The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-06-24
BROAD-sTREET NUISANCE.

for the Removal from BrOnu street
Of the Tracks of the u. Il. 81 Il. IL, *
Company. Presented 4" the City
Council May o7th, IS73.
To the Honorable Connect Of The City O
Richmond
The undersigned, a committee appoint
cd by portion of the citizens OF Rich
mond, principally residents and owners Of
property on Broad street, respectfully
state that they have been instructed to pre-
sent petition to your honorable body for
the purpose of-stating the grievance under
which they labor from the Richmond and
Fredericksburg railroad, and to ascertain
from you what you have done and what
you propose to do for their relief.
The resolutions adopted by them are in
the following words, and we beg leave to
refer you to them as containing their own
they suffer, and the relief which they
desire:
Resolved, That the Richmond, Fred
ericksburg and Potomac railroad ought to
be removed from Broad street without de-
lay, the property holders on this, the
finest street in the city, having been de-
spoiled and oppressed by it long enough,
and unless we are outlawed, it is the duty
vi ttit Clty CouIClt " IttnUfC liz
Resolved, That Broad street ought to be
so graded as to make it entirely level from
Ninth street to its terminus, and paved as
soon as the finances of the city will allow.
"Resolved, y 1t shall be the duty
of the Executive Committee to confer with
the Council of the city, and take such
measures as they shall deem advisable to
accomplish the objects in view."
In performing this duty, it is but Just to
you and to our constituents and the people of
Richmond generally that we should present
brief resume of the connection of the
railroad with Broad street, and the efforts
Of the people to be relieved of it. The
railroad company was chartered in the year
1884, with authority to construct railroad
from some point within the corporation of
Richmond, to be approved by the Common
Council, to some point within the corpora
ton of Fredericksburg. The Legislature had
no power, constitutionally, to authorize the
railroad to occupy street Of Richmond
without the consent of the Council, except
upon condemnation, according to law, by
which adequate compensation should be
made, not only to the corporation for the
Ilse of its street but to the owners of prop
erty on the street, for the injuries which
they might respectively sustain by the
road for every one will concede that the
Legislature has no power to take the prop
erty of one citizen and appropriate it to the
use of another citizen, or of a company of
citizens, or corporation. without requiring
just compensation to be made to the party
whose property is taken. Were it other
wise, communism would prevail at once,
and the Legislature, without property itself,
might divide all the property of those who
have it among those who have it not, and
combination of railroads, that influence
which is SAID to be now so irresistible that it
controls the Legislative and Executive De-
partments, might by law do what the Rich
mond, Fredericksburg & Potomac railroad
company for many years did without law,
and in defiance of law--convert the street
into depots. We do not offer you the dsre-
spect, therefore, of presenting any pro-
tracted argument to satisfy you that the Leg
stature did not intend to install the reign of
sans culOftes and communists in Richmond,
and that it could not, if it would, have
done so.
The privilege of starting the road from
some point in Richmond was a meIe favor,
for which the company paid nothing, and
as a favor, it must nect ssarily be subordi-
nate to the rights of the people as well as
tof the corporation, and the Council had no
lawful authority to bestow as favor up
OH any man, or set of men, whether cor
poratiye or otherwise, the property either
of the people in their individual characters
or in their corporate character. The streets
of Richmond are, by the original grant of
them, and by the charter of the city, made
public highways for the use Of all citizens,
and the Council cannot apply them to any
other purpose. 1t cannot, therefore, and
never could, appropriate a street to.the uses
to part of the citizens so as to defeat the
tase of it by all, or any; nor can it sell a
street out in lots to be used for building
purposes, SO that wheel carriages could not
pass at all times, or pass with safety.
1t could not, therefore, a. fo1ftOrO. so grant
the use Of a street to foreign corporation
az to obstruct or materially impair the
use of it by all the citizens. 1t could
not, therefore, have gran ted TO the rail-
road company the privilege to wall in its
railroad for the whole length of the street
and thus obstruct passage across the
street at the cross streets or elsewhere.
Neither could it grant to the railroad the
privilege to erect factory for steam ell
gines in the street, nor to keep in the street
0ne OF more stationary steam engines Tor
soy purpose connected with the road, be-
cause such grants would be inconsistent
with he uses for which the street was es-
tablished. and would defeat the use of it
by the citizens generally and render it a
nuisance. Aud it is an acknowledged
principle of law and morals that what can
not be legally or morally done directly,
cannot be legally or morally done Indirect
". The Council could not, therefore, law
fully grant TO the railroad company
the right to use steam in any
form which would indirectly infict the
same mischiefs which it could not author
ize directly, and could not confer the right
to do by rotary or moving engines what it
could not do by stationary engines. The
Council of 1884, which is supposed to
have given the right to the railroad company
to locate its road on Broad street, and to
use steam engines upon it, seems to have
Ibeen fully aware of these limitations upon
its authority, and as carefully as language
could do it, guarded against the intractlon
of them, for by its resolution approving
the location of the railroad and its term-
nus at the intersection of Broad and Eighth
streets, it in terms imposed as a condition
upon the favor it bestowed the following,
viz: "That the corporation shall not be
considered as hereby parting with any
power or chartered privilege not necessary
to the railroad company for constructing
the said railroad, and connecting the same