The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-09-18
its omnipotent stimulus to manufacturing

enterprise among us. = -.
| Mr.. President, | have long looked to
manufactures for much Of the redemption
of Virginia. Her future grandeur lies in
her utilization OF her unexampled resour-
ces. In her mines, her coal fields, her
ron fields, and her water power, brought
into play by her railroads, and her water
line, streaming wealth and glittering re.
nown. ~" iAa&
Fellow-ctizens, am not young man,
but expect to see the day when Virginia
will be great manufacturing state and
when | see that day, | shall behold her
with empire on her brow, and laureled
wreaths encircling it growing greener and
greener until her renovated and re-blossom-
ing domain-exhibitin divided pursuits
and multiplied vocation and their ever
flowing thrift-shall bring her out one Of
the first commonwealth on earth.
Besides these general results of acquired
| commerce and manufactures, there are
| special benefits in reserve for us from the
completion of the water-line which will
| gladen the hearts Of an impoverished peo-
pie, and tighten the burdens of greyous
| taxation.
We have heavy public debt; the
second auditor says of $47OOO,O0O, the
interest on which constitutes an annual tax
on the people of $2,S20,000.
Suppose you can strike off from the prin-
cipal Of this debt ten millions of dollars,
and consequently six hundred thousand
dollars Of interest annually, would not that
be great boon-a great deliverance for our
people?
Well, the moment the canal is completed,
or may be before if Congress shall so
choose, ten millions of our debt are gone,
and tax of 100000 per annum abro-
gated For the bill reported by a commit
tee of Congress General Negley's billy
provides that the ten millions of dollars
which the state has invested in the canal
shall be refunded to her, so that the
state at once has her debt reduced ten mill
lions of dollars. and her people have an
annual reduction of taxes to the amount
of 100000! To the stricken taxpayers
will not this be precious relief?s
And then our common school system
will not the ten million reduction of the
state debt add ten millions more to our
ability to carry into full effect our system
Of free schools? And will not the annual
reduction of $500, Of interest tax make
the people that much ADLER to bear the
school tax? ss ss
Sir, the sincere friends of a system of
general education have an inestimablc in
terest in the completion of our canal, for
the general wealth, it will, with its auxili-
aries, the railroads, diffuse among the PEG.
pie, render them able to pay school tax.
| said SO thirty-fiye years ago In my maiden
speech on internal improvements. / used
these words: ga general system Of inter-
nal improvement will diffnse gneral wealth,
and the diffusion Of general wealth, after
all, is the true system Of general education.
Give to any people the means OF educa-
ton, and the promptings Of nature will do
the rest" And undertake now to say that
when we shall have realized the possession
ofthe great elements of commerce and man.
ufactures, and especially when through
the powerful attraction of the very cheap
transportation of the canal, manufacturing
populations shall TEEN through our domain,
we shall have no more grumbling about a
school tax. say, then, emphatically to
every one of you, fellow-citizens, who
truly desire the contamination of a system
of free schools, give your vote to the
canal in the only way you can, and your
earnest support 10 that party, whatever its
name, its color, or its general politics, that
will help you to the accomplishment of
measure which lies at the foundation of
every glory of Virginia.
And there is one thrice sacred and
blessed result awaiting us--a glory the
brightest of any that will light our path
way back to the concord of old, and to the
ancient love of'the Union.
do not believe--I grieve to say it
that the south is fully reconstructed. l
am sure my state is not. l believe the
feud is as deadly as of yore, more so than
soon after the war. Thorns still ranlle.
I believe there is among her people but
little of genuine attachment to the Federal
Union. / mean among those who took
part in the secession movement. believe
there are yet bitter personal hates and
bitter political hates-a sectional embitter-
ment that will not yield to the "sober
second thought" or to the suggestions Of
charity. ! see no prospect of celebrating
this dreadly embitterment and severing
antagonism but in the operation of some
great physical agency, which, addressed to
the interests of our people, shall gradually
reach their passions, and by degrees
assuagc them down to unmalignant mood.
That physical agency is to be found in
the pacifying influences of the railroad and
the canal--in this instance, chiefly the ca
nal. The mutual dependencies-the con-
slant INSTRUMENTATION reciprocal
interchanges, commercial and social, that
this almost omnipotent cause will engen-
der-these are the powers that will smooth
down the asperities, and round off the
sharp corners of the bitter sectional enmity
that the civil war begot. / believe that
the completion Of the water-line will fabri-
cate a bond of interest that will forever