THE TRUE 
 
 Gommercial and Novenue Palin 
 
 OF 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
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 SPEECHES 
 
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 P HON. A“ K* MCCLURE, 
 
 ON THE ACT FOR THE 
 
 COMMUTATION OF TONNAGH DUTIES 
 
 UPON ALL THE 
 
 INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 Pen eS TEAST 
 DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF PENNSYLVANIA, 
 
 February 26th and 27th, 1861. 
 
 
 

 
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 37209 Taylor. 65 
 
 DELIVERED TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26x. 
 
 
 
 ~>es> 
 
 The first section of the bill entitled *‘An Act for the Com- 
 mutation of Tonnage Duties” having been read,— 
 
 Mr. Penny offered an amendment providing that the Governor 
 might restore the tax upon tonnage at any time that the Sinking 
 Fund might need the same to pay a certain portion of the debt. 
 
 Mr. McCuvureE said—The amendment now before the Senate 
 has already been considered and rejected by the members of 
 this body in committee of the whole. A gentleman so intelli- 
 gent and so familiar with all the details of State policy can 
 scarcely have mistaken the manifest purpose of the original 
 section to afford the State the amplest protection. We do not 
 
 ‘ propose to surrender the right to tax the Pennsylvania Railroad 
 
 in any legitimate way, including a tax upon tonnage. ‘The bill 
 expressly provides that the State may re-impose this tax should 
 any necessity arise for it; but it does very properly prohibit an 
 unjust discrimination against the trade of any particular section 
 of the Commonwealth. There is no reason why the man who 
 ships the products of his industry to or from Pittsburgh shall 
 pay a direct tax to the State for the privilege, while the citizens 
 of every other section have their avenues of transportation 
 to both our own and foreign cities free from such restrictions. 
 
 There is no equality in such a system of taxation, and on no 
 
 (3) 
 
4 
 
 sound principles of State policy can it be justified. I doubt 
 not that the Senator from Allegheny fully comprehends and 
 appreciates this glaring inequality; and yet without proposing 
 to make this tax general, so that it might fall with exact justice 
 upon all our people, he earnestly contends for the taxation of a 
 single route, and that one, the great artery designed to give 
 fresh life and increased greatness to our leading commercial 
 cities. 
 
 The time may come when the State must look for extraordi- 
 nary revenue; and this bill protects the interests of the Com- 
 monwealth fully. Should such a contingency arise, then let the 
 whole tonnage of the State pay tribute to the treasury; and 
 however at war with an enlightened commercial policy, we will be 
 at least just to every portion of our people. But should that 
 dark day dawn upon us, let none other than the legitimate taxing 
 power perform this task. I object to vesting the Executive 
 with the dangerous authority to impose taxes by proclamation. 
 To the Legislature, and to it alone, should that delicate power be 
 entrusted; and as it has been wisely placed there, it must not 
 be disturbed. Our “broad acres’ —a most familiar expression— 
 are not in danger of onerous taxation as long as we have pros- 
 perous corporate interests ever adding to their own wealth and 
 to that of the State. A legislature coming directly from the 
 people, will exhaust all other resources before increasing the 
 burdens on our agriculture. Let this tax be reinstated, if ever, 
 by the legitimate taxing power of the Commonwealth; and for 
 this we propose to make complete provision in the bill. 
 
 While upon the floor I will allude to another point. It is 
 urged persistently that we are about to relieve a great corpora- 
 tion. Such is not the purpose, nor will such be the main result 
 of this bill. J ask that those of my constituents, and the con- 
 stituents of other Senators who wish to expand the dark cloud 
 
5 
 
 that rises over the manufactories of Allegheny by pouring 
 thither the rich fruits of their capital and industry, shall not pay 
 a direct tax for the privilege of doing so. Every ton of iron 
 from my own immediate section of the State that seeks a market 
 in Pittsburg, must pay from eighty cents to one dollar of a direct 
 and arbitrary tax for the mere right of transit over our own soil. 
 The Railroad Company does not pay it. It falls directly upon 
 the producers whose misfortune it is to live in a particular sec- 
 tion, while all others are entirely free. It restricts the commerce 
 of our own State, and cripples the energies of our own people. 
 Ohio and other Western States can pour into Pittsburg their mine- 
 ral wealth and produce, free from all such taxation; but to be a 
 citizen of Pennsylvania, and engaged in converting her vast 
 resources, exposes one to the discrimination of our laws against 
 our own trade. That the Senator from Allegheny should sus- 
 tain a policy so fatal to the thrift of his own constituents, and 
 sO oppressive upon every one who seeks a market at his home, 
 is truly amazing. That he should stand upon the floor of the 
 Senate, speaking for the second city of the State, and demand 
 that all who would add to its wealth and greatness by their 
 trade, must pay a direct tribute if they transport upon our own 
 soil, while every other channel is free, is strangely incompatible 
 with his wide-spread and just reputation for liberal and enlight- 
 ened views. ‘The principle cannot be justified save as an 
 extreme measure for revenue; and if the revenue were a neces- 
 sity, it should be collected with some degree of equality from 
 all. A single branch of industry, conducted by a few men, in 
 a county near to this capital, pays over $25,000 annually of this 
 tax, and for what? For the right to carry the fruits of their 
 energy to the city of Pittsburg, there to compete with the 
 energy of other ‘States who reach the market without such 
 
 imposition. Is this equality in taxation? Is it just? Is it a 
 
6 
 
 wise policy for Pennsylvania to pursue towards her own enter- 
 prise? We have vast natural advantages. We have a popula- 
 tion eminent for its industry and thrift—a people who have made 
 the State mighty in defiance of her illiberal laws; but I submit 
 whether the day has not come when they shall be permitted to 
 develop the resources of the State without being crippled by 
 the strong arm of the Government. Do you want revenue? If 
 so, should it be imposed upon all branches of our industry, or 
 should it fall with unequal and crushing harshness upon those 
 who develop your fair fields and exhaustless mines? This is 
 the true position; and I regret to see the distinguished Senator 
 from Allegheny so far forget the interests of his own city and 
 State, as to demand that a tax shall be imposed upon our inter- 
 nal commerce—upon that which has reared his city into great- 
 ness, and made his State-an empire within herself—when in all 
 the world beside it hes been abandoned. 
 
 New York once taxed her commerce and made it pay tribute 
 to the State for the privilege of enhancing the greatness of the 
 Commonwealth. She said by her statutes—these are vast cor- 
 porations; they have abundant means; our people must employ 
 them, and they shall, therefore, enrich the treasury. But when 
 Pennsylvania opened a great trunk line, piercing the teeming 
 bounty of the West, and appeared as a competitor in the prairie 
 marts of commerce, proposing to bring its golden fruits to a 
 rival State, and her seaport city, New York did not hesitate as 
 to her policy. Her legislature did not tremble lest some nar- 
 row prejudice should overthrow a small man here and there. 
 Whenever our iron horse shrieked his wild song over the Alle- 
 ghenies, New York treated it as a great question of State 
 interest; and although her Erie Canal runs parallel with her 
 railroads, the tax upon tonnage was promptly and uncondition- 
 
 ally repealed. She declared at once that her internal commerce 
 
, 
 
 should be free; and thus our natural advantages in distance 
 were destroyed, and fair competition upon the part of Pennsy]- 
 vania rendered impossible. Was New York right? Look at 
 her commerce to-day, and then glance at ours. The one 
 advances with the rapid progress of the country, the other lan- 
 guishes in the midst of growmg greatness and multiplying 
 wealth. And why? Pennsylvania, always her own most dan- 
 gerous foe, turns upon her own energies with suicidal hands by 
 imposing unjust discriminations upon her own people, while New 
 York invites the wealth of the continent to her citizens by a 
 generous policy. New York could afford to tax her own com- 
 merce while she enjoyed a monopoly in the means of transit; 
 but m 1851, when Pennsylvania, by a through line, unsurpassed 
 by any other in the Union, reached out for the wealth of the 
 West, the Empire State unshackled her energies, and until now 
 we have had an unequal struggle because of our own illib- 
 erality. | : 
 
 We ask to-day that it shall be stricken off upon terms amply 
 protecting the revenue of the State, and making positive pro- 
 vision for the speedy payment of our crushing debt; and we are 
 answered that we are legislating for a corporation. When 
 great States are struggling for the commerce of a continent, 
 and millions have been invested by our own people to make 
 Pennsylvania second to no other State in progressive prosperity, 
 instead of granting equality with rivals to our enterprise, Sen- 
 ators stand upon political or other petty prejudices, and insist 
 that we must not cease to tax this corporation. Such an argu- 
 ment, if it may be so dignified, is unworthy of the representa- 
 tives of an enlightened people. The Railroad never paid this 
 tax out of its treasury. It is paid by every man who trans- 
 ports a barrel of flour, a sack of corn, a bushel of wheat, or a_ 
 ton of iron, or any other of the products of our industry, and 
 
8 
 
 it is nothing more or less than a direct tribute demanded by a 
 State from its own citizens for the right to reach a home mar- 
 ket. We propose not that the Railroad shall be relieved from 
 it, but that our producers shall cease to pay it until it may 
 become necessary, if ever, to impose it equally upon all. We 
 require by this bill that the Railroad Company shall reduce 
 their rates, from their present tariff, exactly the amount of this 
 tax; and whatever may be the mutations of trade, they can 
 never advance their charges. Who shall profit by this change 
 —the Railroad or the people? This is the correct, the truthful 
 view of the question of a tax upon tonnage; and no Senator 
 has attempted to refute it. No one has ventured to say that it 
 is a wise commercial policy to impose this tax, and especially 
 can no Senator justify it when it is levied unequally. I appeal to 
 the distinguished Senator from Allegheny, (Mr. Penny,) whether 
 this restriction is either just or wise—whether it is not a fatal 
 discrimination against his own city, and an onerous burden upon 
 every citizen of Pennsylvania who looks to his home for a mar- 
 ket? I call upon him to answer whether it is not shackling our 
 vast interests, and binding the energies of our people who must 
 pay this tax? Look at Pennsylvania! On the North are two 
 great trunk lines of railroad traversing the Empire State from 
 her commercial emporium westward, tapping the rich treasures 
 of the Lakes, and connecting also with a perfect net-work of 
 railroads, all of which come laden with the offerings of a thou- 
 sand channels of industry. ‘These lines are all free from com- 
 mercial restrictions of every kind; and the giant freight route 
 has received liberally of the direct bounty of the Empire State 
 to construct it. New York gave four millions to complete the 
 Erie Railroad, and it has repaid that bounty by pouring almost 
 countless wealth into the lap of her commerce; by rearing cities 
 and villages and golden fields where there was but an unbroken 
 
9 
 
 wilderness before, and by adding two hundred millions to the 
 taxable property of the State. 
 
 Turn further North, and you will find that while the boasted 
 liberal government of the world has been quibbling with corpo- 
 rate exterprise, England has stretched out her strong arm, and is 
 now a most dangerous competitor for the commerce of the West. 
 She has constructed a trunk line from Montreal along the St. 
 Lawrence, tapping all the Lakes, and running into Detroit and 
 Chicago, the heart of Western wealth, and she will there give 
 you a bill of lading clear through to Liverpool. She can take 
 the produce of the West to Montreal, thence to Portland, and 
 thence to Boston and New York, almost if not quite for the same 
 cost that our direct routes can carryit. Why? Because when 
 England saw New York taxing her corporate wealth, and Penn- 
 sylvania taxing both associated wealth and tonnage, she con- 
 structed the Canada line without imposing a tax of any kind, 
 not even upon real estate, rolling stock, bonds or anything 
 else. ‘Turn South of us, and the Baltimore and Ohio winds its 
 tortuous path over the Blue Ridge and Alleghenies, and returns 
 to the third commercial city of the Union laden with the pro- 
 duce of the West. No illiberal State enactment demands that 
 it must pay tribute to the treasury of Maryland for every ton 
 of goods it can bring within the State, or that every citizen of 
 Maryland who developes a field or a mine, or rears a factory, 
 shall pay taxes to the State for the privilege of going to a home 
 market. In the centre of these competing routes stands Penn- 
 sylvania. In agricultural wealth second to none of her rival 
 States, and greatly surpassing them in the richness and bounty 
 of her minerals—with vast natural advantages in distance in 
 competing for the commerce of the West, and with the second 
 city of the Union reared on our Atlantic coast, we interpose 
 illiberal legislation, and declare that the advantages bestowed 
 
10 
 
 upon us by a beneficent Creator shall be more than wasted by 
 an unequal tax upon the thrift of our own people. We adhere 
 to this policy against the judgment of the civilized world, against 
 all the interests of industrial progress, and against all the lights 
 of experience and reason. Why does not England impose a tax 
 upon her tonnage in Canada? Why does not New York gather 
 millions from her two great trunk lines by a similar tax? Why 
 does not Maryland enrich her treasury in the same way? Sim- 
 ply because it would be paralyzing their own energies, wasting 
 their respective commercial advantages, and unequally taxing 
 their own producers. : 
 Certainly the time has come when Pennsylvania should take 
 broad and liberal views of this question. If it were an issue 
 affecting only the railroad corporation, proposing to relieve it 
 and transfer the burdens to the people, I should go hand in 
 hand with the Senator from Allegheny; I should resist the 
 measure with all the energy and feeble power I possess. But 
 when this tax is thrown, with glaring inequality, upon our own 
 citizens, crippling our own energies, and making every evidence 
 of thrift pay tribute as it passes from our mines and fields and 
 factories to our emporium of trade, I say it is wrong, fatally 
 wrong, to our people and to our commerce. Such is the de- 
 liberate judgment of an overwhelming majority of this Senate, 
 and I know that many admit the wisdom of the policy who bow 
 before narrow prejudices, and will record their votes against it. 
 It is not for me to question the propriety of thus discharging 
 the solemn duty of a legislator; but for myself, knowing that 
 the measure is in accordance with the progress of the age, just, 
 and even liberal to the State, and inaugurating the freedom 
 of our internal commerce, and the equality of taxation, I hesi- 
 tate not to vindicate it, feeling fully assured that it will stand 
 the test of time. It is a measure that will be commended by 
 
11 
 
 the intelligent judgment of all parties and all sections, when 
 the prejudices of the day, with the men who bowed to them, 
 shall have passed into forgetfulness. Then will our natural 
 advantages, unrestricted by unequal laws, rapidly multiply our 
 material wealth; Philadelphia will then receive her just reward 
 for her liberal development of the State, as her commerce 
 gathers the choicest fruits of our Western Empires; and our 
 mighty Commonwealth will stand side by side with New York 
 and Maryland, with her energies unshackled, her resources 
 unrestricted, her home market free to all, and her growing 
 greatness surpassing all her rivals. The people of Allegheny 
 will then cease to tremble at the name of a corporation, when, 
 in spite of her Senators, the expanding interests of her leading 
 city shall be advanced by giving her the products of our own 
 enterprise, on the same terms she receives the wealth of Ohio 
 and other States. I am willing that her people shall judge 
 between her confessedly able but, as I believe, prejudiced Sena- 
 tor and myself; and with them alone, deep-seated as may now be 
 their prejudices, I would be content to trust the complete vindi- 
 cation of the vote I shall cast on this momentuous issue. 
 
 I submit, sir, whether these are not views becoming men 
 representing a great Commonwealth. They may not suit some 
 convictions created by local interests, or local struggles, or 
 local hatreds; but they are just, and to justice all our prejudices 
 must yield at last. Weshould remember that we are legislating 
 for a State teeming with beauty and richness, and for a people 
 _ who are pleading to their local and general governments for the 
 privilege of developing our greatness. They ask that when 
 their industry has made a new field to bloom, or a new mine to 
 give forth its wealth, they shall have the right of transit over 
 their own thoroughfare to their home market, without an arbi- 
 trary and, at times, a prohibitory tax being imposed on them. 
 
12 
 
 But the Senator from Allegheny answers practically :—‘“‘I 
 represent the second commercial city of the State—my con- 
 stituents want the fruits of your energy to enrich them; but, 
 while to the citizens of other States our capitalists have opened 
 free avenues of transportation, every Pennsylvanian must pay 
 an unequal tribute before he enters there.” | 
 [The question was then further discussed, in opposition to the 
 bill, by Messrs. Penny, Morr and Bounp. ] 
 Mr. McCiure—Perhaps a word of explanation is due to 
 myself, as well as a word of admonition to the Senator from 
 Northumberland, (Mr. Bounp.) It is charged by that impetu- 
 ous Senator, that this principle of unrestrained commerce is but 
 an invention to plunder the State, and impose new burdens upon 
 the people. He seems to have brought to the Senate all the 
 ardor, and only too much of the recklessness, of the stump; 
 and when he sweeps such indiscriminate denunciation upon all 
 who happen to be more liberal than himself, I think it well to 
 remind him how harshly his own words will sound when he 
 sees the full extent of their aim. I beg to remind him that 
 the removal of the tax upon tonnage is not a novel doctrine. 
 \t is taught by every State to-day but our own, and it has been 
 urged upon Pennsylvania by many of our best men. I remem- 
 ber, sir, that six years ago, there was a man presiding over the 
 destinies of this Commonwealth, confessedly pure in purpose, 
 irreproachably honest in all his acts, and a man whose wise 
 statesmanship and intimate familiarity with all questions of 
 State policy, made him second to none in our Commonwealth. 
 Under his administration a bill was passed for the sale of the 
 main line of our public improvements, to which he gave his 
 prompt and cordial approval. When, in pursuance of the law, 
 he exposed the main line to sale, one of the Canal Commis- 
 
 sioners, slow to surrender so rich a channel of peculation, had 
 
13 
 
 tested the constitutionality of the act, and one of its sections 
 had been declared unconstitutional. That section repealed the 
 tax upon tonnage in case the Pennsylvania Railroad Company 
 became the purchaser, at one and a half millions more than the 
 maximum price to other purchasers. To this the Supreme 
 Court did not interpose any objection; but the section went so 
 far as to release the Railroad Company from all taxes upon 
 its property for State purposes, and on this point the sec- 
 tion was declared null and void, and I think very properly. 
 The works were then offered for sale by the Executive with- 
 out the right to release any taxes under the bill, and the 
 Railroad Company refused to become the purchaser. It 
 was well known that no man, or association of men, except 
 the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, could or would buy the 
 main line for $7,500,000. The Executive, therefore, gave his 
 pledge to the Company that if it should become the purchaser 
 of the main line, and thus arrest the plundering of our treasury 
 by a swarm of vampires under the Canal Board, he should 
 give the force of his official position in favor of the repeal of 
 the tonnage tax, inasmuch as by the sale of our improvements 
 the necessity that created it would cease. I refer to Hon. 
 JAMES PoLLock, the preceptor and law-partner of the youthful 
 Senator from Northumberland. ‘True to that pledge, Gov. Pot- 
 LOCK strongly urged the removal of the tonnage tax, in his next 
 annual message, and he took precisely the same view of the 
 question that I have taken to-night—a view which every man 
 who claims to have a liberal and enlightened appreciation of the 
 interests of Pennsylvania should take to-day, and which in a 
 few years the Senator from Northumberland would blush to 
 dispute. I read from Gov. PoLLock’s annual message of Janu- 
 ary 6, 1858: 
 
14 
 
 ‘‘ The law incorporating the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, 
 imposed a tax of three mills per ton per mile on all tonnage 
 passing over that road, as an equivalent for any decrease in 
 the revenues of the Commonwealth that might arise from the 
 anticipated competition of the road with the business of the 
 main line of the public improvements. ‘This tax is not imposed 
 upon the Company, but upon the tonnage, and is paid by the 
 owners of the freight transported over the road, the Company 
 acting as agents in its collection and payment to the State. It 
 is virtually a tax upon the trade and commerce of the Common- 
 wealth, and upon the commerce of other States whose produc- 
 tions seek an eastern market over this road; and thus, by 
 increasing the rate of charges and the cost of transportation, 
 the produce of the West is forced upon the competing railroads 
 of other States, and to other markets than our own. The 
 necessity that. required this tax, as regards the Commonwealth 
 and her improvements, has ceased. Its continuance can only 
 be justified as a revenue measure. It should be the policy of 
 the State to invite the transmission of the products of other 
 States through her territory, to her own markets; and, there- 
 fore, the propriety of relieving the trade and business of the 
 Commonwealth and country from this tax upon it, is respect- 
 fully submitted for your consideration.” 
 
 Thus did he redeem his plighted faith to the purchaser of the 
 main line. True, he was in advance of the sentiment of the 
 State, or rather, he arose above the prejudices of a large por- 
 tion of the people; but because he proposed an enlightened and 
 just policy, was it said that he was the creature of a corpo- 
 ration, or a tool of the lobby? I regret that the Senator from 
 Northumberland has not profited by the precepts of one who, 
 
 in all kindness permit me to say, was competent to advise him— 
 
15 
 
 competent also to teach him that men are not to be arraigned 
 as faithless to the State because they choose to advance while 
 he prefers to stand still. Gov. PoLtLock did not adopt his views 
 hastily. He did so after mature deliberation, and his faith to 
 the purchaser of the public works was but the offspring of a 
 settled conviction that the reasons for imposing the tax had 
 ceased; that it was an unequal ‘and onerous restriction upon 
 our own people; that it was a tax upon our own commerce, and 
 a discrimination in favor of rival States and rival cities; and he 
 asked that Pennsylvania should cease to paralyze herself— 
 should withhold her strong arm from suicidal blows upon her 
 own industry. 
 
 Equally fallacious is the assumption of the Senator from 
 Northumberland, that the Company is to pocket the accrued 
 tax. It has been collected wrongfully, and after the State had 
 enacted its repeal. The Company have litigated it, and it is 
 still in litigation; and as to the tax on through freight, I think 
 it clearly unconstitutional. The Company does not propose to 
 put it into its own coffers. The bill before us appropriates it to 
 the completion of certain railroads leading to the main line of 
 the road, and I think very properly. It proposes to refund it 
 to the very people who have paid it, by opening new channels 
 for the development of their wealth. This money has been 
 taken from them unjustly, after the faith of the State was vir- 
 tually given that it should cease; and it can be returned to them 
 in no way so equally and justly as by opening new avenues of 
 transportation, which enhance the general prosperity of the 
 whole community. 
 
 Sir, as I have before said in the course of the debate this 
 evening, there are not five Senators on this floor who pretend 
 to justify a tax upon tonnage. I put the question directly to 
 the senior Senator from Allegheny, (Mr. PENnny,) whether it is 
 
16 
 
 not an unwise and illiberal policy, and he has not ventured to 
 answer. Indeed, this main point, the very heart of the issue, 
 has been studiously evaded by the Senators who resist the 
 repeal. They threaten us with a depleted treasury and 
 increased taxes, evidently unmindful of the fact that since the 
 sale of the main line in 1857 we have had no revenue whatever 
 from this tax—for its payment has been resisted on legal 
 grounds—and yet we have never before in the same time paid 
 half so much of the State debt, and our State taxes have been 
 reduced to two and a half mills. 
 
 The sale of the main line was resisted by the same arguments 
 we have heard to-night. Impending ruin was pictured with all 
 the zeal of the Senator from Northumberland; but what does 
 the history of four years teach? The man now who should 
 propose to restore the improvements to the State, and have a 
 Canal Board, with its horde of plunderers running riot on them, 
 would be regarded as insane. The name of Gov. POLLOCK 
 will be cherished by our tax-payers as one of the State’s 
 noblest benefactors for disposing of those works; and when 
 the full faith of that measure shall reach fruition, by removing 
 the unjust restrictions upon our commerce and our industry, 
 Pennsylvania will stand forth among the States of the Con- 
 federacy with her mighty energies unshackled, second to none 
 in greatness, and surpassing all in internal wealth and substan- 
 
 tial prosperity. 
 
DELIVERED WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27rx, 1861. 
 
 a 
 
 The Senator from Berks (Mr. Clymer) has certainly achieved 
 a brilliant success in greatly astounding himself; and I risk 
 little in saying that he should be prepared for another sensation 
 when he shall discover how seriously and how strangely he has 
 erred. Ido not mean that he has erred in any matters of theory, 
 or of judgment, or of State policy—for such errors I was fully 
 prepared, and meant to excuse them; but when so learned a 
 Senator as the gentleman from Berks defies stubborn facts and 
 the simplest rules of arithmetic, I scarcely know how, even in 
 charity, to reconcile his remarks with his claims to frankness 
 and intelligence. I believe that he meant to fight this bill 
 fairly. I do not question the sincerity of his convictions in 
 resisting this measure; but he has manifestly studied the 
 question—his array of tables and calculations, so often ap- 
 pealed to in support of his position, gives evidence that he 
 has exhausted his mathematics to swell the tide of ruin that 
 is to overwhelm us when the bill shall become a law. It is 
 but fair, therefore, on a question so momentous in its results, 
 to hold him to a strict accountability for his startling declara- 
 tions; and I shall leave to him the task of explaining how he 
 has reared for himself such a frightful monument of blunders. 
 
 He seems to have resolved upon the sensation style of oratory 
 
 (17) 
 
18 
 
 —a style perhaps well adapted to his clarion voice and his 
 admiring constituents when clustered around the hustings—but 
 the Pennsylvania Senate owes higher and holier duties to a 
 Commonwealth than tickling antiquated fancies or resisting true 
 and enlightened progress by perverting facts and figures. He 
 was most unfortunate in his very starting point. I was amazed 
 at his positive declaration that we had sacrificed millions of 
 revenue by the construction of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and 
 was lost in wonder as to where he meant to rest a pretext for 
 the assumption. At last the explanation came, and the right 
 of way of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad through a portion 
 of our State westward was the canvas on which the thrilling 
 picture of wrong to Pennsylvania was painted. And what is it 
 when reduced to simple, unvarnished truth? As the first legis- 
 lation was had before I was born, the Senator from Berks will 
 excuse any want of details; but the main facts are few and easily 
 understood. In 1827 the Legislature of this State granted the 
 Baltimore and Ohio Railroad the right of way over our soil; and 
 asit was the corporation of a rival State, aiming to build up a rival 
 commercial city, a tax was imposed, by the terms of the charter, 
 upon its tonnage, and perhaps upon its passengers. ‘This would 
 doubtless have been a fruitful source of revenue to our treasury, 
 but for the simple fact that the corporators or stockholders de- 
 clined to accept it. But how the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- 
 pany, then nearly a quarter of a century in the future and un- 
 thought of by any one, is now to be held responsible for that 
 loss, will certainly be difficult of satisfactory explanation. It 
 is true that in later years the charter was renewed to the Balti- 
 more and Ohio, and it is also true that when the Central Road 
 was Incorporated it was enacted that if a certain portion of the 
 Central route should be completed within a given time, the 
 right of way for the Maryland Road would then cease. But 
 
19 
 
 the Senator from Berks cannot be ignorant of the fact that 
 since the construction of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Le- 
 gislature has chartered a Company to occupy precisely the 
 same route as that asked for by the Baltimore and Ohio, lead- 
 ing directly through a portion of our State into Baltimore, 
 without imposing a farthing of tax either upon tonnage or 
 passengers, and the corporation is bankrupt, and the road has 
 never been made. This is the brilliant revenue scheme that 
 has been blasted, according to the theory of the Senator from 
 Berks—a road that no one will build, whose stock is valueless, 
 and whose bonds are worthless. I need hardly say that I refer 
 to the Connellsville Road. 
 
 Mr. CtymMer—Do I understand the Senator to say that in 
 the act incorporating the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, or 
 giving it the right of way, there was no tonnage tax imposed? 
 Do I understand him to say further that there was no tax upon 
 passengers ¢ 
 
 Mr. McCiurE—I certainly said no such thing. I stated, I 
 think distinctly, that a charter was given, and a tax imposed 
 upon tonnage, and it may be upon passengers; but the people 
 of Baltimore never accepted it. They were too wise—they 
 looked too carefully to the interests of their commercial city, 
 thus to trammel the trade that entered their sea-port; and, in 
 after years, when our own Legislature re-chartered the same 
 route to a Pennsylvania company, to carry the produce of our 
 own people to a foreign city, no tax of any kind was imposed. 
 I trust the gentleman understands menow. His grand revenue 
 bubble has been pierced, and it wastes into nothingness. The 
 untold millions of revenue which he insisted we had bargained 
 away, in order to construct the Pennsylvania Railroad, proves 
 to be the offerings of a road that Baltimore twice refused to 
 make, and Pennsylvania still refuses to make, and ‘that has 
 
20 
 
 given bankruptcy to all who attempted to bring it into life, 
 although it is free from all restrictions upon tonnage and 
 travel. 
 
 Let me here suggest to the Senator from Berks how his elo- 
 quence might have appealed to this Senate with all the power 
 of justice. Relying upon his premises as harmonizing with a 
 correct State policy, he should have gone farther than merely 
 to demand that the transporters on the Pennsylvania Railroad 
 shall pay a tax to the State. I can appreciate his flattering 
 encomiums, lavished upon his own immediate constituents. I 
 concede even that they might raise their hands and thank God 
 that they are not as other men—that they are not radical, reck- 
 less innovators. But when we come to the question of taxation, 
 looking to that equality that is due from the government to 
 every class and section of our people, I cannot understand why 
 a ton of goods must pay a tax when it passes through Lancaster 
 to Philadelphia, and why it must go free if it passes through 
 the County of Berks. Upon this point the Senator was strangely 
 remiss. In his almost frantic energy in advocating a tax upon 
 tonnage, he should not have forgotten that equal and exact 
 justice to all, in imposing the burdens of the State, is one of 
 the first duties of the Legislature. When he leaves his beautiful 
 City of Reading for the commercial emporium of the Common- 
 wealth, he passes over a road, running through the fruitful 
 farms of his constituents, that has a capital considerably greater 
 than that of the monster corporation that has thrown him into 
 such violent paroxysms on this floor to-night; that pays less 
 than one-third the ordinary taxes to the treasury paid by the 
 Central Road; and yet it has never paid a farthing of tax upon 
 its tonnage. Can he inform this Senate why the farmer, factor, 
 or miner, who lives in the interior or western part of the 
 State, along the Pennsylvania Railroad, must pay a tribute to 
 
21 
 
 the treasury for the right to reach a home market, while the 
 farmer, factor, or miner, of Lebanon, Berks, Schuylkill, &c., are 
 untaxed? Suppose that we should, to-day, impose a tax upon 
 the tonnage of the Reading Road, upon the more than two 
 millions of tons of coal it annually carries to market, as well as 
 the rich harvests of the farms, and the fruits of the furnaces 
 and factories, which have no other channel for transportation. 
 In the present depressed condition of our industry it would 
 beggar a thousand homes, and paralyse countless energy and 
 capital. If we should adopt the policy of the Senator from 
 Berks, he surely could not resist its general application; and if 
 we were to impose this tax upon the industry of his own people, 
 he could not return to his constituents. Yet, what answer could 
 he make to their lamentations? He could only say that he 
 advocated the doctrine of taxing the energies of the people of the 
 State, and that the State had accepted his theory—that it had 
 not wronged his people, but had been just to them. Do I err in 
 this? If I had digged a pit and fallen into it on this question, 
 by appealing to the passions or prejudices of my own people, I 
 should, I think, at least be silent when one portion of the State 
 asks merely to be placed upon terms of equality with those I 
 represent; or if silence would not answer, I would say boldly— 
 tax my own constituents, tax all, for all should pay alike. Is 
 the Senator from Berks prepared for this? If so, he is con- 
 sistent, and he should to-morrow bring in a bill to tax the thrift 
 and sinews of his admired and admiring constituents. If he is 
 not prepared for such a law, how in the name of justice can he 
 demand that this unequal restriction shall be imposed upon 
 others? Nor does the force of his argument end here. We not 
 only tax the tonnage of our own farms and mines transported 
 to or from any point between Harrisburg and Pittsburg, while 
 all our other lines leading to Philadelphia are free; but we have 
 
22 
 
 opened a direct route to New York from this place, over which 
 our produce can be carried free to a rival city, while it is taxed 
 if it goes through Lancaster to our own great emporium of 
 trade. Is this just to Philadelphia? Is it just to our own pro- 
 ducers? Is it just to the State? The tax upon tonnage is 
 either right and should be universal, or it is not right and should 
 be abandoned. KEspecially should we not discriminate against 
 lines leading to our own city, or in other words make our trade 
 to a foreign city free, while itis taxed when it comes to enrich 
 our own State and people. Can the Senator from Berks, 
 representing as he does a constituency that has free transpor- 
 tation, reconcile his opposition to this bill with that golden rule 
 that bids him do unto others as he would have them do unto 
 him ? 
 
 I must here refer, in plain, practical terms, to a point that 
 has elicited the bitterest denunciation from the Senator from 
 Berks. He insists that we will diminish the revenues of the 
 State by commuting the tonnage tax. Our revenues would 
 certainly be greater with such a tax than without it, and if 
 imposed equally upon Berks and Dauphin, Franklin and West- 
 moreland, would be much greater still. But it must be remem- 
 bered that we have had no revenue from this source for three 
 years, and the State was never more prosperous. It is, there- 
 fore, not now a necessity; and we provide in this bill that if it 
 shall ever become a necessity, it must be reinstated on the 
 Pennsylvania Railroad, and be also levied upon the Reading 
 and other roads. Then it will be just, however unwise may be 
 the policy. But the great issue is above the question of reve- 
 nue. Shall Pennsylvania be paralyzed in her energies in a 
 great struggle for the wealth of a continent, by unequal taxes 
 imposed upon her own capital, her own energy, her own in- 
 dustry? Shall she stand still while all the world moves on? 
 
23 
 
 Shall she be as a giant, bound hand and foot, while on every 
 side of us the liberal teachings of experience have given new 
 impulses to every tide of wealth, and enlightened legislation 
 has gathered to rival commercial marts around us that which a 
 beneficent God marked on this great map of nature as the 
 tribute of our Western Empires to Pennsylvania? It may, in 
 time, effect a million of direct revenue, or ten millions if you 
 please, while, in the same period, its removal will enrich our 
 commerce, and our producers of every kind, and add scores of 
 millions to the taxable wealth of the State. The construction 
 of the Pennsylvania Railroad has, in ten years, added fifty 
 millions to our taxable property along its line; and, in addi- 
 tion, it pays in legitimate taxes, independent of tonnage duties, 
 what is the interest of nearly two millions of our debt. For 
 this it is treated as a monster and acurse. It pays more direct 
 taxes for State purposes in ten years than the whole County of 
 Berks has paid in the last century. Still it is to be regarded 
 as a mere beast of burden to the State, while every other rail- 
 road is incorporated on the principles now recognised by all 
 other States, and all other enlightened nations. If it be for 
 revenue, remember it is thrown directly upon the strong arms 
 of your own sons, who make your forests wave with golden 
 harvests—your mountains yield up their exhaustless riches— 
 who start the hum of your spindles, and the rude music of 
 your forges—who rear your schools and churches, and scatter, 
 in wild profusion, the beauty and bounty of progressive civiliza- 
 tion. And it falls upon them unequally, and therein, at least, 
 unjustly. It falls upon them, too, not for their own benefit, 
 but for the benefit of the competing energy of rival cities—of 
 rival States—of rival thoroughfares. 
 
 The Senator from Berks is also mistaken in the assumption 
 that the Pennsylvania Railroad gains a million and a half by 
 
24 
 
 this bill over the bill of 1857 for the sale of the main line. 
 Just the reverse is the truth. By the Act of 1857, the Railroad 
 was to be released from all taxes upon tonnage, and also from 
 State taxes on all its property perpetually, in consideration 
 of the payment of one and a half millions additional for 
 the main line. Under this bill it pays, as the Senator from 
 Berks admits by his own multiplication table, more than the 
 amount it owes for the main line with interest, and pays it, too, 
 in a much shorter time than its contract with the State demands; 
 and he overlooks the very important fact that in addition to 
 that, they pay annually, for all time to come, the regular rates 
 of tax upon all their property, which now amount to the interest 
 of near two millions of their bonds. We have thus a certain and 
 steadily increasing revenue from the taxes of this corporation, 
 in addition to its payments to the State for thirty years under 
 the provisions of this bill. 
 
 Another fatal blunder of the Senator from Berks—and per- 
 haps the least excusable of all—is his assumption that the con- 
 struction of the Railroad destroyed the value of our main line 
 of improvements. He based a considerable portion of his 
 argument on this point, and pressed it upon the Senate with 
 almost startling earnestness. Icannot think that he is utterly 
 indifferent to the truth of his assumptions; but when the facts 
 on this important feature of his comedy of errors are of such 
 easy access—when the figures are on the shelves of this Hall— 
 how are such mistakes, going to the very heart of his argu- 
 ment, to be explained? So far from the Railroad destroying 
 the main line of our public works, their revenue steadily 
 increased from year to year after the Railroad was built. The 
 Railroad brought to our State millions of produce that other- 
 wise would have sought rival channels of trade, new sources 
 of trade were created along the line, and all of it had to 
 
25 
 
 pass over the Columbia Road as it hurried onward to build | 
 up our own commerce. Look at the records, and the eloquence 
 of the Senator is forgotton in his want of intelligence. 
 
 But when all argument is answered, we are met with the alle- 
 gation that it is a solemn contract. They tell us that it is so 
 denominated in the bond, and although it takes our life-blood, 
 it must be paid. Pray, who made the contract and what is its 
 history? The bill incorporating the Pennsylvania Railroad 
 Company was thrown upon our Legislature as a measure of 
 protection to our State, in the midst of the movements of rival 
 cities to tap our commerce. It was not the child of favor even 
 with many of our commercial people, and had the State imposed 
 twenty mills it would have occasioned little or no concern. In 
 accordance with the illiberal spirit that has so long and so 
 fatally characterized our legislative policy, a tax of five mills 
 per ton was levied upon its tonnage. When the road was built, 
 and its great sources of wealth to Pennsylvania were foreshad- 
 owed, the tax was found to be destructive of its usefulness and 
 prosperity. The Legislature was compelled to recede a step, 
 and the tax was reduced from five to three mills. But even 
 that amount was a positive prohibition upon certain articles; 
 and it was not until our coal dealers found Philadelphia and 
 Harrisburg lighted by gas made from foreign coal, that the sui- 
 cidal policy of the Legislature was clearly manifested. A tax 
 of three mills per ton per mile on coal and lumber was abso- 
 lutely prohibitory; and Virginia and Europe took possession of 
 our coal markets, while untold millions slumbered in our mines, 
 and our own people were pleading for the privilege to develop 
 them. Again the Legislature had to recede, and the tax upon 
 coal and lumber was repealed, and millions of tons have found 
 a market since, to the exclusion of foreign competitors. The 
 same inexorable laws of trade which demanded the abandonment 
 
26 
 
 of the policy of taxing tonnage on certain articles, applied with 
 equal force to every ton of produce of every kind; and in 1857 
 the Legislature again receded and repealed the tax absolutely. 
 But for the unfortunate mistake of the Legislature in proposing 
 to receive a bonus of a million and a half for the release of all 
 taxes of every kind, Pennsylvania would now be surpassing 
 both New York and Maryland in every element of commercial 
 progress and advancing industry. New York had set the 
 example by unconditionally repealing all taxes upon tonnage, 
 as soon as Pennsylvania aroused from her slumbers and stretched 
 her iron bands over the Alleghenies to compete for the wealth 
 of the West, and Pennsylvania could hesitate to follow only at 
 her peril. She has hesitated long, and has suffered immeasura- 
 bly therefor. We bowed to imperative State necessity in 
 reducing this tax, again in repealing it on certain of our own 
 products, and again in repealing it absolutely; and now, in 
 obedience to the same imperious rule, we must recede from it 
 again, or the wealth of a liberal age will recede from us. The 
 time has come when, in justice to our State and its energies, we 
 must declare that here, as in all the world beside, internal com- 
 merce must be free. 
 
 Sir, I had not intended, and did not rise to debate this ques- 
 tion in detail. It seemed to be necessary that the misstatements 
 made with such apparent earnestness and positiveness should be 
 corrected, lest men here and elsewhere might be misled into 
 condemning a measure the wisdom of which will be undisputed 
 in less than a Senatorial term. By this bill we make positive 
 provision for the payment of our State debt, and under our 
 amended Constitution no future Legislature can divert the 
 means we are now about to provide. The payments, with the 
 ordinary resources of the Sinking Fund, will entirely cancel 
 the debt in a quarter of a century; and in five years our State 
 
27 
 
 taxes can be reduced nearly if not quite one-half. We propose 
 also to afford protection to the people of Pennsylvania by 
 requiring the Railroad Company to reduce its tariff for local 
 freights, so as to destroy the present unfair, but perhaps until 
 now unavoidable, discrimination against our home trade. We 
 require that this tax shall be released to the people—not to 
 the Corporation—by compelling a reduction of freights to the 
 exact amount of the tax; and the right to reimpose it is re- 
 served, with the obviously just condition that, if ever re-instated, 
 it shall visit its blessings upon the people of Berks as well as 
 upon the people of the interior and western counties. 
 
 And when this struggle shall have been ended, and this last 
 relic of fatalism to our varied interests be blotted from our 
 statutes, pray who will not rejoice? Turn to Philadelphia, the 
 second commercial and the first manufacturing city of the Union. 
 Eleven millions of her capital are embraced in the thirty millions 
 required to build the Pennsylvania Railroad. They constructed 
 this great artery of trade, scattering wealth profusely on every 
 side as it progressed—rearing towns asif by magic, and adding 
 to the value of every acre of soil to which it opens an avenue 
 of transportation. They have reduced the cost of transit nearly 
 one-half, and we now mean to reduce it still more; and although 
 millions of taxable property have been added to the Common- 
 wealth to enrich its treasury, we interpose an arbitrary, unequal 
 statute, and repel the wealth of other States. It can go to 
 New York, it can go to Baltimore, it can pass through the 
 British possessions to a foreign market, without any restrictions 
 whatever; but when it enters Pennsylvania it has passed the 
 bounds of liberal ideas. The next generation will be amazed 
 when reminded of the earnest struggle in the highest legislative 
 tribunal of the State to-night on this question. They may be 
 told that while none—no not one—ventured to defend the pol- 
 
28 
 
 icy of taxing tonnage, yet a large minority voted steadily in 
 favor of it because they feared they should not be sustained. 
 They have created and cherished prejudices amongst their con- 
 stituents, in their petty contests with petty men, and they fear 
 to be just to a mighty Commonwealth, lest new men should sup- 
 plant them for the crime of being right rather than consistent. 
 Sir, it is humiliating to witness this yielding of grave legislators 
 to error. The Senator from Berks should remember that he is 
 not to legislate merely for to-day; that he is called upon to act 
 on questions which must tell upon the prosperity of the State 
 when he and I shall have passed away. He may have to com- 
 bat the prejudices of the ignorant and the schemes of the reck- 
 less; but the true test of a public measure by which a sworn 
 legislator should be guided, is its inherent justice—its proffered 
 blessings to the people who have confided their interests in our — 
 hands. ‘The sculptor of old who was employed to prepare a 
 statue for the pinnacle of a temple, brought it before the people 
 and they jeered and derided him as they stood face to face to 
 the ungainly, ill-shaped form. But he had not chiseled it to 
 stand before them; and as he raised it to its place, and distance 
 gave it beauty and symmetry, it extorted the unmingled 
 applause of the multitude. Sir, it is only too true that this 
 question, confessedly right, braves prejudices in some sections 
 which time alone can dispel. However priceless its fruits, there 
 are those who will not understand it; but I prefer not to be 
 one who shall shape the statue so that when placed above the 
 fatal prejudices of the day, it will prove unsightly and ill-pro- 
 portioned because it was fashioned to make the world stand 
 still. JI submit to Senators whether this issue is not the inevit- 
 able policy of the State? whether it will not stand the search- 
 ing test of time and experience? If it be so, let no man who 
 has sworn to discharge his duty be faithless to his convictions. 
 
29 
 
 Brave, true men, seldom fall, while the timid, time-serving pass 
 away with the error that flung them into life. The constituents 
 of the Senator from Berks hesitate long and move slowly to 
 accept any departure from the policy of their fathers; but the 
 man who leads them to liberal progress will deserve well of them 
 and of the State. Pennsylvania turns to-day with pride to the 
 men who were in advance of their time. Go to our national 
 capital and you will see a man who has reached the age allot- 
 ted to mortals, wending his way to his seat in the House of 
 Representatives. His eye is undimmed, and his heart still 
 strong in its fidelity to his convictions. His race is well nigh 
 run, and he shall soon be gathered to the city of the silent, 
 unwept it may be by a single kinsman within our borders. He 
 may have erred in his political policy, but when all his real or 
 imaginary errors shall have been forgotten, his memory will be 
 cherished, as is that of Goy. WoLF now, by every philanthro- 
 pist and patriot, for giving to Pennsylvania, in advance of her 
 prejudices, a beneficent system of universal education. Every 
 village or rural school, where the humble and the opulent can 
 alike have trained the immortal minds committed to their care, 
 is a monument as enduring as the hills to the wisdom of Tap- 
 DEUS STEVENS and his coadjutors, who braved the prejudices of 
 their day, looking to the intelligence of our people for the 
 safety and greatness of the government. It may have cost him 
 success, if you please; it may have driven him from power, as 
 Berks and other counties from year to year reared the banners 
 of ‘no free schools,” and protested in these Halls against being 
 compelled to educate their own sons—the future guardians of 
 our free institutions; but to truth belong the eternal years of 
 God, and even Berks now blesses the policy of the friendless 
 New England adventurer. He is to-day the Representative of 
 the leading county of the East, chosen by a unanimous vote ; 
 
30 
 
 standing confessedly at the head of his delegation, and second 
 to but few if any in enduring national fame. Where are those 
 who fought the battles against him, and triumphed on the tide 
 of prejudice? Forgotten? Certainly unknown, saye to be | 
 marked as the lingering relics of popular ignorance. It is so of 
 those who gave us public improvements. They cost the State 
 some good men, and gave it many very bad men; and although 
 their management may be blotted with infamy, and their his- 
 tory be but an unbroken record of peculation and wrong, yet 
 they have given us advancement—they have given us hundreds 
 of millions of wealth, and opened up for our great State its 
 present glory. Is this not the truth of history? And has the 
 time not come, in this noon-tide of the nineteenth century, 
 when a Pennsylvania Senate can rise above unfounded preju- 
 dice, and move onward with the liberal progress of the world 
 around us? If we would do so, we must make our internal 
 commerce free; we must unshackle our own producers; we 
 must invite, by an enlightened policy, the rich offerings of the 
 industry of every State that seeks the sea-board, and let it 
 build up our cities—give new vigor to our commerce, and new 
 energy and increased prosperity to our people. 
 

 
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