tihvaxy of t^he trheological Seminary 
 
 PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 A. G. Cameron, Ph . D . 
 
 "89^/0 
 
APPLICATION 
 
 OF 
 
 SAMEL D. BRADFORD A^D OTHERS, 
 
 TO SET OFF 
 
 WARDS SIX, SEVEN AND EIGHT, 
 
 CITY OF ROXBURY, 
 
 SEPARATE AGRICULTURAL TOWN. 
 
 Zs^ i^ im c^ i:i:£ 
 
 HON. RUFUS CHOATE, 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 Mnt C^jb(rttb(J tfotntmif^c on ^mn$f 
 
 BOSTON, APRIIi 4, 1851. 
 
 Pi^onograpi^ic JScpott Jid J3r. James Wi. ^tonc. 
 
 J\% 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 GEORGE C. RAND & COMPANY, 3 CORNHILL. 
 
 1851. 
 
Hon. Mr. BASSETT, Chairman of Committee. 
 
 RuFus Choate, 
 Arthur 
 
 ITT a' r for the Petitioners. 
 
 W. Austin, y 
 
 David A. Simmons, ) /• .t. t> t 
 
 T T n rfor the Jxemonstrants. 
 
 John J. Clark, )•' 
 
SPEECH. 
 
 I DO not propose, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, of course, at this 
 time of night, to attempt to follow my learned brother on behalf of the 
 city lower of Roxbury, over the whole of the ground which he has 
 traversed with so much rapidity and with so much skill; nor do I 
 mean, if I can possibly help it, to advert at all to any thing like a ten 
 thousandeth portion of that iixelevant and unimportant matter which, in 
 the course of a somewhat protracted and excited examination before this 
 Committee, has been somewhat necessarily, like chaff among the wheat, 
 forced upon your attention. The merits of this case seem to me to be 
 within the narrowest compass. I am sure that if I had ever so much 
 time to be tedious, I should better serve my clients and the cause I 
 advocate, as I am also confident that I shall better please the Committee, 
 by confining myself to those merits. To them I advance without preface, 
 and to them I mean to adhere to the best of my ability without digres- 
 sion. 
 
 I think, gentlemen, that it must be admitted by all of you, at least, 
 by all the members of the Legislature, at least, although my learned 
 brother has been pleased to take a somewhat different view of the case, 
 that the general character of the petition which is presented to you, the 
 grounds on which it proceeds, the objects it auns at, and the source it 
 comes from, are such as entitle it, at least, to the kindest and most 
 parental consideration of the Legislature. A large body of petitioners, 
 
your fellow citizens, and, in a certain legal sense, I may say your constit- 
 uents, also, composing, as I may also substantially describe them, tlie 
 unanimous population and sentiment of a very large territory, a com- 
 munity and territory large enough, unanimous enougb, and rich enough 
 in all moral and all material traits and qualifications to make up a town 
 of the first class, equal to every municipal duty and every municipal 
 respectability, larger, permit me to say in advance, than two hundred 
 and fifty out of the three hundred and twenty-two towns that make up 
 the sweet and cheerful surface of Massachusetts to-day ; such a body of 
 petitioners and such an area as this are before you, seeking to-night for 
 a larger measure and a better form of self-government than it is now 
 their lot to enjoy. ' 
 
 The petitioners are here, gentlemen, if you will give me leave to 
 remind you, not seeking for railroad charters, or mutual insurance 
 charters, or for the loan of money or of credit from the State ; but I 
 hope I shall provoke no man's smile when I say, seeking for a better 
 liberty under the law. They are here with no revolutionary pui-pose, to 
 throw off all social ties ; but asking only the inestimable privilege of 
 being allowed to form with one another sweeter civil and social ties, to 
 the end that they may the better perform all social and all civil duties. 
 They are not here seeking the lion's share, or any share of the pauper 
 tax, or of any of the cemeteries to disturb the repose of the dead ; but 
 are seeking only a better and a completer government of themselves. 
 
 They are here, not from any fear of any future tax from any foreign 
 or a native pauper population, not from any fear of any thing ; but they 
 are here under a present and practical feeling, gentlemen, that a com- 
 munity in lower Roxbury, of native citizens, undoubtedly respectable in 
 its general constitution, of very great worth in its general character, but 
 a community distinct from themselves, distinct by local position, distinct 
 by industrial pursuits, distinct by modes of municipal life, distinct 
 somewhat by sympathies alienated, I will not say secured — a strong 
 feeling that such a community should have a distinct government from 
 their own. I say that this community is this day their master. Good 
 government, or bad government, as my learned brother chooses to repre- 
 sent it, it is the government of another ; and my clients seek to escape 
 
from it, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, not by rushing into any revolu- 
 tionary form of policy, but by setting up that old and endeared form 
 which, beginnmg at the rock beginning on the cape, transplanted from 
 the cabin of the Mayflower, a New England man takes with hun as he 
 takes his Bible or his constitution, whether he ascends the waters of the 
 Mississippi or of the Columbia — that ancient form beneath which alone 
 the agricultural mind breathes freely and trains itself perfectly to the 
 duties of citizenship ; I mean the old fashioned form of town government 
 in town meeting. These are the general features of the causes which 
 bring the town of Eoxbury here to-day. I am quite sure, in advance, 
 that such a case from such a source, proceeding on such grounds, and 
 reaching to such results, will be treated as all are treated who come to 
 you, parentally, considerately and kindly. 
 
 It has seemed to me, give me leave to say, and I have felt it with 
 gi-eat force during my learned brother's argument, that it is all but indis- 
 pensable, before we take one single step towards an attempt to determine 
 this case, that we should begin, if we can, by doing what my learned 
 friends on the other side have not lifted a finger to try to do ; and that 
 is, if possible, to settle some standard, some rule, some formula, some 
 criterion, if language is equal to it, to determine whether a petitioning 
 population, seeking to be a town by themselves, have made out a right 
 to be a town. Wbat shall be the standard of determination, Mr. Chair- 
 man ? I submit to you and to your associates that your minds struggle 
 for a rule. What shall it be ? 
 
 Now it is very easy indeed, examples enough have been given this 
 afternoon, for us to fill our mouths with phrases, which seem to mean 
 something, and which do mean something, but which do not throw a 
 ray of light upon this question which is so important. 
 
 The city of Eoxbury has said, in a document to which I shall take 
 occasion to refer hereafter more particularly, that the multiplication of 
 small towns is not to be encouraged. But that does not reach our case. 
 To determine that moral necessity on which a Legislature may act, and 
 in a given case whether the petitioners have brought themselves up to 
 our standard, is our endeavor. 
 
 It has been said that an ancient town or city is respectable in a general 
 
sense, and that, therefore, no change ought to be hazarded unless a 
 strong case is made out. This may be true ; but it does not help to 
 solve the problem before you, because it may be true that so large an 
 area may be so incommoded and fail to participate in all the prosperity 
 to which it might attain alone, that separation would be better for it and 
 better for both, the ancientness of the town or city to the contrary, not- 
 withstanding. It is very easy, as we have seen this afternoon, to be 
 pathetic on the antiquity of a given corporate existence, and on the 
 importance of antic|uity, which should induce us to desire to keep the 
 different portions together. But we, every one of us, see that after all 
 progress is every thing ; that it is not the traceability of towns or the 
 exterior of towns which is important, but thegfeelings and sentiments of 
 the men and women, the living masses who make them up ; that after 
 all the eternal law of utility and fitness may command to re-construct and 
 re-arrange that organization to-day, which has answered its purpose, as 
 my brother has said, for 220 years. Towns, gentlemen, like the Sab- 
 bath, are made for man, and not man for towns or for the Sabbath. 
 And, therefore, I repeat it, that if the interest or the convenience of the 
 men who compose the town demands the change, that if the predomi- 
 nance of the good over the evil is so great as to be important, then we 
 change the organization of the town or city as a matter of course, just as 
 w^e change every thing else. 
 
 It is very easy to say that the new-born zeal of a new comer is not to 
 be indulged when he asks for a separation. But the question still comes, 
 what, how many, who, shall be considered as representing the opinion of 
 the public in this case ; and whether it is a good reason, or whether it is 
 a sound discernment of public interest, that has brought this case before 
 you. 
 
 We seek for a formula then, and I hope the Committee will indulge 
 me for a moment in determining that ; for when that is settled, the case 
 is argued. We feel the necessity of a standard for the establishment of 
 such a town as this petition asks. What, then, shall this formula be ? 
 
 I have the honor, with a good deal of diffidence, but after a good deal 
 of reflection, and at last with a good deal of reasonable reliance that it 
 will not be unsatisfactory in the judgment of the Committee, to state 
 
that the formula for such a standard, or the citerion under the policy of 
 Massachusetts, is substantially this : When the area and its mhabitants 
 seekmg sepai-ation from another town or city, and an incorporation as a 
 new one, axe sufl&ciently large and numerous to constitute of themselves 
 a new town of respectable dimensions, and population and ability, above 
 the average of the towns of the Commonwealth, above the class of what 
 would be called mconsiderable and unimportant, as small towns, and yet 
 leave the parent town not absorbed by annexation with which these 
 petitioners have nothing to do, but will leave it in a municipal life of 
 average dimensions, populousness and ability ; then if the public policy 
 shall in this behalf be satisfactory, I mean to say, not the making of two 
 inconsiderable towns, but of two large ones, which shall be above the 
 average ; then, su-, if the welfare of petitioners who apply for the incor- 
 poration will be promoted in a considerable and appreciable degree by a 
 separation, so much promoted that this will exceed the inconvenience 
 and evil, if any, occasioned to the residue, so that upon the whole there 
 will be an increase of the accommodations and convenience and probable 
 prosperity of the original whole as a mass, the separation is proper to be 
 made. I pray you to allow me by this fadmg twilight to pause for a 
 moment upon this criterion. 
 
 My first condition is, that neither the new town nor the residuary old 
 one shall be reduced to insignificance ; but both shall remain and both 
 shall be, for the demands of public policy, above the average of corporate 
 and municipal respectability, if we are able to determine where that 
 average shall fall. That is my first condition. 
 
 I have stated a principle very far less favorable to incorporation than 
 the legislative action of the Commonwealth would warrant me to take. 
 I do not find, in looking over the action of the Massachusetts Legislature, 
 or the less agreeable reading of its special laws, that they have ever 
 made it a condition to the establishment of new towns that the area an d 
 population shall be as much as I present, viz : that there shall be a fair 
 average of dimensions] and populousness. I find no such average 
 established. 
 
 Sir, areas of territory very far below this have again and again been 
 made into towns. And it is pleasant to remember that it is within the 
 
8 
 
 experience of many of us that they have run coui'ses of prosperity, 
 which have brilliantly illustrated the benefit of the policy which has 
 been followed. You know that you have made towns of eight hundred 
 inhabitants, of ten hundred inhabitants, of eleven, of twelve, of thirteen 
 hundred inhabitants, and they have all operated well, though they fall 
 very much below the standard to which I would bind myself. 
 
 Your predecessors have established that there is nothing in the func- 
 tions of a town, nothing in the place which it holds under our social 
 system which inflexibly requires it to be of certam numbers ; and they 
 have said again and again that 800 or 1,000 human beings may consti- 
 tute a mass of the community of convenience or inconvenience fit for 
 the Legislature to regard. Still, gentlemen, ii^ order not unnecessarily 
 to bring an action in which my clients have such deep interest, fau-ly 
 against any public policy to which any person may be attached, I am 
 disposed to agree in the general that small corporations shall not be mul- 
 tiplied. I am willing to concede that the general policy would be 
 against it. 
 
 Therefore, I have the honor to put it as my first criterion, that both 
 the towns which are to result from the separation shall be in the class we 
 call quite respectable, above the average of respectability according to 
 the standard in the Commonwealth. When such may be the case, when 
 we may create and leave two towns respectable, populous, able in 
 material and moral elements of gi-eatness, separation may very properly 
 take place. Then I come to my next position. 
 
 I submit to you, then, that if it turns out in point of proof that it will 
 greatly and appreciably promote the interests and conditions, and soothe 
 the feelings, gi-eatly and appreciably lessen the inconveniences, ineom- 
 modities and municipal life of the petitioning area — if it will do all 
 this in so great a degree as to counterbalance any inconvenience in the 
 residue, so that it shall turn out to be for them better than before, or no 
 worse than before — I respectfully submit to you that we entitle ourselves 
 to the legislative favor of the Committee. I can find no other standard 
 than this. 
 
 The Constitution in so many terms makes it, I will not say your duty, 
 but your privilege to pass a good and wholesome law ; such a law as 
 
this -will be, if I bring my case up to the conditions of my own stantlard 
 and criterion, a good and a wholesome law. If so, to no other part of 
 Massachusetts would it do a particle of harm. My criterion says, the 
 character of the town created and that of the town left, are to be equal 
 to every duty which the Commonwealth requires of towns. Then if it 
 turns out, when we apply the criterion to the evidence, that this separa- 
 tion benefits the new Roxbury as a whole, or if it benefits that part of 
 Roxbury which is to be separated, so much, or appreciably, as to coun- 
 terbalance the incommodity suffered by the rest : so that, upon the whole, 
 there has been an appreciable addition to the entire mass of convenience, 
 and a diminution of the mass of inconvenience, then, I do respectfully 
 pray to know, why it is not a clear case for the legislative action of the 
 Committee favorable to the petition. 
 
 My learned brother having discussed no standard of his own, I can of 
 course have no reply to it. Some allusion was made, not very satisfactory, 
 to the report of the city of Roxbury. But as far as I understand it, it 
 may be considered as substantially conforming to my own view, and with 
 an earnest petition to be forgiven for repeating the criterion, I shall have 
 argued this case when I submit to you that we bring it up to every ele- 
 ment which enters into that criterion. 
 
 In the first place, I submit that the first condition is satisfactory. Old 
 Roxbury and New Roxbury will remain of the class of respectable muni- 
 cipal corporations. The new one will have some seven thousand, or 
 seventy-five hundred acres, according as you draw the line, and some 
 three thousand, or thirty-three hundred inhabitants, also, according as 
 you draw the line. And that will be purely agricultural. And what 
 sort of a town is that, under the municipal system of Massachusetts ? 
 
 You are aware that there are 322 towns in all ; and that of them all, 
 250 have less than 3000 inhabitants to-day. The new town, which we 
 ask you to establish to-day, will therefore be larger than three-fourths or 
 four-fifths of the towns which abeady exist, leaving but one-fourth or 
 one-fifth of the towns and cities of the Commonwealth with a greater 
 population than it will have. Or, you may measure it by another stand- 
 ard. If you will turn back to our earliest legislation upon this subject, 
 you will find that a population of 3,300 inhabitants is the largest known 
 
,10 
 
 to the common educational regulations of the towns ; inasmuch as a town 
 above that population was formerly obliged to have a grammar school. 
 
 Annexation, gentlemen ! We meddle with no annexation. And it 
 seems to me that my brother's argument was rather irregular, when he, 
 before that important policy had an opportunity to be heard before you, 
 went wide of his own retainer to speak of such a subject as that. For 
 my part, I mean to leave old Koxbury where she has been. There will 
 be an area of from 3300 to 3800 acres, and about 15000 inhabitants ; 
 three thousand more than enough, under the Constitution, to constitute a 
 city ; leaving it the largest town or city, to-day, in the State, but just 
 seven. I respectfully present it to you, gentlemen, that my first condi- 
 tion of public policy is amply and beautifully^ satisfied by the facts. 
 
 To say that we cleave down an ancient and a noble whole into insig- 
 nificance, is to say what is not true. To say that we unnecessarily mul- 
 tiply corporations, is to say what is not true. A town is presented with 
 a corporate existence ; two blades of gxass grow where one grew before ; 
 and I call that pretty good farming, gentlemen, morally, politically, 
 rurally. I trust that the political conditions of my standard are entirely 
 satisfied. 
 
 I now have the honor to submit that we bring ourselves altogether with- 
 in the other branch of my conditions, having satisfied you that we do not 
 destroy a gi-eat corporation to make two insignificant corporations. I 
 now am ready to advance to the question of the convenience and incon- 
 venience, the good and the evil, of the change itself, to the mass now of 
 Roxbury. There is no public policy against us. If I can show you, 
 looking now on this picture and then on that, that this proposed change 
 is beneficial, you will commend yourselves by giving us a favorable 
 report, I do not say to our hearts or to our gratitude, or that we shall 
 reward you with our votes, (for, alas, we are no constituents of yours, 
 save in that enlarged sense in which we are constituents of all the repre- 
 sentatives of Massachusetts,) but to your own sense of justice, for con- 
 ferring a lasting public benefit upon the community. Passing from 
 strong feeling, strong desire, cherished expectation, and fixed purpose, to 
 the field of calm reason, we shall endeavor to satisfy you that good can 
 be done. If I cannot show you, not that some evil will not be done, 
 
11 
 
 but that the good will outweigh, appreciably and certainly, all the evil 
 that there is or can be, then dismiss us from your presence. But if I 
 shall show you a reasonable case, remember that you do not hold us to a 
 mathematical demonstration, and that you will not turn away from us 
 because we cannot offer you certainty ; but if we show you that a great 
 opportunity is afforded, according to a moral probability, to do a real 
 good, if you do it, I apprehend that you do yom- duty. 
 
 In t-he first place, what evil shall wc do to old Koxbury ? Give me a 
 tangible evil which we may look in the face. In the first place, as I 
 have had the honor to say, you leave her large, populous, and respecta- 
 ble in point of class ; it leaves her, in area, larger than Boston and 
 South Boston both together, by a thousand acres. The area of old Kox- 
 bury will be 3,300 acres, according to the lowest estimate. Boston con- 
 tains 1,419 acres, and South Boston 665 — less by 1000 than the Rox- 
 bury that is left. It leaves old Roxbury seven times as large as 
 Charlestown, that holds the tomb of the mai'tyrs and the monument 
 sacred to our liberty ; nearly as large as Cambridge ; and for inhabitants 
 it leaves lower Roxbury 15,000. 
 
 Mr. Simmons. No. 
 
 3Ir. Choate. If 3,300 inhabitants, which is the largest number pro- 
 posed, be taken from old Roxbury, you leave her 14,930 inhabitants ; 
 and if, as Burke expresses it, " while they dispute the exaggeration 
 ends," the population will be 15,000 before this case is ended. Of the 
 322 towns in the Commonwealth, seven only are as large as Roxbury 
 will be. 
 
 J/r. Simmons. You will make a long session of it. 
 
 3Tr. Choate. A long sitting? The sitting of the Committee will 
 terminate to-night. 
 
 3fr. Simmons. Session ! 
 
 Mr. Choate. The session, I hope, will close with the grant of this 
 prayer. Truly, if any man may feel a just pride that he lives and 
 exerts influence municipally, in a large corporation rather than in a small 
 one ; that he hails from a great town rather than from a little town ; 
 surely, sureli/, every man in old Roxbury will be left in the indulgence 
 of that respectable pride. If there is anything of value and honor in a 
 
12 
 
 corporate power, pertaining to a large town, we leave all that, whatso- 
 ever it is, for substance -unimpairecl, to lower Roxbury. Seven towns 
 only in Massachusetts will be larger. And I am sure, Mr. Chairman, 
 that that will be regarded as enough. 
 
 In the second place — I am still in pursuit of the evils that we do to 
 lower Roxbury, and when I run over this array of evil I hope that I shall 
 fall into no flippant habit of inconsideration, as my thoughts shall be at 
 the disposal of yourselves and my clients — in the next place, is there 
 any feeling against this in lower Roxbury so great, that to disregard, or 
 slight, or wound it, would be of itself undesirable, would be of itself an 
 evil proper for you to estimate ? 
 
 Now I am free to say that I do not think r^yself that one deep, unani- 
 mous feeling of a region of country is to be held for nothing upon such 
 a question as this. I mean, by and by, with great deference, respect- 
 fully to submit to you that the desire, so deep, so vehement, so ancient, 
 in that region of the town which I have the honor to represent ; that feel- 
 ing, so keen, so genuine, so ancient, so increasing, in favor of this 
 change, affords of itself, not merely very high evidence that the subject 
 Tfho entertains that feeling will have his interest promoted by the change, 
 but I mean respectfully to submit to you, notwithstanding a sneer, in 
 advance of my learned brother, that to diffuse that happiness, to furnish 
 that contentment, to afford that satisfaction alone, which will result from 
 granting the prayer of these petitioners, will come within the field of a 
 proper legislative policy. 
 
 I ask you whether there is any thing like a deep feeling in lower Rox- 
 bury, to be weighed for a moment with the feeling in Western Roxbury, 
 which actuates the petitioners to-day. Now I respectfully submit that 
 there is a total failure to show that there is any thing at all of feeling in 
 the five lower wards, among the men of character and respectability, 
 equal to that in West Roxbury. I mean to submit to you that there is 
 nothing in evidence in this case to warrant the Committee to believe that 
 there is a particle of diffused, deep, strong, general feeling, so unjust, 
 and I will add so senseless, as to lead them to a strong opposition to such 
 a measure as this. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, there is a vote of the City Council to employ counsel, 
 
13 
 
 and that is tlie whole of it. That is the whole evidence that the mass of 
 the men of weight, and character, and respectability, even in that part 
 of EoslDury, entertain a desii-e in the least degi-ee of strength to hold us, 
 soothing us with a few honied words of compliment — to hold us so man- 
 ifestly against our rights and against our will. Is there any remonstrance 
 against our petition ? We produce to you 420 petitioners out of the 
 450 voters of upper Roxbury. And they show you but 486 remon- 
 strants out of 2000 voters. But we have obtained petitioners from other 
 quarters ; so that, you see, with less than 500 voters, we bring forward, 
 with the foreign aid which we obtain, in all, 670 who ask for this divis- 
 ion ; while they, with 2000 voters, produce only 486 remonstrants 
 in all. 
 
 Mr. Simmons. No ! 
 
 Mr. Ctioate. I believe I have the numbers right. I received them 
 from the Chairman of the Committee. Glance at the witnesses. Has it 
 occurred to you that of the eight witnesses they have produced, seven 
 hold offices in lower Rosbury to-day ; eveiy man of them, except 3Ir. 
 Copeland, who is disti-essed to think that there is such a delusion in 
 the community in favor of town governments ? Of these seven gentle- 
 men holding office, five are this day in the receipt of veiy considerable 
 salaries from the city Grovernment. I dare say, and it costs me nothing 
 to say so, that every man of them is respectable. But when we con- 
 sider how much opinions, stiU more mere feelings, are swayed and col- 
 ored by oui- interests, when we consider how perfectly inevitable it is that 
 when a man is feed by an organi2ation, whatever it be, he thinks that 
 organization ought to exist, I put it to you upon your intelligence, that 
 you wiU regard this testimony of salaried men as utterly worthless, to 
 prove that the generous feeling of Eoxbmy is in favor of a measure so 
 unjust and oppressive as this. 
 
 Gentlemen, I might tui-n to the witnesses who have testified, and to 
 their salaries ; while running them over it would be easy to make a mer- 
 riment of what is, in reality, a gi-ave matter. It would seem, to he sure, 
 as if they had testified "all for love, and a very little for the bottle." 
 Methinks I hear the shout, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians;" and 
 then, in an undertone, "for hy this craft we live.'^ 
 
14 
 
 Mr. Dudley, one of their witnesses, receives a salary of SHOO per 
 annum, and lie loves us very much indeed. Mr. Howe, it seems, how- 
 ever, loves us only at the rate of $175 a year. Three more of them 
 .obtain salaries of various amounts, and love us in proportion ; while two 
 others carry it no further than to be members of the common council. I 
 submit to you that, upon the question of the annexation of Canada to 
 the United States, it would be just as proper to call the Grovernor General 
 of that Province, as he leaves the Queen, with his salary of £10,000 ster- 
 ling annually, to give testimony upon the sentmients of the inhabitants, 
 concerning the project, as it is to call these salaried gentlemen here to 
 testify concerning the sentiments of the people of Eoxbury on this 
 question. No ! There is no real feeling there'against our petition, trust 
 me upon it. There are individuals who feel strongly, there is an 
 organization which can create and diiFuse a pretty powerful sentiment 
 within a limited circle. Yet there are, even with the aid of that influ- 
 ence, but 486 out of 2000 voters who can be galvanized into the slight- 
 est degree of activity against such an application as this. 
 
 We have petitioners, together with aid from other places, amounting 
 in all to about sis hundred and eighty-six, to speak for a population 
 of three thousand. They have four hundred and eighty, out of a popu- 
 lation of fifteen thousand. There is not a particle of evidence of 
 Koxbury's opinions, beyond this, to submit to you ; and although I have 
 no fee from the city council of lower Eoxbury, I am glad to have the 
 opportunity to rescue her from the charge of having such a senseless 
 opposition to our desire, which, if it could be accomplished, while 
 it makes us rich, instead of making them poor indeed, shall leave them 
 to gi-ow with our growth, and share in our prosperity, and, like the 
 United States and the mother country, we can both bless the day when 
 separation occurs. . We wound, therefore, no man's feelings, and no 
 corporate feeling, by the change we seek. 
 
 I have now respectfully to ask, whether or not there is a particle of 
 well grounded reason to believe that we do that respectable residuum of 
 the city any thing like a real evil, on which you can properly rely when 
 we come, by-and-by, to ask you, if we have it to ask you at all, on 
 what grounds this prayer was rejected. 
 
15 
 
 We come next to the consideration of a considerable difficulty. 
 My learned brother stated his argument clearly, although I am sorry to 
 say that I missed any thing like a precise statement of the evils of 
 the case. I come now to ask whether we leave any evil at all. 
 I do not know as we shall do evil. Animated life we shall take, to be 
 sure, just as we do when we take ourselves home to-night. "We can 
 perform no duty ; we can pass no place where we do not indirectly, 
 unconsciously perhaps, fall somewhat short of the whole good we would 
 wish to do, and fall something short in the prevention of evil we might 
 wish to avoid. 
 
 My first suggestion, with which I am about to enter upon the topic a little 
 more in detail, is, that it is unconceivable to begin with, that if there is 
 any evil which any man of sense can come before you to present, who 
 has not become enlisted by a long sharing from the city treasury, or a 
 connection with the city government — I say it is incredible that the 
 fathers of all that town should be so profoundly asleep as we find them 
 to-day. In all their 15,000 inhabitants, but 486 can be brought up to 
 the ceremony of a remonstrance ; and of all that 15,000, many of them 
 men of character and of property, many of them justly, at different 
 times, the fathers of the town — of all those, eight only have presented 
 themselves before you, and seven of the eight hold office under the 
 government. I submit that that must have a great deal of weight in the 
 determination of the question. 
 
 But let us go to the evils. I have found it infinitely difficult, and 
 think that you have yourselves, to lay fingers, out of all the heads my 
 learned brother has been able to afford us, upon any thing like a clear 
 and precise list of the evils which old Roxbury may suffer. Be they 
 what they will, and come they in what shape they may, — what are the 
 evils which old Roxbury may receive ? One of them touches us in our 
 most sacred sensibilities. Of that I will speak before I am done. But 
 I am speaking now of corporate interests. Of what are they afraid ? 
 There is an apprehension that the burden of lower Roxbury will be 
 somewhat increased by the separation of the upper regions. That, I 
 understand, is the general difficulty. It is put in various ways. They 
 talk of the Irish population. But as I understand it, at last, there is 
 
16 
 
 some fear that the burdens of lower Eoxbury will be enhanced by the 
 separation. If they should be, I shall have the honor, not to pile up, 
 but, to hold up, the mountain preponderance of benefit, on the other 
 side, to counterbalance it. 
 
 But I intend to bubmit to you that it is mere cant and declamation, not 
 in the hands of my learned brother, but in the hands of those whom he 
 represents, and that there is not a particle of solid and intelligent reason 
 to believe that the burdens of that Corporation will be enhanced, in pro- 
 portion to their numbers, one seven thousandth part of a farthing, by 
 the separation we so much desire. 
 
 The taxes may be divided into two classes. In the first place, there 
 are benefits for which the town voluntarily ^curs taxation ; such are 
 highways, schools, streets, lights, and the rest. As to all these, the 
 town has discretion, and the town is, therefore, a volunteer. It is bene- 
 fitted by its own taxation. The second class is composed, I agree, of 
 unmitigated burdens. It includes principally the support of the poor. 
 They are evils without benefit. 
 
 Let us take these two classes by themselves. As to all that first class, 
 in which the Corporation is substantially a volunteer, all I have to say is 
 this : if it shall turn out that, after this separation, lower Roxbury pays 
 more than it pays to-day, then it proves nothing more than this — that 
 we are now payhig in upper Roxbury more than our proportion : and to 
 that extent there is an injustice done. And if to remedy that is an 
 evil, it is, in the language of a great scholar and poet, to make evil out 
 good. 
 
 " Evil, be thou my good 1 " 
 
 If there be the same amount of lights, police, streets, and schools as 
 before, and they ha;Ve to pay more for them, it proves that we ai-e keep- 
 ing their peace, lighting their streets, paving their highways, schooling 
 their scholars, and that we are really taxed this day, for the benefit of 
 another. 
 
 I do not know as I shall be able, by this imperfect light, to read my 
 figures : but so it is, that the city of Roxbury extracted from upper 
 Roxbury, in a single year, some f 5000 more than they returned. 
 
17 
 
 Mr. Clark. Where is the evidence ? 
 
 Mr. Choate. The whole tax is S23,000, and they expended upon 
 us $18,000. 
 
 Mr. Simmons. You take a single year. 
 
 Mr. Choate. Tou have taken the best part of the afternoon, and of 
 the minds of the Committee. Permit me, now, to receive at least 
 their lingering and exhausted attention. I stated tliat they took S5000 
 from us in a single year, and not in ten years. 
 
 Taxes are paid for two things — for benefits or for mere burdens. 
 And what I say is, that if, after the separation, you continue to have the 
 same benefits with more burdens, it is because we are paying for your 
 burdens to-day. 
 
 But there is another class of burdens, and I meet them upon that 
 class, for I saw that, by the way in which the subject was presented, 
 they were making an unjust impression upon their hearers. I refer to 
 the class from which the town derives no benefit, but which are only 
 unmitigated burdens, and that is the foreign pauper population. They 
 are afraid that they will have more Irish paupers to pay for if they are 
 separated than if we remain together. I beg leave to answer that, and 
 I will withdraw before 9 o'clock to-night if I do not satisfy you, if I 
 do not prove it even to the signers of the lower Roxbury petition, among 
 whom I recognize a worthy gentleman present to-night, and if I caijnot 
 satisfy every reasonable person that our claim, so far as regards this 
 point, is a just one, and that their objection is untenable. 
 
 I have no prejudices to encounter in those I am addressing, inasmuch 
 as I am speaking to the Legislature, who are interested only so far as 
 the public good demands. 
 
 Now I have the honor to call your attention to this subject. I say 
 the remonstrants have failed to prove that it is any thing more than con- 
 tingency and speculation from beginning to end, and that there is 
 nothing at all like a reasonable ground of belief ; I think we ought to 
 have this at least when our heaiis are throbbing with a reasonable desire ; 
 I say that there is no reasonable ground of belief that the burden will be 
 increased on this part of Roxbury one particle more than it will on us 
 
 To say that, taking the entire mass which is now in both Roxburys, the 
 2 
 
18 
 
 chances are that more -will live to be paupers there than among us is to 
 assert what cannot be proved. Who knows any thing about it ? Who 
 can say on the other hand that of that great tide of emigration with 
 which the Old World is pouring itself upon us, that in the five and 
 twenty years to come more of them will stop and remain in lower Rox- 
 bury than in upper ? Who does not say that the person who makes 
 such a statement has deserted the halls of legislation, and turned into a 
 fortune teller and a gambler ? He speculates on that of which all must 
 be ignorant. Here is the honest Englishman, the pious Scotchman, the 
 worthy German, the hardy Irishman, the gay Frenchman the happiest 
 of them all, who are coming to this country by thousands ; and this 
 Legislature is to refuse us a corporation upon the learned ground that 
 my learned friends are all but certain, that is all who have salaries, and 
 offices, and fees, that more will light in their city than in our town. 
 Their poor-house, they say, is better than our's ; as if the lightning of 
 God might not destroy it, or the accident of fire might not burn it down ; 
 as if our's might not be built better than their's ; as if foreigners were 
 coming to this country to enter a good poor-house. 
 
 Who will tell me when you look upon the two territories, when you 
 consider that our gardens are to be laid out and our houses to be con- 
 structed, when these beauties here are to be made to present themselves 
 all marriageable to the sun, that they will not attract and pay the 
 foreigner, a thousand to one, nay even over and above a thousand to 
 one, more than any attracti^ans this overgrown and noisome city of lower 
 Eoxbury will present. I would not abuse my clients, as my friend has 
 done his, by implication. I entreat you to bear with me in considering 
 whether or not it be a sheer conjecture, and whether there was any thing 
 ever presented in the womb of the future to the mind of man, which is 
 more of a fancy than that. There is not time and there is no need to 
 break this butterfly upon a wheel. I find this business done very much 
 to my hands in a very able document put forth by the city of Roxbury, 
 before my friends had got excited in the progress of this very able inves- 
 tigation. 
 
 I have the honor to submit to you that there is no reason to say that 
 this foreign population is to be more attracted there than here, or 
 
19 
 
 that it will remain there. I perceive that I must hurry forward. I 
 shall be glad to pass from these evils which are slight, to , the great and 
 important be"nefits to be derived from the separation. 
 
 You will perceive that this objection of their's concerning increased 
 expenditure for paupers is based upon the idea that the Irish are to 
 settle below. I beg to call your attention to a report made by the city 
 government, drawn with great care and reported to each branch thereof, 
 and printed by them. I beg leave to refer to page 5th of that report to 
 see if I am not more than sustained in the position which I take upon 
 the uncertainty and shadowy character of the objection which I am 
 answering. They are addressing themselves to certain supposed reasons 
 for division. 
 
 " A fourth reason is found in the supposition that if we were divided, 
 nearly the whole support of the poor would fall upon the five lower 
 wards. We hold this to he a fallacy.^' I thought that was the very 
 difficulty. " That population out of which the largest amount of pau- 
 perism grows, has already extended to, and is increasing rapidly in the 
 western section." I thought an Irishman could no more get up upon 
 the plains than a witch could cross a running stream ! That population 
 " is increasing rapidly in the western section, and we have no doubt hut 
 that in a very short time they tvill have their full share of it." " We 
 have no doubt" of this, they say. And "we" are Roxbury, the 
 fathers of the town, sitting under the forms of the city government 
 which are so sure to produce truth and certainty. " We have no doubt 
 but that in a very short time they will have their full share of it." 
 
 That is the argument against their excited counsel. I will not say 
 that I know how it will be. There is such a thing as a wise and learned 
 ignorance. And I think that is more important in this case than the 
 dogmatism of which you see some example has been set us. I should 
 think that, inasmuch as the land in West Roxbury is all unoccupied, it 
 would be the open New World as a general thing to attract the foreigner 
 who comes to a better liberty and a happier home. That is every 
 tangible objection they have. They love us much. Their salaries show 
 that. There is nothing like embittered feeling in their action. They 
 
20 
 
 are afraid their pauper tax will be increased. Their own clients do not 
 believe it upon the testimony of their printed pamphlet. 
 
 I know no other evil. But one has been adverted to in such strong 
 terms to me as to excite our own sympathies, and so strong that I cannot 
 doubt that in every thing he said my brother was sincere. But in 
 taking my leave of them, permit me to submit that the whole of this 
 objection is altogether unfounded, exaggerated and overstrained in its 
 application to this deliberation to-night. Mj learned brother alludes to 
 the cemetery. His allusion to that shows that he either imperfectly com- 
 prehends or he unsatisfactorily and incompletely reciprocates what I 
 thought was the admirable manner in which my learned friend dis- 
 cussed that part of the case. It is not a matter which we can discuss. 
 It should be transferred to the region of feeling. I would commit it to 
 the matronage of Roxbury. I would commit it to the bereaved of lower 
 Roxbury ; to the mourner, who is the only inhabitant of the cemetery at 
 last. And I say that no affection of the heart, no prejudice, no feeling, 
 nothing so holy as that cemetery, or the sentiments connected with it, 
 shall be neglected in order to accomplish the object of our petition. 
 This cemetery shall be yielded to them, if you will permit me to say so, 
 free of burdens. We shall only be too glad to keep the thronged 
 passageways to it accessible. That place of the dead, that resting place 
 of quiet, shall be guarded for them. The bones of both the Roxburys 
 shall repose there till the sea gives up its dead. To whom of the dead 
 or the living does it signify within what line of corporate territory it 
 remains. The name shall be of Roxbury ; the jurisdiction shall be in 
 Roxbury ; the property shall be in Roxbury ; the grounds shall be 
 hallowed and appropriated to Roxbury, if they please to have it so, 
 alone. And to the mourner how little it imports, since he cannot hold 
 the dear departed object any longer in his arms, or bury him in his 
 church, or in his garden, but must send him to that old home — how 
 little he regards the corporate name. Consecration, and purity, and 
 peace, he desires ; and he shall have them, in the bosom of a kindred, a 
 Christian and a civilized community. If there were not sentiments in 
 my own bosom which made me feel that my brother could not have said 
 any thing on this subject without feeling, I should have believed that he 
 
21 
 
 could not consider that any objection to the gi-ant of our petition. My 
 learned brother who opened did not present this as an objection. He 
 forgot to allude to the whole subject. Do not let any thing connected 
 with this sacred subject interrupt our proceedings. Wo do Roxbury, 
 therefore, no harm, in her pulse or in her heart. No harm ! On the 
 contrary, as I am about to take my leave of that subject, I will submit to 
 you, that, unless experience is a liar, separate us, and she shall grow by 
 our growth, and strengthen with our strength. In this great growth both 
 parties shall gain by the separation. Is not Charlestown an evidence of 
 this? In 1840, with Somerville, she had but 9000 inhabitants; while 
 now, without Somerville, she has 15,000 inhabitants ; while Somerville 
 has increased from 1,300 to 3,100 or 3,300 inhabitants. Separate them, 
 reduce the time of doing business for the public, relieve each man from 
 mismanaging what he does not understand, and confine every man to the 
 administration of his own affairs, and I believe each ought to be a gainer. 
 And will not lower Roxbuiy be the gainer ? Will my brother allow me 
 to remind you that if the prayer of this petition should be granted, and 
 that if we enter into any thing like a ten thousandth part of the prospe- 
 rity that we hope for, that if we shall behold on this or that beautiful 
 spot, a house or a cluster of houses, does not lower Roxbury know that 
 every cask of lime and every foot of timber comes to her wharves, and 
 we take it from her hands ? I present it to you, that the benefit is as 
 obviously hers, in the employment of her own wharves to bring the 
 necessary articles for the improvement of our land, as it was for England 
 a benefit if she had originally known that it was her true policy to give 
 the colonies their freedom, and make them a market. 
 
 I have done with the evils, and I say that I find no evil. Public 
 policy we satisfy, because we simply give to the State two daughters for 
 one, and " each faii-er than the other;" the daughter fairer than the fair 
 mother herself — two for one : 
 
 "Matre pulchra, filia pulchrior." 
 
 Not either unable to go alone, but each of them up to the standard, 
 and beyond the average standard, of municipal respectability and muni- 
 cipal duty. Then we do no evil. 
 
22 
 
 Now, I entreat your attention (though there will be no time to 
 expand the thought) to the consideration whether, among the millions 
 that shall flow to us from the eastern continent, some one or two more 
 may stay below, so that there may be a slight increase of business to 
 lower Roxbury. Put against that, the overwhelming series of good 
 results, about which there can be no uncertainty, which you will 
 assuredly do to us. 
 
 In the first place, the grant of this prayer will gratify and appease 
 the desire of many years, pervading all classes in the upper community, 
 and which has gained strength by the experience of every day. That is 
 the first good that you will do ; and you may live much longer, and do 
 much more good, and yet do nothing that wfll gladden so many hearts, 
 and fill full so many reasonable hopes, as that single act. Now, sir, of 
 the unanimity and strength of feeling upon this subject, in West Rox- 
 bury, there cannot, of course, be a particle of doubt. Of the 450 
 voters, less or more, in the three upper wards, 420 are here to-night. 
 Of the 120 voters, in ward No. 8, 111 are here to-night. There may 
 be three or four, throughout the whole three upper wards, who dissent. 
 They are very respectable individuals ; but there are not enough of them 
 to make a good corporal's guard. But the great fact upon the front of 
 this case is, that here is an unprecedented numerical unanimity and an 
 intensity of feeling, of which, when the hearing began, you could form 
 little idea, although the progress of the inquiry has enabled you in part 
 to apprehend it. Even my learned brother recognizes it. The Com- 
 mittee say, in the private report to which I have alluded : — "It is the 
 almost unanimous wish of the people in the westerly section, with or 
 without good reason, to be set off, and left to manage their own affairs in 
 their own way. There is more weight in this than in all the other rea- 
 sons combined, and ive are very sorry tliat it exist s^ 
 
 Glad or sorry, gentlemen, here they are. Ward 8, once opposed to a 
 division, experience, the guide of life, brings here to-night^ in the pro- 
 portion of 111 out of 120. The very same experience has but con- 
 firmed the impressions of all the rest. All parties are here to-night. I 
 see no Whigs, or Democrats, or Free-soilers ; but I see only the 
 inhabitants of West Roxbury, and I see them all. 
 
23 
 
 Add to this, that, of the 2000 voters below, only 460 or 470 remon- 
 strate; that some 200 more petition; that some 700 ask for annexation. 
 Add to that, that we have proved that one and another of their remon- 
 strants had simply said that the time for separation had not quite come ; 
 that they thought it would soon take place, but that they thought the 
 period for it had not yet quite ripened. Bring also to bear the state of 
 public opinion in that part of Roxbury which we represent. 
 
 Now I put it in the first place, gentlemen, (although I remember that 
 my learned brother went out of his way to sneer in advance,) that you 
 should satisfy such a demand as to gratify the unanimous wishes of a 
 population over such an area — wishes not new-born, not short-lived, not 
 for any thing unjust or inexpedient, not, as I have said, for the grant of 
 a railroad charter, or the incorporation of an insurance company, or for 
 the loan of the credit of the State ; not for corruptible things like silver 
 and gold ; but for the right of self-government. I respectfully submit 
 to you, (I hope I shall not weary you by returning again and again to a 
 sentiment so dear to myself, ) that to gratify such a unanimous desire as 
 this is, in itself and of itself fairly within the proper aim and policy of 
 the Legislature, you will, sir, allay exasperation and irritation, you give 
 men's minds back again to business and to the offices of good neighbor- 
 hood ; you re-open the veins of good feelmg ; you strengthen government, 
 and you attach men to government, by showing them how filial and how 
 just it is ; every burden is lightened and every duty is sweetened by the 
 grant of such a prayer as this. 
 
 I am sure you will hardly suspect me, at this time of night, of a 
 desire to declaim ; but it is hardly extravagant to say that this bill which 
 you are asked to pass will be received like another Declaration of 
 Independence. The ringing of bells and the firing of bonfires will 
 exhibit the feeling that exists. This strength and unanimity of feeling I 
 regard as very high evidence that the interests of these persons will bo 
 promoted by this act ; it is evidence that there are evils which they feel, 
 and that the separation will be the remedy. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, that it was an extremely intelligent community 
 represented by our witnesses, nobody will doubt. Were you not struck 
 — I was, and proud, too, — to remark a body of persons, of such 
 
24 
 
 apparent sense, and sobriety, and character, as have come here to 
 represent the judgment of the petitioning district? I beheve I do not 
 go out of the way to present any weak flattery of my clients' witnesses. 
 I am sure you will regard them, if they are a fair specimen of West 
 Koxbury, as proving that it is a community eminently competent to 
 judge of its own municipal wants, when such men as my brother Austin, 
 Messrs. Curtis, Bradford, Williams, Brown, Weld, Cass, and half a 
 dozen others, tell you, after the most thorough investigation of the sub- 
 ject, after the fullest and the freest interchange of thought, that, even if 
 their taxes were increased, they would be paid more by the separation, 
 because the burden would be lightened and the boon would be sweetened 
 by the satisfaction of self-government. Whin they tell you that no 
 burden which the Legislature should give them would operate to induce 
 them to refuse the charter. I do submit that you have the highest evi- 
 dence that there are great evils that this bill will remedy, and that they 
 have large interests to be benefitted by the change. I do not wish to press 
 this argument too far upon the consideration of the Committee ; and per- 
 haps I would bettor pass to the consideration of the facts themselves. But 
 the presumption is that a wide-spread discontent is well grounded. And 
 I think it ought to serve — instead of entering into a history of the city 
 government — that it ought to serve for proof that these gentlemen who 
 have lived under this action, who have summered it and wintered it, 
 who represent a community that concurs that they have felt it practically 
 to work unfavorably to them — I trust that you will receive that as proof 
 that they will derive inestimable benefits from this proposed separation. 
 
 I leave this with the consideration that this unanimity is evidence 
 itself that their interests will be promoted by the grant of the power ; 
 and although 1 had some considerations why I thought it of great weight 
 as mere evidence, I believe that I shall better consult the interests of my 
 clients — I know I shall consult the feelings of the Committee — if I 
 pass at once to the consideration of the other part of the case. If the 
 Committee will indulge me, I will consult a moment with my brother. 
 If we can have a recess, for a few minutes. I shall be much gratified. 
 
 KECESS. 
 
25 
 
 Mr. Choate continues. Of course, gentlemen, as I was just having 
 the honor to say, the petitioners do not rely upon the strength or unani- 
 mity of their own wishes in their behalf, as evidence of the evils they 
 feel, and the relief they crave. They undertake to point those evils out. 
 And they find, to begin with, the source of them all just where the citi- 
 zens of just and free governments find the source of all social and political 
 evil, in this : that they are deprived of the great gift of self-government 
 in its best form. The grand and comprehensive remedy they seek, then, 
 gentlemen, is to make a more complete approach, by your aid, to self- 
 government, and not only a more complete self-government, but a species 
 of self-government in which the will of the people shall be more certainly, 
 more directly, and more influentially applied to the management of their 
 own affairs. That is the grand comprehensive evil of which we com- 
 plain. 
 
 The evil which we labor under is two-fold. This locality (I mean 
 upper Roxbury) is governed, this day, not by itself, but by lower Rox- 
 bury, and not only that, but by an agricultural community, an objection- 
 able form of government to a city government. In the first place we are 
 governed, this day, by other men. I mean to say, gentlemen, if lower 
 Roxbury chooses to elect this man or that man, defeat this man or that 
 man, carry this measure or that measure, &c., it can do it, and we are 
 powerless in their hands. The numbers are there. The numbers, too, 
 are so concentrated, that if we should be back again at our homes, the 
 stroke of the bell would rally them by thousands before our voters, many 
 of them aged men, could possibly reach the polls ; nor, if they did reach 
 them, would it be of any avail. Under a city government, they have 
 five w ards and five aldermen to our three ; they have fifteen common 
 councilmen to our nine ; and if they choose they can elect even ours. 
 
 Mr. Simmons. You do not mean so. 
 
 Mr. Choate. It is the Aldermen to whom I refer. They are elected 
 by general ticket, and they may elect whom they choose, because they 
 have 2000 voters to our 500. That region of upper Roxbury is as 
 much governed by the lower Roxbury, if the latter chooses to exercise 
 the power, as the Canadas are governed by the mother country. 
 
 The result is exactly this ; that if there is any one act in the whole 
 
26 
 
 range of municipal jurisdiction wherein the region below has a diverse 
 interest from the region above, we have a master to that extent and have 
 had for five years. We have had it for more ; for I am now adverting 
 not so much to a difficulty which could be relieved by the form of govern- 
 ment, as to a difficulty in the nature of things. I say again, if there is 
 any one subject within the whole range of municipal jurisdiction in which 
 their interest could come to be diverse to our interests, to that extent we 
 have a master and they have not. 
 
 Tliat is our case. We stand alone, of all Massachusetts, in that pre- 
 dicament to-day. Well, and is there not a real and important sense in 
 which the interests of one of these regions are distinct from the other, or 
 are liable to be distinct, and are not uniformly or certainly kindred in- 
 terests ? Is it not true, so far, that to place this upper Roxbury under 
 lower Roxbury is unjust and inexpedient, and therefore, unless it be in- 
 dispensable, necessary to be reformed altogether? Now, gentlemen, 
 bow does this matter stand in point of proof ? 
 
 In the first place, is it not perfectly clear that the universal feeling in 
 the upper region is, that there is a diversity of interest ? I entreat the 
 attentioa of the legal gentlemen of the Committee to this piece of evi- 
 dence. I entreat your attention to the fact that here are practically, 
 year in and year out, diversities of interest. Is it not clear that these 
 diversities of interest exist ? Is not the feeling which is shown evidence 
 of the fact ? Is there not evidence satisfactory to show clearly that 
 the policy or sentiments of this lower region is practically different from 
 and not kindred with the policy or sentiments of the region above ? Is 
 there any evidence that we have differed from this view at any time, or 
 that we have not for years maintained it ? You understand perfectly 
 well that we cannot bring testimony before this Committee to show you 
 that the city Goverpment, on this occasion, was influenced by certain in- 
 terests, and on that occasion by other interests, in order to carry various 
 measures, because it is the ground of our complaint that we are a hope- 
 less minority. Therefore if we had entered into that, and spoken of 
 private wrongs, the number of witnesses introduced on both sides would 
 have compelled us to remain here to the fourth of July next, if the 
 patience of the Committee had held out so long ; and we should have 
 
27 
 
 been trying this with three witnesses on one side to twelve witnesses on 
 the other, in consequence of our disparity of numbers. For it is the 
 very infelicity of our cause that we are in a minority. We cannot come 
 before you and prove the minority against the majority, that there is any 
 hostile feeling at all. And therefore I respectfully submit to you that 
 the opinions of the witnesses which we have produced, and the existence 
 of the strong feeling, can have no other origin than the fact that reasons 
 for it exist. It tends, also, to prove another fact, viz : that this commu- 
 nity has come, by the experience and teachings of years, to have a feel- 
 ing that there is between these two Roxburys an actual diversity of inter- 
 est, which they are able to appreciate, and under which they suffer every 
 day that they live, though they may not be able to bring the precise case 
 before you. 
 
 Well, gentlemen, is not the reason of this diversity of interest very 
 apparent ? Here are the town and the country, Are not theiu interests 
 as such, in such sense, distinct, that although there are some points of 
 contact, some strong ties, some kinds of connection which God has 
 formed, and which no man may put asunder, yet that here is a connec- 
 tion that ought not any longer to remain ? 
 
 Boston is connected by ties to all parts of the State ; but would you 
 allow Boston to govern Norfolk, or Salem to govern Essex, or New Bed- 
 ford to govern Bristol? Certamly not ! So here, exactly, is an illustra- 
 tion of what exists between us and our very good friends. This, gentle- 
 men, is an agricultural district. It has agriculture for its general 
 employment. Its market is Boston. Here and there is a beautiful 
 clump of trees, as there will often be, and they grow a little on the side 
 of that beautiful pond embosomed in Jamaica Plains. Here and there 
 are the mechanic, the artizan, the blacksmith, the carpenter, just as there 
 are in every farming town in Massachusetts. But its general character 
 is agricultural, dotted here and there with a beautiful locality, standing 
 out at last upon a plain farming land. This upper Roxbury, there it is ! 
 And it is quite true that, in point of fact, the inhabitants of wards six, 
 seven, and eight, while they are thrown together by a general influence 
 of locality, in addition to which some of them meet in the cars every day, 
 
going to and coming from Boston ; but they never meet a Roxbury 
 man once in a twelvemonth. 
 
 What is the character of the lower town ? It is a trading and com- 
 mercial town. There are the artificial sidewalks, the gas-lighted stores, 
 the artificial supply of water, the crowded and noisome population, the 
 indestructible character of the town. And there it will be for ever. 
 
 Strengthen the ties by which they may be bound together, in a freer 
 and easier manner. But I do submit, that to tell the Committee that these 
 two are one, is to disturb the political and social relations of civil life. 
 An old poet has said, " Grod made the country and man made the 
 town." A still older poet has said, 
 
 t 
 
 " God the first garden made, 
 
 And the first city, Cain." 
 
 The city is, in the nature of things, very different from the country. 
 My brother may come with his honied words, and tell how much he loves 
 us. But I ask for this separation on the ground of incompatibility of 
 interest, and demand it, also, on the ground of incompatibility of temper. 
 I remember to have passed a portion of my life in New Ipswich. There 
 was Old Ipswich. There was the town and there the numbers. I will 
 tell you an instance of their government of us. Among the objects of 
 expenditure were fire engines, hose, hooks and ladders. I remember 
 that the people of Old Ipswich kept all the engines in Chebacco, which 
 was the old Indian name of the town, and sent down very religiously the 
 hooks to New Ipswich, in order to pull down the buildings, to prevent 
 any further spread of fire, every one of the houses being at least half a 
 mile from each other. [Laughter.] 
 
 Not only do the petitioners seek a separation, but they seek a kind of 
 government in which the whole people will have a freer action on the 
 administration of affairs. They want a town government. I was only 
 too much surprised by some of the arguments of my learned brother and 
 some of the opinions of Mr. Copeland. So that I felt it my bounden 
 duty, as a citizen, to submit very briefly the gi'ounds on which I insist 
 upon it that the agricultural portion of Roxbtuy has a clear, a sacred, 
 and immediate right, not to abolish the city government below, but, by 
 
29 
 
 separation, to return to the government more appropriate to themselves. 
 Until I heart! the opinion of Mr. Copeland and my brother's argument 
 to-day, I supposed it was the opinion of every body, that it was the deep 
 conviction of the community, that town governments, wheresoever they 
 are practicable, are preferable to city governments. City governments 
 are indispensable, as war is indispensable, here and there. Here and 
 there, when a large mass comes to be accumulated upon a given point, when 
 the materials are of such a nature that it reipires more strength to control 
 it, beyond all doubt the city government must exist. But it is a neces- 
 sity. I insist upon it that, according to the profoundest convictions of 
 this Commonwealth, town governments, wheresoever they are practicable, 
 are, for a thousand reasons, preferable to city governments. 
 
 Till 1822, or till the convention assembled for the alteration of the 
 State constitution, we had no other form than that of the town govern- 
 ment. Till the j)opulation in each is 12,000 we can now have no other. 
 Just so long as the town meetmg will not be too large and uncontrollable 
 by the moderator, the settled policy is that, in town meeting assembled, 
 the people shall vote, shall choose their officers, shall express their opin- 
 ions, shall imbibe the first lessons of practical freedom, and learn to take 
 the important part, which you are taking here, in the admmistration of pub- 
 lic afiairs. That this was a wise policy, wheresoever it was practicable, I 
 do maintain. It is not wise or practicable in Boston, in Salem, in Lowell, 
 or in New Bedford, though I should have thought that the town govern- 
 ment might still a little longer have been entrusted to the good sense 
 and sobriety of Worcester. But, wheresoever it is practicable, it is a 
 wise policy and should be maintained. The right and power to deter- 
 mine, in open daylight, the questions that arise, by the people themselves, 
 is all important. Mr. Copeland said that he had attended town meetings 
 where the fifty or sixty persons present voted away, for foolish objects, 
 ^20,000, in the payment of which they were not concerned, and then 
 refused a dollar for schools. I do not know where such a transaction 
 occuiTcd; wherever it was, it was not in upper Roxbury. 
 
 To determine, in town meeting, what shall be done by the people, is 
 one of the most inestimable of privileges. I have not lived long enough 
 in cities to believe that that privilege is not still held inestimable by the 
 
30 
 
 people. The towns are enabled to judge practically of the economical 
 expenditure of their money. If they determine on an expenditure, and 
 determine it in advance, I think that the chances are ten thousand to one 
 that then- expenditures -will be wiser made than if they entrusted the 
 decision of them to boards sitting in the dark, or, at least, in the night- 
 time. And when the objects of the expenditure are explained, I main- 
 tain that the power to judge in advance, to jvidge in the day-time, is bet- 
 ter than to act upon a report without knowing any thing about the sub- 
 ject. It is all the difference between possessing substantial influence, 
 and being mocked by the semblance of power without its reality. 
 
 There are higher reasons which I should present, if I did not fear to 
 trespass on your time, why I maintain that ^e mode of government 
 by town meeting should be religiously preserved with every community in 
 which it is practicable. These town meetings are the free schools of 
 free men ; they are the schools where the people learn to think upon 
 public affairs ; where they learn the first lessons of self government ; 
 where they learn for the first time to examine public subjects, to debate 
 in the presence of one another, and to exchange opinions on public 
 questions of importance. They carry, therefore, gentlemen, public life 
 down to the minutest member of society ; and they connect the minutest 
 inhabitant of the smallest and remotest town directly, at last, with the 
 State. 
 
 I regard the town governments as great educational agencies, therefore, 
 for the present and for the future ; I regard them as great agencies for 
 the retaining of liberty alive, for teaching its spirit, and furnishing an 
 ability to maintain it. I honor them for what they have done. I am 
 reminded in this connection — as one who has preceded me was reminded 
 of, and alluded to Mr. Jefferson ■ — I am reminded of a man, one of our- 
 selves, better than Jefferson. I refer to the sentiments of John Adams. 
 No one understood better than he the causes of the revolution, or the 
 circumstances by which the American mind was influenced. I have 
 been looking recently at a letter which he addressed, in 1782, to a cele- 
 brated Frenchman, who was about doing so absurd a thing as to write 
 a history on the American Eevolution, and was asking Mr. Adams about 
 the authorities necessary for that purpose. In his reply, written in 
 
31 
 
 English, but translated into French, and the original lost, IVIr. Adams 
 observes, that there are four gi-eat institutions in this country, to the 
 workings of which he must pay particular attention. The first of these 
 was the towns, in town meetings assembled, as among the great influences 
 causing the American Revolution. He went on to describe the practice of 
 these towns, and adds that the efiect of that institution had been that all 
 the inhabitants had acquired from their youth the -habit of discussing, 
 deliberating and determining upon public affairs. It was among these 
 little primitive and pure democracies that the sentiments of the commu- 
 nity, from the commencement of the dispute with England to the sur- 
 render at Yorktown, were first formed and their resolutions first adopted. 
 Keep then these schools of thought and action open, as you keep the school- 
 houses of the child open, and for the same reason. I have often been 
 struck that in the crowded population of cities, in the meetings of clubs 
 and societies, men's minds become very expert, and men become prompt 
 in action. The agricultural mind, on the contrary, is slower. The 
 agricultural mind is differently trained. He who follows that profession 
 has different circumstances around him. The population is sparse. 
 You hear already that there is a total loss of interest in "West Eoxbui'y 
 in public affairs. 
 
 I have not time to develop the idea, but I am sure you will reo-ard 
 with all solicitude every institution and every influence every where that 
 shall educate the mature agricultural mind, and enable it to perform its 
 just part and hold its just place in the deliberations of the Legislature 
 and of the State. You keep open the free school of the child. For 
 God's sake do not shut the free school of the man. 
 
 I put it, therefore, to you, Mr. Chairman, to my friend here, and I 
 submit also to this Committee, while I recognize the necessity of a city, 
 while on a certain area and rmder certain circumstances the city govern- 
 ment is indispensable, that outside of that, " it is evil, and only evil, and 
 that continually." I do, therefore, submit to you that it is one deserv- 
 ing in this case of the remedy proposed. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I have said that the first evil we complain of, and 
 the main evil, is, that we do not live as we could wish in its amplest and 
 most perfect and best sense under a government of our own. And I 
 
32 
 
 should bo quite willing to leave it there instead of pursuing their present 
 condition into the practical consequences that follow it ; that is to say, 
 instead of going on to show you as a matter of fact that the want of self- 
 government in its best form shows that the mischief which might be 
 anticipated has really occurred, I should prefer to leave it on the general 
 view that the grant of self-government is best. But I feel bound to 
 bring to you one practical evil which results from the government 
 under which we live ; and that is exactly this as a matter of evidence in 
 this case, that whether with good reason, or without it, the fact on which 
 I have been insisting that upper Eoxbury is connected with and sub- 
 ject to lower Roxbury, under the form of a city government — that 
 fact does in reality vastly restrain the emigration of capitalists and 
 of others not capitalists, particularly, but persons of middling for- 
 tune ; persons who do their business in the city, but who would 
 esteem it as one of their greatest privileges if they could go out at night 
 and on Sunday and pass the time with their families in a quiet country 
 town, so near the city as is West Roxbury. The practical evil is that 
 the fact that we are thus connected with lower Roxbury, and are gov- 
 erned under the form of a city government, does operate and prevent 
 capitalists, great and small, from benefitting us and benefitting the pub- 
 lic, from availing themselves of the transcendent, but to some extent 
 unopened, natural beauty and wealth with which all that part of Roxbury 
 is filled. 
 
 I have now for a moment to call your attention to that great practical 
 evidence ; I do not mean to inquire whether it ought to have influence. 
 My learned friends have not met the difficulty. I do not mean to inquire 
 whether it is not just as well for people to move into Roxbury as to Somer- 
 ville, or Chelsea, or Cambridge, or Dedham. I do not mean to inquire 
 whether this union of Roxbury, upper and lower, and this government 
 by a city government, and these high taxes, ought or ought not to 
 prejudice and prevent people from coming in. I do not mean to inquire 
 whether city governments work any practical mischief at all ; I speak as 
 to the matter of fact. And I submit that it is perfectly certain that 
 such is the state of public opinion in this vicinity, opinion that we can- 
 not help and must recognize, such is the force and operation of opinion 
 
33 
 
 regarding this fonn of government, that it is practically and cruelly 
 restraining the growth and prosperity of West Roxbury. It will be for 
 you to say in view of such an opinion as this, no matter if it be sound 
 or unsound, whether it would not be unjust and cruel to leave us for 
 another hour under the subjection that we desire to avoid. 
 
 I follow my learned brother upon the proof ; and without folio win-, 
 him into detail, let me inquire what are the general results of the whole 
 matter in this behalf? Mr. Chainnan, we have called, in the first place 
 and It IS the evidence on which we mainly rely -I made it eleven wit- 
 nesses, but it may be only nine - from nine to eleven witnesses we have 
 from upper Roxbury, gentlemen of the highest respectability and intelli- 
 gence, many of them or some of them at times on the government of the 
 city, every one of them owning an amount of property above the average 
 every one of them interested in the prosperity of this place and in tlie 
 study of Its decline, every one of them persons who have diligently 
 ascertained the facts, who have offered lands repeatedly for sale, who 
 have conversed with persons who have wished to buy or sell, and who 
 know what their opinions are and what are the objections to investment 
 m this town. I submit that they have concurred in the strongest terms 
 m swearing that people will not buy and will not move upon that portion 
 of then- territory; and that the real and operating cause is the city .ov- 
 ernment. ° 
 
 I wiU mention the names of the witnesses cursorily. Mr Whitney 
 who IS a surveyor from lower Roxbury, by his residence not incUned to 
 lavor the petition, but by his profession intimately acquainted with the 
 ^bject ! Mr. Curtis, a large farmer, and the son of a large farmer ! 
 Mr. Wilhams, a native of Roxbuiy, and who loves Roxbmy better than 
 a new comer like Mr. Austin, but who expends S20,000 in an adjoining 
 town for the purpose of avoiding the city! Mr. Brown, for sometime an 
 A Idern^an of the city, and residing for a part of the time in Jamaica 
 Plams ! Mr. Cass, Mr. Cowring, Mr. Bradford, whose thorough exam- 
 ination entitles his opinion to respect, and my brother Austin, whose 
 presence and language have sufficiently entitled him to your considera. 
 tion. Every one of these concur in this testimony. 
 
34 
 
 Now, gentlemen, who they are and what they are, you know. I am 
 sure the evidence must have had its effect upon your minds. Time will 
 hardly admit of a thorough examination of it, and I beheve it is need- 
 less. For a sample only, and for the purpose of refreshing your own 
 memories touching certain matters of fact on which there can be no mis- 
 take and which tell this whole story, I will ask your coUsent to read the 
 testimony of two or three of them. 
 
 Mr. Williams declares himself to be a native of Koxbury, and that 
 his affections attach him to it. " Circumstances admonished me to pro- 
 vide for my own family. My son was a native, and for years a resident 
 of Koxbury. For the first years of his married life and his happiest 
 ones were passed there." What does Mr. "Williams do to make pro- 
 visions for his sons? He goes into Brookline and declares that he 
 bought a situation there for $10,000, for eight cents a foot, and gave it 
 to one of his sons. He purchased another for $11,000, for eleven cents 
 a foot, and apportioned it to his other son. Why did he go there ? 
 Was it nearer to Boston ? No ! Nearer to a railroad ? No ! Was it 
 cheaper ? No ! He could have bought as eligible a situation for two 
 cents a foot in West Roxbury. Why did he go to Brookline ? Because 
 it governed itself and had a town government. He related another fact 
 of a proposal from one capitalist to sell land to another. The situation 
 was satisfactory. The price was satisfactory. Yet he refused, for the 
 single reason that it was situated in West Roxbury, which was united to 
 the lower town by a city government ; and was also governed by the 
 lower town, a thing so objectionable to the agricultural tastes and habits. 
 
 Mr. Brown says that he has repeatedly offered lands for sale, and has 
 been met again and again with this objection of a city government. He 
 adds still further, " I have no doubt the city government is the cause 
 why we cannot sell ; I know persons of great wealth who have refused 
 to purchase from that cause." 
 
 Mr. Cass tells you that he has had a piece of land for sale for five 
 years. Brokers in Boston came out and looked at it. They liked 
 every thing. They liked the schools. They were pleased with the 
 neighborhood. They admired the society. But when they come to the 
 city government, it kills all. 
 
35 
 
 Mr. Bradford has examined this subject thoroughly. He says: "I 
 have urged capitalists to come and settle in Roxbury ; I urged in partic- 
 ular a friend of mine, a millionaire, who must leave Brookline, to come." 
 He conversed with Mr. Bradford on the subject of the advantages of the 
 locality. He heard the advantages, and then asked the objection. '« I 
 was obliged," says Mr. Bradford, " to mention the City Government, 
 and it was fatal instantly. It operated upon him as upon others." 
 
 I have read but a small part of the testimony. To what purpose have 
 I read this e%ddenee ? It is to show you by positive and direct proof, not 
 opinions, not opinions, that there exists out of Eoxbury a deep, prevar 
 lent, and settled objection to this connection, under this form, which, as 
 a matter of fact, prevents emigration and prevents investment. And it 
 proves it beyond all manner of controversy. It proves facts, not opinions 
 and controversies. It presents to you prices asked, refusal resolved on, 
 and the reasons given. It proves a public opinion, under which we 
 have found it utterly impossible to develop and avail om-selves of the 
 resources of the town. As much does this public opinion affect us as if 
 the town were b%hted by a local disease. 
 
 How do the remonstrants meet this? Have they called a solitary 
 broker or capitalist, large or little, who swears that he never heard such 
 an objection t» seUing in West Roxbury? Not one ! Here and there, 
 there was a remark thrown out upon the subject. I think we had one 
 from Mr. Plummer, who, speaking of this subject, said, that he should be 
 willing to pay this price or that price. But it turned out with him as with 
 Mr. Cass' customer — he liked every thing but the City Crovernment; and 
 that was fatal. So that, I repeat it, here exists an opinion under which 
 we are practically blighted to^Jay, as much so as if we lay under the 
 blight of a pestilential disease. I say, you have not shown a particle of 
 evidence that this opinion, of which our witnesses speak, is not held by 
 aU the capitalists of Boston. Not a particle of proof! Not one wit- 
 ness! To our eleven witnesses you have produced not one witness to 
 say that he never heard this as an objection to settling there. 
 Mr. Clark. Yes; five! 
 Mr. Choate. If my learned friend has discovered three, or four, or 
 
36 
 
 even five, it may possibly be that tliere are a few in Brookline, wbere there 
 is a large rivalry. Possibly that may be so. But the position that I 
 have submitted is this, that we have called nine or eleven witnesses af 
 the highest respectability, and consummate knowledge of this question, 
 proprietors of real estate in Roxbury, and students all their lives of the 
 causes of this decay, who have thoroughly explored the causes why those 
 estates will not sell, and who tell you that they have knowledge enough 
 to know that there exists a settled and general opinion, which prevents 
 investment and purchase there. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, what do the remonstrants undertake to say against 
 this proof ? They say that Roxbury has advanced somewhat as a whole. 
 Who doubts that ? On the very margin of rsuch a city as this, without 
 a river or a bridge to sever it from Boston, during the last ten years of 
 vast gi-owth to Boston itself, lying so as to receive the fii'st discharge of 
 the first overflow of this great central prosperity, it must flourish. This 
 fact affords not the slightest ground of evidence to control such testimony 
 as I have presented. Why, the worst government that God ever suf- 
 fered to stand upon the earth could not have retarded the growth of a 
 city in the position of Boxbury. The circumstances in which God has 
 placed it would do more to forward it than the folly of man could re- 
 tard it. Do they mean to say that notwithstanding this unfavorable state 
 of public opinion, that upper Roxbury has increased in population ? Do 
 they mean to say that it has improved, just as all around Boston has im- 
 proved, from Chelsea to Dorchester. I exclude Dorchester under its- 
 peculiar circumstances ? Do they mean to say that all these circum- 
 stances have enabled West Roxbury to keep pace in any degree propor- 
 tioned with any of our less beautiful, and less gifted portions of the 
 cities around us ? Not a word of it ! I respectfully submit that that is 
 the only questiop we have to consider ; and to that point the remon- 
 strants have showed nothing of proof. 
 
 I do not deny that Roxbury has improved. Some extraordinary evi- 
 dence was given. They said that its valuation was increased ; and they 
 put in the certificates of the assessors, by which they over-prove their case, 
 and show that these enhanced values ought every one of them to have 
 
37 
 
 been made by the town government, before the charter was given. They 
 say that every dollar of the additional amount assessed upon every one 
 of these farms, ought to have been thus valued when they took this 
 charter. And therefore the increase of the city valuation over that of the 
 town government does not show that there has been a rise of property. 
 I submit, that we put this matter reaUy beyond a particle of controversy. 
 The question I am considering is, whether a certain pernicious public 
 opinion, according to the testimony of these nine or eleven trustworthy 
 witnesses, does not pei^vade our due proportion of native residents of 
 the metropolis, to which proportion we should be entitled. On that 
 point, and in answer to my learned brother, I beg leave once more to call 
 your attention to the statement, read by my learned brother in his open- 
 ing, from the Evening Journal, edited, as you know, by a gentleman 
 who has just retired from his seat in the Legislature, as you are aware, 
 covered with the thanks of his constituents. He says it turns out that 
 there has been a " removal of some 20,000 of our native [Bostonian] 
 population to towns in the vicinity." That 20,000 would be a harvest 
 worth getting for Roxbury. He adds that "It is also worthy of note, 
 that very few who have left Boston for a residence in this vicinity appear 
 to have gone to Roxbury." 
 
 I answer the counsel by the testimony of the representative from Rox- 
 bury. I should be glad to verify this. Perhaps we might compare it 
 with the growth of neighboring towns. But such statistics are familiar 
 to you, and, I have no doubt, would be embodied in any report which 
 shall be presented by the Committee. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, aU this emigration, somewhat hideous and painful to 
 the native citizens of Boston, has not fallen on us in upper Roxbury. 
 Our fleece is dry, and that of all the rest is saturated with the refreshing 
 dew. What is the cause ? It is the practical evil of which we have 
 spoken. According to the testimony of these witnesses, all of whom 
 have paid great attention to the subject matter, lawyers, in some instan- 
 ces, all of them engaged in the investigation of facts throwing light on 
 this subject — in their opinion the cause is that a public sentiment has 
 deterred and disheartened numbers in consequence of a connection 
 3* 
 
38 
 
 which we pray you to sever, and a government which we beg you to 
 change. 
 
 What is their answer to this ? They govern, they say, very well. 
 To be sure, they outnumber us, but they govern us well. Now I am 
 aware that it is no better than mere trifling, to make such a reply. The 
 answer we make to that is : Suppose you do govern us very well, the 
 great fact remains that there exists a wide, real, and settled fear that you 
 do not govern well, or that you are likely to govern ill ; just as likely to 
 govern ill as well. And, therefore, whatever you think of yourselves, 
 people will not come in. That is the answer. A Canadian might as well 
 undertake to say that Canada was as well governed as the United States, 
 and that lands sell for as much there as here. 'That maybe the case in a 
 single year. But there are some facts which we value highly in connection 
 with our own government : there is the charm of liberty, the dread of 
 absolutism, the prestige that gathers around the stars and the stripes, 
 which go to make up a public opinion, just as much as if they were 
 connected with the worst legislation in the world. Public opinion is the 
 spring of growth, the arbiter of advancement. There can be no stagna- 
 tion where public opinion is healthy. " Opposmt natura." The 
 nature of things is against it. 
 
 Where there is a thronged and busy assemblage of persons, a city gov- 
 ernment is indispensable. Such has not our opposition. Therefore 
 I hold it is worthless and senseless to say, when we point out the neighbor- 
 ing towns gliding upon the waters, while we are stranding upon the beach, 
 when they are singing songs of glory, while we are chanting hymns to the 
 moon — I say it is useless to assert, in such a case, that we are well 
 governed. The difficulty still recurs. The difficulty still exists. It 
 may be a prejudice at last, but men do not undertake to " gather figs 
 from thorns, or grapes from" what they believe to be "thistles." I do not 
 undertake to admit that they do govern us in matter of fact. I cannot 
 help it, whether or no ; but we cannot get any body out of Roxbury to 
 believe it. We might swear ourselves as mad as the seven wise mas- 
 ters, and maintain it with all their folly that the government is good ; but 
 we cannot induce people to believe it. 
 
r39 
 
 Let nie call your attention to two or throe pretty striking general 
 facts, and I shall bring my remarks to a close. They found us with an 
 expenditure of S42,000, and have raised it to S 83, 000. They raise upon 
 the three upper wards, a tax of $22,000. The town of Brookline, with 
 its population of 2500 inhabitants, pays but SI 2,000. They found us 
 with a debt of $24,000, they have left us with a debt of $84,000. 
 
 Mr. Simmons. That is a mistake. 
 
 Mr. Choate. Including the cemetery, it is $84,000. Without the 
 cemetery, the debt is $48,000. You find us with the salaries of our offi- 
 cers amounting to $3,300 and leave us with them $5,293 a year. 
 
 Mr. Clark. That is not correct. 
 
 Mr. Austin. It is right. 
 
 Mr. Choate. It is correct. We include the police, which you have 
 omitted. You found us with a primitive power, a democratic power, and 
 a tax of $3,300 a year, and leave us with a tax of $5,293 annually for the 
 same purpose. I will not say, as Rousseau says to Voltaire, " Sir, you 
 have corrupted our little government, and I hate you." But you have 
 taken the happy village we had, and pay us, not in marble, as Augustus 
 did, not in games as Augustus did, not in stalls for the horses of the city 
 government, as my brother has just now boasted, but in exorbitant 
 taxation. 
 
 I go for good government, by itself, and I think a town government 
 is better for an agricultural district, better for the agriculturalist as a man, 
 and fits him better for all the offices in the Commonwealth. Make the 
 change we ask for, and Roxbury takes her place at once in the cucle of 
 prosperity that surrounds her. Capital and taste will add the beauties of 
 art to the beauties of nature. Capital and taste, in the persons of those 
 gentlemen whom the influence of Mr. Bradford and Mr. Williams invited 
 in vain, will then come to beautify and adorn, to blend the achievements 
 of art with the matchless performances of nature. 
 
 But my brother thinks we shall drive out the middling classes. I sub- 
 mit to you that over and above the millionaires, the humble settlers will 
 be directed this way by the Branch Railroad. These improvements, by 
 which the wise policy of your predecessors has enabled this community 
 
40 
 
 to avail themselves of their opportunities for taste and enjoyment, ■will 
 enable men who work all day in town to unite themselves to their fami- 
 lies at night and treat themselves to the country air. What that is worth, 
 I had occasion, before a former committee, to endeavor to explain. And 
 I have been so much struck by the inadequacy of my brother's view that 
 we come here only to invite the millionaire among us, that I have to ask 
 your attention to the fact that one of the best uses of this town will be 
 the moral influence which it will exert upon the not less useful, but 
 larger branch of society, the middling class. I had occasion, in advo- 
 cating the establishing of a Branch Railroad, as I have occasion in 
 argumg in favor of the establishment of this new home, to deal with 
 the moral uses of railways, and of legislation.' I beg leave, though it is 
 ordinarily bad taste, to read to you what I have once before said on this 
 subject. 
 
 ' ' But there is an element of consideration here highly important, of 
 which I have said nothmg yet. I hope I shall excite no smile when I 
 mention it. In appreciating the influence of railroads, we are apt to 
 look too much to their industrial effect, how much they add to our time 
 for labor, their relief to our tonnage, burdens, and the like, and to stop 
 there. But there are other views of not less moment to humanity and 
 civilization — their moral uses, and I beg to refer to the Westminster 
 Review for 1844, on this point. 
 
 " ' People confined to towns by then- daily avocations placed their chil- 
 dren to school in the country air — when they possessed pecuniary 
 means — except the strange anomalies of Westminster school, and suni- 
 lar establishments. The poor were fain to be content with the day school 
 or the parish school — free air was too great a luxury for them. The 
 church, the chapel, the lecture room, the concert room, the theatre, were 
 all reared in impure places and their uses confined to the inhabitants of 
 towns. All this is within remedy as the uses of the railway 
 BECOME DEVELOPED. Tlic poor man can have his accessible country 
 dwelling. Cliurches and chapels may he reared in beautiful spots, at 
 the confluence of lines of railway. Temples, worthy of man's nature, 
 where man may meet man in Christian equality ; where all benign influ- 
 
41 
 
 enees may be at work attracting but not compelling ; where architecture, 
 music, and painting, the beautiful in art, may combine with the beautiful 
 in nature.' " So far the Westminster Review. 
 
 We added, " Sir, the rich can take care of themselves in this respect, 
 and erect their elegant country seats in Brookline, and wherever they 
 please, and retire to them as often as they choose. But in my judgment 
 no use of railroads is more worthy to fix the attention of the Legislature, 
 and attract its favor, than this of enablino; the man of small means to 
 spend a portion of his time in the country, without prejudice to his means 
 of livelihood. The evils of living wholly confined to town can hardly 
 be appreciated by you, gentlemen, who have the advantage of residing 
 elsewhere ;. but you may have formed some idea of them from what you 
 have seen in winter. This road will give the man of limited income, 
 whose bread, and whose family living, depend upon his being in the 
 crowded haunts of trafiic during the greater part of the day, the chance 
 of spending his evenings, and his Sabbaths, in the pure and sweet air of 
 the country, in the midst of his household circle, on his own little spot 
 of ground, and yet enable him to be the next morning at his desk in the 
 counting house, or place in the workshop, with little or no increase of 
 cost. And I shall provoke no wise man's sneer when I say, that the 
 many clusters of quiet cottages and beautiful dwellmgs, which will spring 
 up along the line of our road, affording happy homes to the man of 
 business, delightful retreats to the wearied citizen, are of themselves no 
 small argument in favor of our petition. * * * I put it, sir, as one 
 great advantage, that we traverse this region of country to win it from 
 the wild flower, the wild bird, the night breezes of the sea, and make it 
 the pleasant abode of hundreds who would else seldom see any thing but 
 dusty streets, and forests of masts at the wharfs. And if health is bet- 
 ter than sickness, a full cheek than a sunken one, a bright, clear eye, 
 than one dim and clouded, a happy and uncorrupt heart better than one 
 tainted and debauched, and if our road shall be the means of bringing 
 these advantages to the tired and driven merchant, book keeper, or clerk, 
 in Kilby or Washington street, whose wildest dreams have never yet in- 
 dulged in the vision of a country seat of his own, the charter will not 
 have been granted, nor the road built, in vain." 
 
J 
 
 42 
 
 Give us, gentlemen, the government we seek, and this town will do 
 for Roxbury what, thus far, the matchless beauties of Roxbury herself 
 have been unable to do for herself Gentlemen, it will do more. It will 
 allay excitement ; it will re-open fountains of feeling ; it will enable 
 men to know who they are and what they are ; it will cover you with the 
 gratitude of thousands unknown to you by sight or name, with no vote to 
 honor or reward you, but who will yet thank you, and the government 
 for whom you act, for the performance of a great beneficent deed, I think 
 too long delayed. 
 
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