The Kalida venture. [volume] (Kalida, Ohio) 1841-1865, 1846-03-05

AeVisueu OH WoIkS OI improvement upon Otnei
and more favored portions Of the state.
Lock 10 the south, the southwest; even to
the north and orth-west-every where, and
behold these public works, cutting up the
surface of your territory, and laying it off as
in the squares of chequer board. See
them, impoverishing your treasury it is true,
and plunging you into debt, but furnishing
faculties unnumbered, and pouring ou: the
streams Of wealth upon the inhabitants of
those counties, within which they have been
constructed.
Turn now, your eyes to Columbi-
ana. Sir, feel indignant at the contrast
You may traverse every foo, OF the country,
and not find one single monument of the
protection or munifcence of the state. Not
bridge erected, not highway laid out, not
a road graded, neither canal. railway nor
turnpike, in all its limits, upon which the
state has ever paid solitary farthing.-
Throughout its whole extent there is not
one memorial to remind its hardy and indus
trious sons that they are citizens ofthe great
commonwealth Of Ohio, except the annual
unwelcome return Of the ,ax-galhcrer! We
have borne all this long; we have borne il in
silence. For forty and three years we have
paid-cheerfllly paid into your treasury the
products ofour hard labor, wrung out year
by year, through sweat and through toll,
from that property, to enhance the value Of
which you have done nothing. Paying year
ly, long before other and better favored coun-
ties were peopled, we have paid within that
period near half million of dollars, to swell
the revenues the state. Casting our bread
upon the waters, we have not found it,
though many days have elapsed Mean
time we have seen eighteen millions, of
which we furnished more than our share,
sunk in public works to beautify and enrich
other portions of the state, but from which
We have reaped no benefit. We have beheld
with sorrow, Ohio struggling deeper year
after year into the Serbonian bog Of public
debt now twenty millions, for the payment
ofwhich we shall be compelled through the
pressure of your tax laws, 10 pour out the
savings and earnings of an unfostered, unpro-
tscted industry; or worse, to share in the
infamy of your reputation. We have seen
without envy, the increasing growth, pros
perity and wealth of sister counties, fostered
BY the many hundred miles of canals, rail-
roads, and turnpikes built from the public
revenues of Ohio; we have seen their farms,
villages and cities rejoicing and flourlshing as
the rose," and feeling that through injustice,
our money in part had done it, have felt yet
NO repining at their success. Such, Mr..
Speaker, are the accumulated wrongs run
hing through period Of forty-three years,
which we have received at your hands. But
not content with this long course Of studied
and persevering partiality and neglect,
aid, you make that cminence the despot's
excuse for the perpetration of new outrages.
Forgetful Of all OUR generous submission hth-
srto-in contempt of all our entreaties and
remonstrances, as fto prove how much you
hold in scorn the express will Of our people,
you are now about to impose new burdens
upon US; 10 multiply our already too heavy
taxes; to divide asunder our territory, and
rob US of fourth part of our population, of
a territory, rich in soil, replete with resour-
ces, and laid off all over into fertile and high
ly cultivated farms; and of population full
Of wealth, Of industry and of steady enter
prise. With that refinement Of outrage,
which makes war oven Upon the kindller
feelings the Of heart, you now essay 10 break
up all the yearning and venerated associations
which gather round a people living long Under
the same political organization, connected
as they are with us by county pride, by SINH
l.rily Of thought, of speech, and Of modes
Of lite and business; by recollections Of
times full Of danger and adventure; by ties
Of social intercourse, Of marriage, of polit-
cal fellowship, of attendance upon the same
eolirts of justice, and Of religious worship
offered up before the same altar, all grap-
ping us together as with hooks of STEEL
And this too, in open and shameless viola
tion Of our solemn and most earnest protes-
tations.
All these, sir, are an accumulation of
wrong and outrage hard to be borne longer.
We are resolved not 10 submit to if. You
may erect this new county, you MAY tear as
sunder our people, you may add insult to
insult, and heap Injury upon injury by the
passage of this bill, but warn you tina, it
will not remain long the law the land. We
will not nullify, we will not proclaim rebel
lion and set your act at defiance as you have
done our supplications and remonstrances,
but relying upon the more slow but all con-
trolling power of the ballo, box, we shall
pursue it with steady and determined oppo-
sition, till we have secured its REPEAL
Be assured, be assured that the stern pur-
pose of our people will not slumber. Sir, l
am young: in the course of nature have
many years of life yet before me. I have
something ofenergy, and not little perse-
verance, and know we'll that whatever of
either | may possess, shall all, all be devo-