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Stephen Van Rensselaer, William C. Bouck, Jonas Earll, junior, John Bowman, and William Baker, were then canal commissioners. They urged the vigorous prosecution of the enlargement as a measure of enlightened economy and foresight. But apprehensions were found in the legislature, that the policy recommended could not be pursued without committing too deeply the credit of the state. Although the feasibility of the New York and Erie railroad had been demonstrated, yet that important enterprise had not sufficiently gained the confidence of the community, to secure subscriptions and payments upon its capital stock, sufficient for its prosecution, without a modification of the conditions upon which the company then enjoyed a loan of public credit. To some extent that enterprise was regarded as one of local character, and it therefore found little favor in remote regions of the state. The enlargement of the Erie canal assumed a similar aspect, in the view of those who desired the former improvement. A general suspension of specie payments, by banking institutions throughout the Union, had occurred in 1837; and a commercial revulsion unprecedented in the history of the country, and the effects of which have not yet entirely passed away, was paralyzing the energies of men in every department of industry and enterprise. Under these circumstances all questions before the legislature, in relation to the public works, were merged in the important consideration of the financial ability of the state. The comptroller, Azariah C. Flagg, in his annual report, examined the resources and condition of the treasury, and earnestly recommended a system of finance, of which taxation should be a part, the adoption of which would, in his opinion, insure the prompt payment of the interest, and the ultimate redemption of the principal of the public debt.

Samuel B. Ruggles, chairman of the committee on ways and means of the assembly, submitted a report, in which he examined the condition of the finances, and reviewed the progress of internal improvements. In this paper he showed that, on the first of July, 1836, the revenues of the canal fund had accumulated to a sum sufficient to pay the canal debt; which incident it was declared ought to be regarded as the crowning event in the canal policy of the state, and as fixing an important era in its history. He further showed that when the canals were commenced, the state possessed productive property valued at

$2,740,000, yielding a revenue of $419,900; a school fund of $982,000; and a literature fund of $26,000: that when the canals were commenced, the net income of the treasury was reduced to $180,000 annually, by the diversion of the salt and auction revenues to the canal fund: that a tax which had previously been laid to defray the expenses of the late war, was then continued: that in 1826, the rapid increase of the canal tolls began to exhibit itself, and the state tax was discontinued, on the ground that the balance remaining of the general fund, $2,740,000, would sustain the government, until the debt, for which the salt and auction duties, and canal tolls, were pledged, should be extinguished; and that those revenues would then be liberated and placed at the service of the state: that by the exhaustion of the general fund, in defraying the ordinary expenses of the government, and by loans for the same purpose, the sum of $3,156,000 had been expended; but that the salt and auction duties, which had been received between the years 1817 and 1836, and paid to the public creditors, amounted to upward of $5,000,000; that those duties, to the amount of $5,000,000, were virtually invested in the canals as a substitute for the $3,156,000 expended during the same period for the ordinary purposes of government; and that the state, since the year 1825, had created a debt, then yet outstanding, for the construction of lateral canals, amounting to $3,555,000. He further showed that, in the twenty years since the commencement of the canals in 1817, the productive property of the state had increased from $2,973,617 to $22,157,742, or, after deducting the then existing state debt, to $17,624,986; that the annual revenue had increased from $419,907 to $1,413,846; that during the same period, $500,000 had been expended upon public buildings, the school and literature funds had been doubled, the state tax discontinued, and the people relieved from burthen or expense in supporting the government; that after applying $400,000 of the canal tolls annually to the support of the government, there would remain, applicable to purposes of internal improvement, an annual net revenue of $787,103; that that sum alone would pay the annual interest on $15,643,000; that any augmentation in the revenue of the canals would increase the financial ability of the state; that every $500,000 of revenue would serve as a basis of finance to sustain $10,000,000 of debt; and that, assuming the opinions of the canal commissioners ex

pressed in their report of that year, that the canals soon after the completion of the enlargement would yield tolls to the amount of $3,000,000 per annum, the sum of thirty millions of dollars might be borrowed, expended, and finally reimbursed within twenty years; or the sum of forty millions might be so borrowed, expended, and reimbursed, within twenty-eight years. This view of the financial ability of the state was illustrated by estimates of the tolls and net revenue of the canals during a series of years, based upon the experience of the increase since their completion. In this table it was assumed that the net revenues from the canals for 1838 would be $800,000; that it would increase at the rate of $100,000 per annum, until 1842; that after that time, owing to the completion of the enlargement, and other works of internal improvement, and the increase of commerce, until 1845, it would increase at the rate of $200,000 per annum; and from 1845, until 1849, at the rate of $300,000 per annum; at which time the net revenue would reach the sum of $3,000,000.*

The sources from which this large accession of revenue was to be anticipated, were pointed out as existing in the extensive and rapidly-increasing communities growing up around the western lakes. The surprising progress already made by that interior group of states, in population, wealth, and productive power, was shown, and the pecuniary results to be realized from their further and necessary increase, were also predicted. The comparative advantages of the enlarged Erie canal, as an outlet for the trade of those interior communities, to the Atlantic, over its present course down the Mississippi to the gulf of Mexico, were also dwelt upon; and the importance of completing that work with all practicable despatch, was earnestly urged upon the legislature. The important commercial effects to be produced by completing the different lines and systems of artifical communication then in progress through those inland states, were also adverted to, together with the fiscal and political advantages to be derived by this state in procuring the transit through its territory for all time to come, of the immense trade of this vast interior region.

In accordance with the conclusions of this report, a law was passed, in 1838, appropriating four millions of dollars for the prosecution of the enlargement of the Erie canal. Laws were

The actual amount, in 1849, was $3,268,226.-Ed.

also passed at the same session, loaning the credit of the state to the Catskill and Canajoharie, the Auburn and Syracuse, and the Ithaca and Owego railroad companies, to the extent of eight hundred thousand dollars, and modifying the loan to the New York and Erie Railroad Company.

An obvious propriety requires, that the writer of these notes should pass without comment, over the period that remains to be filled up with the progress of internal improvement. Samuel B. Ruggles was appointed canal commissioner in 1839, to fill the place rendered vacant by the widely-lamented death of the venerated Stephen Van Rensselaer. In 1840, Asa Whitney, Simon Newton Dexter, David Hudson, George H. Boughton, and Henry Hamilton, became canal commissioners. The present board consists of Jonas Earll, junior, James Hooker, George W. Little, Benjamin Enos, Stephen Clark, and Daniel P. Bissell. In 1840, the conditions of the loan to the New York and Erie Railroad Company were further modified, and appropriations were made to carry on the construction of the canals; and during the three years, from 1839 to 1842, all those works were vigorously prosecuted.

The tolls on all the canals in this state, during the season of navigation in 1841, were $2,034,878, exceeding those of 1840 by $259,831, equal to an increase of fourteen and a half per cent.; and those of 1831, by the sum of $811,077, equal to an increase in ten years, of more than sixty-six and one quarter per cent.

The New York and Erie railroad, four hundred and fifty-one miles in length, is now one half completed, and may be brought into use in 1844, if prosecuted with the same energy as heretofore. The enlargement of the Erie canal is one half finished; nearly all its mechanical structures having been already replaced with works of great strength and durability, and it may be finished within three years, if prosecuted with due diligence. The Auburn and Rochester railroad has been brought into profitable operation; portions of the Long Island railroad, nearly half of the Genesee Valley canal, and the eastern section of the New York and Erie railroad, have been opened, and are now usefully employed. Our railway communications were extended one hundred and sixty miles within the last year, and their present aggregate length is seven hundred and forty-seven miles; and the total length of our canal navigation is eight hundred and

three miles. Meanwhile, enlightened citizens of this state and of Pennsylvania have opened an active and prosperous exchange of gypsum, salt, coal, and iron, by the Chemung canal, and by the Ithaca and Owego railroad. There is reason to expect that the continuous line of railroad, now reaching from Albany to Batavia, will be extended to Lake Erie within the year; while the citizens of Albany and Boston have connected our interior thoroughfares with the system of similar works in the eastern states consisting of one hundred and fifty-two miles of canals, and eight hundred miles of railways; thus opening to us facilities for social intercourse with the people of those, prosperous communities, and convenient access to their manufactures, granaries, seaports, and fisheries. This important union of the two great northern systems was regarded as marking an era in the progress of internal improvement, so important, and excited so deep an interest, that the governors and legislatures of the states whose combining enterprise had secured the auspicious result, assembled at Springfield, in Massachusetts, a point equi-distant from their respective capitals, and there exhibited the spectacle, no less sublime than novel, of the governments of two communities, represented by their executive and legislative authorities, uniting in mass to exchange felicitations upon the completion of works which guarantied domestic tranquillity, insured their safety from external aggression, and bound their citizens, already allied by common blood and common language, in perpetual bonds of commercial, political, and social union.

Agricultural improvement did not engage public attention until after the Revolution. An association was instituted in 1791, for the promotion of agriculture, arts and manufactures, and was incorporated in 1793. Among the founders were John Jay, Robert R. Livingston, George Clinton, Samuel L. Mitchill, Ezra L'Hommedieu, Egbert Benson, John M'Kesson, Samuel Jones, Thomas Tillotson, Aquila Giles, Philip Van Cortland, Edward Livingston, John Thurman, Simeon De Witt, Horatio Gates, and Richard Varick. The name of De Witt Clinton appears in the catalogue of 1798. The transactions of the society contain many excellent papers, and exhibit the then condition of agriculture. The society found the art of culture without method. No sufficient means of diffusing proper intelligence existed. Although the publica

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