can be relieved from the burden of repairing common roads, and of paying tolls upon canals, railroads, and turnpikes, and from the heavy expenses of the administration of justice and the support of schools and charities. We are sometimes called, by the adversaries of internal improvement, to contemplate a condition of exhausting taxation. Who can object to a measure which would secure a very general exemption from the burdens of government?

But we shall derive from a distribution of the surplus revenues other advantages than those resulting directly. We are to participate largely in the benefits conferred upon other states. Our system of internal improvement is only a part of that entire system contemplated by the Father of our country, and relied upon by him to accomplish the object of his earnest solicitude-the binding of the states together in an indissoluble union of affection and interest. Not to dwell upon the importance of thus securing the ark of our political safety against the storms to which it must sooner or later be exposed, we have interests of a subordinate character, in the completion of the public works of our sister states. If such a distribution should be made, we should be able, if we are not now, to connect the Chenango, the Chemung, and the Genesee Valley canals, with the railroads and canals of Pennsylvania, to render them productive of revenue, and at the same time to give a new impulse to our domestic trade. Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence river would no longer be separated from the central valley through which our commerce flows, but the vast territory which intervenes would be traversed by railroads and canals, its forests would disappear, its soil would be rendered productive, and its mineral wealth be no longer left among the neglected resources of the state. Ohio proceeds in her system slowly. Michigan labors under great difficulties in her efforts to construct roads that will establish a connection between her inland regions and Lake Erie. Indiana and Illinois are struggling with extreme embarrassment in the prosecution of works upon a scale of equal magnitude with our own. It is not surprising that the financial difficulties of those states are magnified, and their credit traduced in the stock-markets of Europe. But it is strange, indeed, when we reflect that they are members of this confederacy, parts seeking closer union with the great whole, that they should be visited with the censure of

the federal government,* in a season of embarrassment, and that the senate of the United States should, in the face of the world, gratuitously refuse to grant, in their behalf, a guaranty which they have never solicited and never desired.† One might suppose, from the cold speculations sometimes heard among ourselves concerning the improvidence of those states, that they were hostile or at least rival powers, and that our security and prosperity rose with the decline of theirs. Yet it is far otherwise. They are communities bound to us by interest, as well as by consanguinity between their citizens and our own; their prosperity is our prosperity, and no calamity falls upon them by which we do not suffer, although we may withhold our sympathy. The great lakes, about twenty-five hundred miles in length, may be regarded as a prolongation of the canal we have made across the isthmus which separates their waters from those of the Atlantic. Following the policy which has dictated the construction of our lateral canals, the states situated upon the shores of those lakes have severally undertaken the construction of improvements, to connect their interior regions with these inland seas. The Ohio canal, three hundred and twenty miles in length, reaching from Lake Erie to the great river which separates the states of Ohio and Kentucky, secures to us the trade of the nearer regions of the great west. The trade of the central portion of the west will be given to us by two other improvements, to wit, the Wabash and Erie canal, two hundred and thirty-four miles in length, extending from Lake Erie through the states of Ohio and Indiana, to the navigable waters of the Wabash river; and the Miami canal, two hundred and ten miles in length, reaching from the lake to the north bend of the Ohio river, and connecting with the Wabash canal at Fort Defiance. The canal of Illinois will extend to the Mississippi the navigation we now enjoy, and will thus bring to us the trade of the remotest western settlements. Of these canals the Ohio is already completed. That portion of the Wabash and Erie canal, one hundred and forty-four miles long, which lies partly within the state of Indiana, is finished, and the remaining portion, ninety miles in length, lying within the state of Ohio, is yet incomplete; but the late governor of

* President's Message, 1839.

+ Resolution introduced into the senate by Hon. Thomas H. Benton. See also the Report of Hon. Felix Grundy.-Ed.

that state, in his last message, gave an assurance that it would be ready for navigation during the present year. Of the Miami canal, nearly the whole is under contract, and more than one hundred miles have been completed. Of the Illinois canal, which will cost about eight millions of dollars, about one half is finished, and the construction of the remainder, unhappily retarded by financial embarrassment, might be hastened by the aid which the state of Illinois has a right to claim from the general government, or by a speedy distribution of the proceeds of the public lands. When we consider the vast amount and value of the agricultural productions received from the Ohio canal alone, the only one of those canals yet in full operation, we can form some imperfect conception of the interest we have in the success of the system of internal improvement in the western states. And when such conceptions become as familiar as they are just, we shall manifest more of wisdom than even of philanthropy, by lending our western brethren all the aid in our power to complete what none but free and enlightened states could ever have undertaken. Views similar to these were commended to your predecessors and received their approval. If they accord with your own, I respectfully suggest the propriety of renewing the expression heretofore made in favor of the great measure I have advocated.*

The citizens of the United States, have, within the last year, in a manner prescribed by their own laws, in perfect tranquillity, chosen by free suffrage, and with universal acquiescence, the magistrates by whom the powers of government shall be exercised under legal responsibilities, until those powers shall again return to the people. However we may have differed concerning the questions which have been considered, all will agree that the peacefulness and good order, which have attended the proceeding, furnish ample proof that the people may safely be allowed to discuss every measure that concerns their welfare; and that neither force nor fraud is necessary to secure submission to rulers, where power is limited, reason enlightened, and suffrage universal.

The elected chief magistrate of the Union will enter upon his

The measure here so earnestly advocated was adopted by Congress at the extra session in 1841; but, in consequence of the strenuous resistance of President Tyler to that policy, it was afterward necessarily virtually repealed. The president made such a repeal a condition of approving the tariff law.-Ed.

General William Henry Harrison.

trust with favorable auspices. The public good requires, and the public mind consents to, repose. Fortunate in experience of public service in the senate and the field, in executive and diplomatic stations; fortunate in exemption from prejudice in favor of any erroneous policy hitherto pursued; fortunate in the enjoyment of his country's veneration and gratitude, and especially fortunate in having at once defined and reached the boundary of his ambition, the president can have no other objects than the public welfare and an honorable fame. The people expect that he will preserve peace, maintain the integrity of our territory and the inviolability of our flag, co-operate with Christian nations in suppressing piracy and the slave-trade, avoid alliances for every other purpose, conduct our foreign relations with firmness and fairness, terminate our controversies with the Indian tribes, regain their confidence and protect them against cupidity and fraud, confine the action of the executive department within constitutional bounds, abstain from interference with elections and the domestic concerns of the states; defer to the wisdom of Congress, and submit to the will of the people; observe equal and exact justice to all men and all classes of men, and conduct public affairs with steadiness, that enterprise may not be disappointed; with economy, that labor may not be deprived of its rewards; and with due accountability of public agents, that republican institutions may suffer no reproach. If he shall endeavor to meet these expectations, no discontents can affect-no opposition can embarrass him; for he will act in harmony with the spirit of the constitution and with the sentiments of the people. And when, like him whose fame is unapproachable, but whose wisdom and moderation this distinguished citizen has adopted as his great example, he shall have healed his country's wounds and restored her happiness and prosperity, he will enjoy the rare felicity of a retirement, more honored than even his distinguished station.

When called two years since to survey the state for the purpose of submitting the result to the legislature, I could not fail to observe everywhere enduring impressions of the wisdom of De Witt Clinton. When considering how I could in any way contribute to diminish the burdens of the people, to promote public prosperity, to diffuse knowledge, to favor agriculture and encourage the arts, to develop the resources of the state, and to extend its interior. communications by land and water, and equalize the advantages

of free government among all my fellow-citizens, I could not fail to see that his genius had marked out in all these respects the policy which the state, in the emulous spirit expressed by her noble motto, could pursue to a higher and happier social condition than had ever yet been attained by any community. When reflecting upon the misapprehensions, difficulties, and embarrassments, to be encountered, I found in his great fame an evidence that such a policy might be pursued with safety, although it must sometimes come in conflict with temporary interests and local jealousies. Under the influence of feelings inspired by the occasion, I ventured to express a hope that the time had arrived when the state was prepared to acknowledge her obligations to so distinguished a benefactor. In this suggestion I confess that I anticipated, but I trust not by any very long period, the justice of my fellow-citizens.