ticable, facilities of access to the great commercial emporium of the Union, fortunately located within our own borders; that whatever contributes to increase the prosperity of the city of New York is beneficial to every part of the state; that it is of paramount importance to provide such channels and thoroughfares as will render tributary the trade of other states, and especially that of the territory bordering on the shores of the great western lakes; that it is just and wise to equalize the advantages of internal improvement by the construction of auxiliary or lateral works, as far as the physical formation of the country and a judicious use of the public funds will permit; that the legislature may direct the construction of such works at the expense of the state, or authorize their construction by associations, and may aid them by loans of the credit of the state upon conditions of perfect indemnity; that taxation for purposes of internal improvement must necessarily be unequal, and would become oppressive; that the system can be carried on to the full extent of the exigencies of the state with a judicious use of the revenues to be derived from the public works themselves; and that it must at no time be so far extended as to hazard the necessity of taxation to pay the interest or principal of the debt created for that purpose.

Let us next inquire what have been the financial results of this policy, so far as it has been carried in the construction of works already completed. The cost of all the completed public works has been $12,072,032 25, which sum was borrowed chiefly at five per cent. Of this amount, excluding the Erie and Champlain canal debt, for the payment of which a fund has accumulated and has been set apart, there remains unpaid the sum of $3,476,839 66, which is not yet due. The surplus revenue from the canals during the last year was $1,057,802 74. This revenue is sufficient to pay the balance of the debt for their construction, with interest thereon, in less than four years, and is equal annually to almost nine per cent. upon the entire cost of all the canals. It is surely not unworthy of consideration, that these results have been attained with the use of capital which otherwise would not have reached our shores. Nor ought it to be forgotten that the policy has also called into action associated capital to the amount of about nine millions of dollars, which has been expended in the construction of public improvements, by which the value of agricultural productions has been sustained, labor encouraged, indus

try stimulated in all its departments, and new facilities of communication have been opened in various parts of the state.

But how unimportant is the increase of the revenues of the government compared with the more extensive commercial, agricultural, and political results, affecting the social condition of the people of this state. The navigable waters of the state, open to direct commerce with the city of New York in 1817, scarcely exceeded three hundred miles in length. It is less than forty years since Quebec was generally regarded as the destined mart of the northern regions of this state, and Baltimore and New Orleans confidently anticipated the trade of our southwestern frontier. The commerce of the state has now its wharves on the shores of her lakes, rivers, and bays, along an extent of twelve hundred miles, to which must be added four hundred miles of canals in other states, and three thousand miles of lake coast, accessible through our artificial channels. By means of these improvements, the advantages of navigable communication with the city of New York have been distributed over a territory of twenty-five thousand square miles, equal to one half of the surface of the state, and already sustaining more than one half of its population. Their effect in equalizing the local advantages of the different portions of the state, is proved by the facts that the average population, per square mile, of the regions thus opened to commercial intercourse is forty-eight, while that of the regions not thus accommodated is only seven. Buffalo and Oswego, Binghamton and Elmira, which nature seemed to have excluded from commerce with New York, now enjoy greater facilities of access than Utica did before the canals were made; and Chicago, a thousand miles distant, exchanges her productions for the merchandise of the same city, at less expense and with less delay than Oswego could have done at the same period. The wheat of Chautauque county, on the border of the state, displaces that staple on the shores of the Hudson; and Orange and Dutchess cheerfully relinquish its culture for the more profitable agriculture required to furnish the daily supplies of a great city. Lumber from Tompkins and Chemung, and ship-timber from Grand Island, supply the wants of the city of New York. Iron from the banks of the Au Sable is exchanged for the salt of Onondaga. The gypsum of Madison and Cayuga fertilizes the fields of Pennsylvania, and the coal of that state is moving to supply the place

of the forests of the west. Railroads have immeasurably increased the facilities of intercourse, and expedited the transmission of intelligence. Political influence and power are distributed among the cultivators of the earth; and our state, from an inferior position, has risen rapidly to unquestioned ascendency in the Union. The clouds which so often rise over the commercial cities of Europe, can not cast a permanent gloom over the prosperity of a state which, according to the sentiment of Jefferson, has wisely secured herself by the improvement of roads, canals, rivers, education, and the other great foundations of national prosperity and union. A people thus enriched will not abandon the system to which they owe their wealth, because the agents by whom it has been conducted may have erred, or may even have been unfaithful; nor will they be stopped in their career by obstacles which time must diminish and enterprise will overcome. The prudence, moderation, and economy, which are now recommended will only reinvigorate our energies, and confirm our ability to prosecute this system until every part of the state shall enjoy its inestimable advantages. The pressure which has fallen upon the country can not long continue. No commercial fluctuations here or abroad can permanently repress the enterprise of the people, or check the progress of the state in wealth and population. Our canal revenues improve even under the most adverse circumstances; and although they may be stinted in their increase for one year, or for two years, they will soon regain their progressive force.

Unlike other communities, this state borrows no money for purposes of war or defence, or to pay salaries or pensions, or the interest or principal of former loans, or even to endow institutions of learning, benevolence, or religion. Her income is sufficient for her wants, without taxation; the value of her productive property is double the debt she owes; her surplus income is double the interest she is required to pay; and the revenues derived from her canals, if judiciously managed, will be adequate to every enterprise which the interests of the people shall demand.*

The rapidity with which the system of internal improvements shall be prosecuted, and consequently the period at which its full

*The legislature responded to this plan for internal improvements by liberal appropriations, authorizing, among other things, a loan, and subsequently an absolute gift, of three millions of dollars, to the New York and Erie railroad.-Ed.

advantages shall be realized, depend not altogether upon the legislature. The federal government holds in trust for the states almost a thousand millions of acres of land, the value of which, at the lowest government price, is one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. This immense domain, the property of the states, was ceded by them to the general government, as their trustee, for their common interest and benefit. In 1790, Congress very properly pledged the avails of the public lands for the payment of the national debt. That debt has been discharged. The revenues which the federal government derives from imposts should be sufficient for all its expenses, and that government has no legitimate right to use the proceeds of the public lands. It neither constructs works of internal improvement, nor establishes systems of education. The state governments are charged with these responsibilities, and with the regulation of their own municipal affairs. The sum which has been received into the federal treasury from the sales of lands exceeds fifty millions of dollars. A bill passed both houses of Congress, making a distribution of these proceeds, but was lost for want of the Executive approval. The proportion of these avails which equitably belongs to this state, would relieve her from the necessity of delaying or postponing the prosecution of any one of the public works already undertaken, and would enable her to assume others in which her citizens have engaged. Her interest in the immense domain remaining unsold is a resource which would enable her to extend her improvements, until no dwelling within her borders would be distant more than fifteen miles from means of rapid communication.

New York need not solicit the federal government, as is proposed in some quarters, to assume or guaranty the payment of the debts of the several states, upon a pledge of the public lands. Her credit needs no such extraneous support, and her enterprise might be crippled by the national guaranty of the credit of other states, upon whose legislation she could have no check. Her interest is the common interest of all the states. Her prosperity is indissolubly connected with theirs. Her works of internal improvement, magnificent as they may be, will, nevertheless, only constitute a part of that great system which the enlightened mind of Washington foresaw would open channels to the Atlantic coast for the productions of the west, and bind the states in

indissoluble bonds of affection and interest. Her prosperity is increased by all that advances that of any of her sister-states, and she suffers, soon and severely, every calamity that falls upon them. She learns with surprise, from the annual message of the president of the United States, that although the federal government has unlimited possession of the imposts upon foreign commerce, and derives fifteen millions annually from the city of New York alone, its revenues from that source are deemed insufficient for its ordinary expenditures. She hears with astonishment the suggestions made by the president, in violation of every principle of enlightened economy, of magnanimous policy, and of the well-established and often-recognised conditions of the trust, to consume the revenues arising from the sale of the public domain for the ordinary purposes of government, and thus prodigally waste, in temporary and often needless and extravagant expenditures, the richest inheritance that Providence ever bestowed upon any people. The canals of the state have opened the way for emigration to that domain, have furnished facilities for the transportation of its productions, have immeasurably enhanced its value, and thus have greatly contributed to increase the revenues which it has poured into the national treasury. She may, therefore, with peculiar justice, demand a division of those revenues, and a partition of the national domain. The wants of many of the states will induce a more favorable consideration of a policy so eminently enlightened, just, and equal; and it can not be reasonably doubted that the voice of the people of this state, if clearly expressed in its favor, would meet with a response from every part of the Union. It is demanded not only upon the grounds of justice and financial expediency, but by considerations deeply affecting the public liberty and the maintenance of our institutions, since the possession of this domain, and the control of the large revenue derived from it, can not fail to increase the preponderance of the federal government, and diminish the just and necessary power and sovereignty of the states.

The cursory view which has been taken of the condition of the state, and of the measures requiring your consideration, was perhaps unnecessary to produce a conviction that you have been called to your high trusts at a period when you will be embarrassed by extraordinary difficulties, and when your discharge of those trusts will be regarded with great solicitude. It is not a