New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1876-05-28

will produce ,OOO,OOO hOgehoa0e OF sugar
and 10, 900 900 bales Of Cdton; worth, in
round numbers. with sugar ct seven cents
and cotton at fifteen cents per pound, the
OF undeveloped wealth in comparison with
which the aggregated values Of all the
mines in the Union are but as dust IN the
balance. They may and will in time be ex'
hausted; but the wealth of the delta lands
of the Mississippi valley, consisting OF It's
soil and climate and natural productions,
is exhaustless and inexhaustible.
The climate of this favored region is mild
and ealubrious. 1t is free from the extremes
of heat and cold. The temperature varies
from go to 45o. The rainfall is we'll die.
tributed and seasonable, drouths being of
rare occurrence, and varying, according to
latitude, from sixty-six to forty five inches
per annum.
And yet this favored region, for which
God has done SO much, is decaying, dying,
becoming waste and q wilderness, because
of the annual unrestraiDed floods OF the
great river which divides its center.
Your committee are of opinion that q o
other civilized government of the world
would permit 80 magnificent domain to be
wrested from the hands of it's people and
surrendered to idleness and desertiOn. They
believe that it is the solemn and immediate
duty of the general government to pus forth
it's hand, and, with it's skill and treasure, to
restore the delta Of the Mississippi 10 the
hands of its husbandmen and the peaceful
sway Of the pillow. for the following reasons:
/, The work is one essentially national
| in its character. The Mississippi river is
the drain of the inner watersheds of the
Union, of the two great slopes from the
Rocky mountains eastward, and from the
Allegheny mountains westward. 1t IL but
Just and right that the government should
control its foods, 80 that the natural servi.
tude owed by the delta regions should not
operate injury to its citizens because OF
their location in that region. To control its
sewerage SO that the people inhabiting the
lower portion of the country through
which the mighty sewer passes in its per
Torrance of the useful and necessary func-
tions devolving upon it may be free from
danger and destruction, seems to your COM
mittee most proper and reasonable duty
Of the government.
2. The work is national in it's character
because it directly affects the fortunes and
safety OF q portion of the people OF six great
States Of the Union, ard indirectly but
powerfully affects the prosperity OF the
people of the entire Mississippi valley. 1t
can rot be called or termed local or eec-
tional Improvement. 1t is designed at once
to confer benefits and blessings npOn the
people who live in the delta regions, to reL-
der their lives and their property, and to
improve, reclaim, and develop region
which, in few short years. will repay ten
fold, yes, an hundredfold, the trifling ap-
preparation asked for, in the general wealth
it shall add to the whole Union.
8. 1t is national because, by tie highest
authority, it is shown that the most perfect
levee system of one State is useless and
valueless unless there are equal and uni
form levee systems in the other exposed
States.
General Humphreys, chief of engineers,
was kind enough to come before your COM
mittee, and he was especially asked for an
opinion upon this point. With map before
him he pointed out the localities OF the
levees in the States. beginning with those
of Louisiana and Mississippi and tracing
ing the weak points and natural outlets of
the levees and the river, and demonstrated
that the system, to be successful, must be
uniform in all the exposed States. Ofwhat
avail would Louisiana build levees with
none constructed in Arkansas! The out
lets in the latter State, in food time pour
ing their immense volumes OF water down
upon the former State, would deluge all her
territory in rear of her levees and render
them, however effective and we'll con-
etructed, but q narrow thread of island in
the midst of an inland sea. Professor e. G.
Forshey, a distinguished engineer and
scientist, who has made the currents and
Tevees of the Mississippi study for more
than thirty years, agrees perfectly with
General Humphreys in this view. He says:
''No State alone can build its levees, be-
cause of the interdependence of its topOg-
raphy. "A system to be efficient in one must
comprehend them all. The interior is a
basin or series of basina. The water,
wherever let in, submerges the basin alike.
These States, then, must share common
fortune, and hence it must appeal to a
power that comprehends many States in It's
operations. Congress alone has that
power"
The work of rebuilding the levees being,
then, q national work in Its character and
design, what constitutional obs ctiOn can be
urged to an appropriation by the govern
ment for that purpose? Even MIR. Calhoun,
| the strictest of cOnstructionists, and op-
posed, upon constitutional grounds, to inter
ment, declared in substance that when the
work was national in its character, and a
large portion of the people were to be
! benefited by improvement, congressional aid
| in it's behalf was clearly warranted by the
constitution. Vide his celebrated letter.
Congress can provide for the general
welfare" This power is clearly given.
| Further on your committee Will show that
in rebuilding the levees Congress is PRO
yiding for the general welfare"
| But this work is constitutional upon
another ground. The power of Congress
to regulate and promote commerce is ex-
| press in the constitution. Under this power
| millions and tens of millions of dollars
every year are voted away to dredge bars,
| to deepen the channels of rivers, to remove
obstructions from harbors and bays.
| Scarcely river, harbor, inlet or bay upon
our entire coast, or opening into the great
| ceives its thousands of appropriated treas
ure, that the highways of commerce may
be open and safe. In building the levees Of
tina Mississippi river, Congress will bo in
| the direct line of promoting and rendering
safe the vast commerce of the mightiest
river of the government, Of removing its
bars, of deepening its channel and OF ex-
| pediting the transportation of freighte,
mails and passengers. We have the au-
the oldest, ablest and most experienced
steambOatmen in the Union, who has
been constantly on the river for nearly
forty years, for declaring that when the
levee system became general and connected
from below New Orleans up to Cape Gil
rardeau and the waters of the river were
confined to it's channel, that bars all along
the river were washed ont, and the channel
in many places perceptibly deepened.
And this experience is in perfect accord
with the experience and actual observations
of Captain Eads and Mr.. g. w. r. Bayley.
both of whom stand in the front rank of
civil engineers. They concur in the opin-
ion that crevasses form bars. In his "Phy-
sizes and Hydraulics of the Mississippi
River" Captain Eads says: ut
(the river) scours out increased room tor
itself whenever it's current is accelerated,
and it's deposits are everywhere found
where it's current is retarded" 1.-THE Bon
net Care crevasse was, in 1874, cited to
show. to prove, that if the current is