive wastes between the Lakes and Rocky Mountains, uninhabitable by man, without timber, and destitute of water. Its route lay far from any traveled part of the country, and therefore the whole road to the Pacific would have to be constructed before any part could be made profitable.
These and other objections seemed to rise against the route. But the other and still more prominent and fatal objection to the plan of Mr. Whitney, was as to the inadequaey of the means with which he
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proposed to construct the work. While the matter lay simply in petitions and resolutions to Congress, the cost to the people was nothing, Mr. Whitney went on swimmingly. But when the question of means was examined, the matter took a more serious turn ; and here, perhaps, is the important point of all enterprises, great and small. It is not so difficult to find routes for railroads as means to build them. If Mr. Whitney's route had even met the approbation of the nation, it was easy to see that his means were wholly inadequate to the proposed end. The building of a railroad to the Pacific is a Her- eulean work ; will require much time, and a very large amount of means-not less, evidently, than one hundred millions of dollars, and even that sum might not accomplish the enterprise. Mr. Whitney and the committecs of Congress proposed that the work should be built out of the proceeds of a strip of sixty miles of the public lands on the route of the road. It was clear that the sales of the whole of the publie lands of the United States, located to suit purchasers, did not exceed over three or four millions of dollars annually, upon the ground that public lands are governed by the principle of supply and demand, like other artieles in the market. Then supposing Mr. Whitney to receive annually one million of dollars from his strip, it would take one hundred years to build the road out of these means, if every tie and every rail were as durable as the granite rock. The plan of Mr. Whitney does not seem to be longer urged upon Congress; yet he certainly gave strength to the idea of connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific by railway, and caused thousands to investigate the subject who otherwise would never have looked into it. I take plea's- ure in referring to this pioneer Pacific-railroad man, and in com- mending his zeal and untiring efforts to those who shall follow in that great enterprise.
I am favorable to a single road to the Pacific, to run through the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains, branching on the Pacifie side to San Francisco and Oregon City, with branches on the Atlantie side from Memphis, St. Louis, and Chicago, uniting at or near the mouth of the Kansas. Such a line, with such branches, if as practicable as to grades, snows, and other obstructions, I believe, would be of a more national character, and accommodate more of the Atlantic States than any other.
The question of means to construet this great work, is still of th highest importance. It has been already observed that this can never be solely a political road; but it does not follow that if a private stoek company should take hold of the work in a spirit of faithful
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determination to construct it, Congress should not give at least as much incidental aid as has been given to other works in the States. Are the United States less interested in the construction of the Pacific Railroad than in the works they have already aided by grants of pub- lie lands ? Most assuredly not. Indeed it may be assumed, that were there no Constitutional objections; no questions of route; no questions of precedent, this great enterprise would demand the immediate action of Congress in its construction. No work of the kind, in this or any other country, has ever been so important to the whole nation. No work so essential in times of peace or war. If constructed, it would at once become the great artery of the nation, through which would flow the life-blood of commerce. It would become the import channel for the transportation of our great mail from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It would afford the most rapid pos- sible facilities for throwing our army and munitions of war into the distant parts of the Union, in cases of sudden emergency. It would add immensely to the value of the public domain in the region of country through which it might pass. It would be the means of set- tling remote sections, and protecting the immigrants between the Atlantic and Pacific. It would remove, in a great degree, the dan- gers to our citizens of traveling by other routes from the Atlantic to the Pacific ; and, above all, it would bring the remote States of the . Union into the same neighborhood, remove all inducements to a separation, and perpetuate the Union for all time. Such would be some of the advantages of the road to the nation : there are others of scarcely, if any, less importance.
The commerce of the United States is completely severed - not only internally, but externally. There is no common intercourse between the States. The Atlantic and Pacific sections must remain as foreign nations to each other, until a direct avenue of connection is opened between them, the effect of which will not only be to unite them together in commercial relations, but to draw to them those nations with whom they are separately united by commercial ties. The islands of the Pacific, China, and Japan will follow Washington, Oregon, and California, with their commerce through the direct chan- nel to the Atlantic cities ; and England and France will meet them there, and, in turn, pass through the great highway to the shores of the Pacific. It requires but a single glance at the map to see, that whenever this great thoroughfare shall be opened across the United States, it must become, like the ocean, the highway of nations, con- necting, not only the Atlantic with the Pacific, but Europe with Asia,
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by a direct and much shorter route thau was ever dreamed of by modern navigators. If this be so, then indeed are the United States more deeply interested in this great enterprise than in any and all others that have received their countenance and regard ; and may it not be hoped, that the high importance of the work may call forth so united an expression on the part of Congress, favorable to such collat- eral aid in the grant of lands contiguous to the line that may be adopted, as to enable a company, with the stock that may be obtained, to construct the work? This road will have to be built in continuous seetions, from the eastern and western terminus, carrying forward the materials over the finished sections, populating the country, and mak- ing the road profitable to the stockholders as it advances, until the ends shall meet, and the whole line be thrown open to the world.
The influence of our railroads upon the wealth and prosperity of . the nation admits of no estimate ; it may be safely said, that we are in advance of where we would have been without them, more than fifty years; and that the increase in value of the real estate within the direct influence of their operations, is more than three hundred fold.
The number of miles of railway now in operation upon the sur- face of the Globe, is 35,264; of which 16,180 miles are in the eastern hemisphere, and 19,084 miles in the western : and which are distrib- uted as follows: In the United States, 17,811 miles; in the British Provinees, 823 miles ; in the island of Cuba, 359 miles ; in Panama, 31 miles ; in South America, 60 miles ; in Great Britain, 6,976 miles ; in Germany, 5,340 miles; in France, 2,480 miles ; in Belgium, 532 miles ; in Russia, 422 miles ; in Sweden, 75 miles; in Italy, 170 miles ; in Spain, 60 miles ; in Africa, 25 miles ; and in India, 100 miles. The longest railway in the world, is the New York Central, which is 621 miles in length ; the number of miles of railway in the United States, exceeds the rest of the world by the amount of 358 miles. The total number of railways completed, in the United States, is 264; the number in course of construction, is 134; the number of miles in operation, is 17,811, which have been constructed at a cost of $508,588,038 ; the number of miles in course of construction, is 12,898. The average cost of the railroads of the United States, per mile, has been only a fraction over $28,000; there were opened in the United States, in the year 1851, 1,278 miles; in 1852, 2,282 miles; and in 1853, 3,964 miles.
The estimated cost of the Pacific Railroad, is one hundred mill- ions of dollars. This appears at first blush to be an enormous sum for a single work, but when we reflect that we have already built
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