American Republican and Baltimore daily clipper. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1844-1846, 1844-11-26
IETurER az j. j. SPEED, ESQ.

LETTER 0P ~. SPEED, Esq.
Tie following Latter from J. J. Speed, Esq,
of this city, to the Representatives Of Mary
land in Congress, on the subject of the Chesa-
poake and Ohio Canal, will be read with inter-
est
To the Representatives. Of Maryland,
II, Congress:
Gentlemen-An attentive consideration of
the principles involved in the late Presidential
Canvass so occupied the mind Of the American
people, for several months before the election,
as to leave little room for inviting the attention
Of ans particular portion of them TO their own
local affairs. The questions IN discussion were
great and absorbing; ana of immediate pressure;
for the electors were required to cast their sut-
lrages upon them within limited period. 1t
was noble and edifying spectacle-to see the
inhabitants of an extended Empire ccntending
for the supremacy of certain principles towhch
they might trust their forms Of government
without tumult or outbreak of the passions
the heated zeal of the masses being governed
and modcrate3-not by the public sword-but
by that strong sense of decorum which marks
the American eector. While the public virtue
remains thus firm, the day Of our prosperity
will be prolonged, the hour of our fall con-
tnue remote. Neither treason, n0r sedition,
nor invading armies can subdue us. But to
give full efficacy to this pure tone of public
feeling. my fellowctizens will agree with me,
that it must be made applicable to all our du-
ties-as well as to those that referto our own
peaca, and are designed to secure our own tran
guilty, as to those i'll which our neighhn" may
be concerned and which refer to a satisfaction
of his Just claims upon us. For all the purpo-
Sos of undissembled happiness and true prospc-
rity it will be in vain that we are secure in our
Professionalism peace and plenty are in our
homes--f the adder is gnawing ii our breasts,
with the incessant information that we are
withholding from Others that which is their
own, end that our fires and LAMPS are lighted
by the unreguited means of our reighhors.-
The peculiar duty of US, Marylanders, is TO
turn, now, to a consideration of oar debts their
enormous and increasing amounts, land the best
modes of meeting them. In several papers,
written by myself, and heretofore published, !
have held the doctrine that these debts impose
on us duty to be regarded with the deepest
solemnity of mind: and | have observed, with
exutation, that the most forcible expression
has been given to this view by the results of our
late elections. In one or two instances, in
which, only, repudating candidates presented
themselves, they received the sternest rebuke
from the people. In no single instance did
repudatng pretender receive the slightest coun-
tenance or favor, The large and respectable
county of Somerset, that was in arrear with her
assessments, has lately been paying them up
with willingness and aacrty; and we may be
quite sure that two or three other counties, on
ly, in her-stuation, will soon follow her exam
pie. But our property holders are discouraged
by this great load of debt, and dlsheartenod
when they remember that their present burthen
of assessment only meets its interest that there
isto be no limit to the visits ofthe tax gather
or. II is fact that about nine millions OF our
debt-almost all of that is burthento us-ls
not properly ours. 1T was contracted OH ac-
count of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and
every principle of Justice requires that the Fe-
deral Government should assume it. In let
ter, addressed to several gentlemen OF Balti-
more county, and which met the public eye,
have heretofore advanced this proposition; and
/ will, now, endeavor to maintain and prove it
by succnct'giew of the true nature and his
tory of this work, and of our undertakings on
account of it. The first glinnpses of this great
enterprise were caught by the Father of his
Country. He was accustomed to look upon
the map,of the whole country as his country
When he neditated upon the public good, the
operations of his coudless mind embraced it
all, in its widest limits. His affection was not
pent up it spread over the people he had llber-
ated; the Empire Republic was his care, as it
I Should be the care of every patriot; the prov-'
denoe of his view embraced the Connecticut
and the Ohio, and fell, alike, upon the waters
of the Hudson and the Mississippi He con-
templated this work as great national enter
prise-s highway for the nation-commcnsu
rate with the natios,al means,--to serve, in
peace, as a bond of union and for the uses of
commerce and Immigration, and, in the darker
seasons Of war, for tho transportation OF ar
mics, with their equipments. 1t was no part
of his design that Maryland should build the
work, any more than it was the design of the
leader of the French armies that single Can
ton of Switzerland, or Department of France,
should build the road of the Semplon,-ot than
it could have been expected that any one OF
the eighty nations, Of antiquity, whom we are
informed, were seated on the banks OF the Nile,
should have made navgahle the countless
streams and endless waters of that noble river
1t is true we possessed riparlus border on the
Potomac, that stretched along the proposed
track of the Canal, and that we had numerals
.ueon the margin, and at the highest sources OF
that noble stream; but those minerals were not
then disclosed, and the trade in them not at all
considered. The semi-'nilitary visits of Gene
raj Ihen Major,) Washington, about the mid
die of the last century, to the French settle
ments en- the Ohio, and his subsequent trips,
with Braddock and Forbes, through those re-
gons, enabled him TO get his earliest glimpses
Of this undertaking. Ills ideas, in some Serree
natured by reflection, were rpened into bill
that passed the Colonial Legislature of Vrginia,
about the year 1862 for improving the naviga- ,
lion Of Tic Potomac river 0s far up rs CUmhcr.l