Yale Un.versilV LUnary

39002001116418

THE HISTORY

THE CONSOLIDATION

CITY OF PHILADELPHIA.

BY ELI K. PRICE.

PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
1873-

3.7- ^^"

PREPARED IN ACCORDANCE WITH A REQUEST
OF
THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA.

Ckx\ 150

Entered according to Act of Congress, in tlie year 1873, by
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at "Washington.

Lippincott's Prbss,
Philadelphia.

; di c aiiaxt.

To the venerated Senior of the Philadelphia Bar, who is yet, at
great age, spared by a kind Providence, to shed a lustre upon our
profession, this brief history is dedicated. Though not personally an
actor in the work of consolidation, the counsel and countenance of
Horace Binney were invaluable to his active juniors, and with the
public largely influential. With the writer his opinion was authori
tative to induce him to submit to the demand of his fellow-citizens
to represent them in the Senate. It is fitting, therefore, that this
report of the stewardship of their representatives should be presented
to Horace Binney, and that the actors in_the work achieved should
claim for it the protecting influence of his name through later genera
tions. To his acceptance, then, and to the favorable regards of the
writer's associates in preparing and qarrying the Act of Consolidation,
and to the safekeeping of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, he
commits this history, in the. hope that it may be preserved in the
remembrance of the Citizens of Philadelphia. ELI IC. PRICE.
December, 1872.

Hall of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, No. 820 Spruce Street,
Philadelphia, October 30th, 1872.
Dear Sir, — It gives me pleasure to inform you that, on motion of
Mr. Wallace, the following resolution was unanimoasly adopted at
the stated meeting of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, October
28th, 1872:
Resolved, That the Hon. Eli K. Price be respectfully requested to
prepare, for the use of the Society, a history of the Consolidation of
the various corporations, boroughs, districts, or other municipal bodies
which now, in their united form, constitute the City of Philadelphia,
and that a copy of this resolution be sent to Mr. Price.
In the hope that you will be able to comply with the wishes of
the Society so unanimously expressed,
I am, dear sir,
Very respectfully, James Shrigley,
Secretary of Council.
Hon. Eli K. Price.

(-)

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
PAGE
The First and Second Charters of the City .... 9
CHAPTER II.
Measures that preceded and produced Consolidation . . .14
CHAPTER III.
The Passage of the Act of Consolidation  36
CHAPTER IV.
Grounds presented for the Passage of the Act . . . .49
CHAPTER V.
Principal Provisions of the Consolidation Act . . . .82
CHAPTER VI.
The Consolidation Festivities  90
CHAPTER VIL
The Mobs that preceded Consolidation  Iio
CHAPTER VIII.
Advantages of Consolidation . . . . . . .120
CHAPTER IX.
Conclusion  133

(vii)

THE HISTORY OF THE CONSOLIDATION

OF THE

CITY OF PHILADELPHIA.

CHAPTER I.
THE FIRST AND SECOND CHARTERS OF THE CITY.
William Penn landed at New Castle, from the
ship Welcome, on the 24th day of October, 1682.
The first Assembly was held at Upland, — now Ches
ter, — from the 4th to the 7th of December, 1682, and
then and there " The Great Law" was passed.
By the "Conditions and Concessions" agreed upon
by William Penn and the First Purchasers, in Eng
land, the nth of July, 1681, it was agreed: — "First;
That so soon as it pleaseth God that the above per
sons arrive there, a certain quantity of Land or
ground Plot shall be laid out for a large Town or
City, in th-e most convenient place upon the river for
health and navigation ; and every Purchaser and Ad
venturer shall, by lot, have so much land therein as
will answer to the proportion which he hath bought,
or taken up upon Rent." " II. That the land in the
Town be laid out together after the proportion of Ten
thousand acres of the whole country, that is, Two
A* (9)

lO CONSOLIDATION.
hundred acres, if the place will bear it!' " V. That
the proportion of lands that shall be laid out in the
first great Town or City, for every Purchaser, shall be
after the proportion of Ten acres for every Five hun
dred acres purchased, if the place will allow .it!'
The survey of the Town had been in hand by
Thomas Home, under instructions from William
Penn, in 1681 and 1682 ; and on the 30th day of the
Second month (then April, as December had been
called Tenth month), he issued his Warrant to
Thomas Holme, William Haige, John Bezer, and
Nathaniel Allen, to see the lots surveyed awarded to
the purchasers. It is obvious that these lots were
much less than the proportion mentioned in the
" Concessions," as the size of the Town did not allow
of lots so large ; but Liberty lots were allotted of
much larger size. (See John Reed's Map.)
William Penn, on the i6th of the Sixth month,
1683, wrote : " Philadelphia, the expectation of those
that are concerned in this Province, is at last laid out
to the great content of those here that are anyways
interested therein." And " this I wilj say, for the
good providence of God, that, of all the many places
I have seen in the world, I remember not one better
seated." " It is advanced, within less than a year, to
about four-score houses and cottages." And Thomas
Holme, the Surveyor-General, in his advertisement
for purchasers, says : " The City of Philadelphia now
extends from river to river, two miles, and in breadth
near a mile ; and the Governor, as a further mani
festation of his kindness unto the purchasers, hath
freely given them their respective lots in the City,

OLD CHARTERS. H
without defalcation of any of their quantities of pur
chased lands, and as it is now placed and modelled
between two rivers upon a neck of land, and that
ships may ride in good anchorage in six or eight
fathom water in both, close to the City, and the
land of the City level, dry and wholesome ; sufch a
situation is scarce to be paralleled. The model of
this City appears by a small draft now made, and
may hereafter, when time permits, be augmented."
Two square miles made the town plot 1280 acres.
But Philadelphia was not at first legally incorpo
rated as a City. At a Council held at Philadelphia
the 26th of Fifth month, 1684, present, William
Penn, Proprietary and Governor, and ten in Council,
" Thomas Lloyd, Thomas Holmes, William Haigue,
appointed to draw up a Charter for Philadelphia to
be made a Borough, consisting of a Mayor and six
Alde'rmen, and to call to their assistance any of the
Council." The first Charter to Philadelphia, as a City, was
that granted by William Penn on the 25th of Octo
ber, 1701, and its preamble calls the place "this town
of Philadelphia;" and he thereby erected "said town
and borough of Philadelphia into a City." That
Charter remaining in force, the City of Philadelphia
was recognized in establishing the basis of Legisla
tive representation, by the Constitution of 1776. It
was replaced by the Charter of I ith of March, 1789,
and this was in like manner recognized by the State
Constitution of 2d of September of 1790, and the
Constitution of 22d of February, 1838. The Charter
of 1789 and its supplements continued in force until

12

CONSOLIDA TION.

modified and extended by the Act of Consolidation ;
and the area was but the two square miles until so
extended. That Charter of the City might be endured in its
simplicity while its population was small, with its
improvements, works, and police in the same propor
tion ; when its hundred or less watchmen suiificed for
an orderly people ; when its streets were lighted with
oil, and it had not begun its water-works, or had
them upon the smallest scale, with wooden pipes, —
but, ¦(yhen the City and Districts grew to nearly half
a million, and the latter were yet rapidly growing,
and together they were more populous than many
of our States, a Constitution more fitted to the re
quirements of a Commonwealth, in the character and
number of its provisions, became a necessity, in the
minds of those who looked into the future of Phila
delphia. Thus had been its population :

YEAR.

CITY.

CITY AND COUNTY.

YEAR.

CITY.

CITY AND
COUNTY.

1753 17601769179018001810

14,563 ]
18,756 \
28,043 J
28,522
41,220 53.722

According to Dr.
Mease's statement.
Do. U. S. Census.
81,005
111,210

1820 183018401850 i8601870

63,80280,45893,665
121,376

137.097188,961
258,037
409,045 565.529674,022

The growing disparity, between the City of two
square miles and the residue of the County, is
apparent from the above table of populations ; and
every year it would but increase, by the conversion
of dwellings into warehouses and stores, within the
former, thus ultimately to give all the increase of
population outside the City, while the same fixed

OLD CHARTERS.

13

limits would restrict the City from any territorial ex
tension of the basis of taxation. In time Philadelphia
would be outside the City, as the great London is
outside of the little City of London. This was an
instance of English resistance of change, partaking
the character of Chinese fixedness, not to be imitated
by progressive Americans, who always feel them
selves competent to change their laws and Consti
tutions as may be required by the change of cir
cumstances, without danger to the vested rights of
property, or the stability of government.

CHAPTER II.
MEASURES THAT PRECEDED AND PRODUCED CONSOLI
DATION.
As the town extended beyond the City bounds,
adjoining corporate Districts were formed by the
Legislature for the government of their local affairs,
until these greatly exceeded the area and population
of the parent city. These Districts were incorporated
in the following order: South wark, the 26th of March,
1762; The Northern Liberties, the 9th of March,
1771 ; Moyamensing, the 24th of March, 1812;
Spring Garden, the 22d of March, 1813; Kensing
ton, the 6th of March, 1820; Penn, the 28th of Feb
ruary, 1844; Richmond, the 27th of February, 1847;
West Philadelphia, the 3d of April, 1851 ; Belmont,
the 14th of April, 1853. From these different juris
dictions many inconveniences arose, and immunity
was given to crime. For nearly ten years before the
remedy was attained a number of influential citizens
sought a reform. A Town Meeting was called for
November i6th, 1849, by the following persons:
John Swift, Chapman Biddle,
Josiah Randall, Henry A. Beck,
Clement C. Biddle, William West,
A. M. Prevost, L. Johnson,
William Rawle, Mahlon Gillingham,
Garrick Mallery, Thomas Finley,
(14)

PREPARA TIONS.

15

John Cadwalader,
William S. Charnley,
G. G. Westcott,
David Paul Brown,
Benjamin Mifflin,
Francis Wharton,
Samuel H. Perkins,
Jacob Carrigan, Jr.,
Jno. M. Kennedy,
James Durnell,
Jacob Freas,
Edwin R. Cope,
John W. Kester,
David Boyd,
George W. Tryon,
Jno. M. Ogden,
P. P. Morris,'
M. Myers,
Thomas McGrath,
Thomas Bradford,
F. Stoever,
Jno. Leadbeater,
George C. Naphes,
John G. Brenner,
William G. Cochran,
Jno. H. Dohnert,
C. -L. Ingram,
Henry M. Watts,
William Elder,
Henry D. Gilpin,
A. Boyd Hamilton,
Henry S. Patterson,
Henry Horn,
George H. Earle,
James Laws,

George \y. Biddle,
Jacob Snider, Jr.,
Theodore Cuyler,
B. Arthur Mitchell,
St. George T. Campbell,
William L. Hirst,
Benjamin Stiles,
Eli K. Price,
John Naglee,
* Andrew Miller,
William H. Smith,
William White,
Jacob Esher,
James Magee,
Jno. H. Campbell,
George W. Farr,
E. S. Jones,
T. M. Pettit,
J. B. Sutherland,
Samuel Barton,
Daniel Smith, Sr.,
William McGlensey,
W. C. Parker,
B. H. Brewster,
Peter Ambruster,
William R. Dickerson,
Jno. M. Coleman,
Peter Fritz,
James Harper,
E. P. Middleton,
Thomas Sparks,
George K. Childs,
Harry Connelly,
Passmore Williamson.

An Executive Committee was appointed by a
general meeting of the Citizens, and continued by
another such meeting in 1850, to wit:

1 6 CONSOLIDATION.
John Cadwalader, Josiah Randall,
Eli K. Price, William L. Hirst,
Gideon G. Westcott, Henry M. Watts,
Charles L. Ingram, John H. Dohnert,
John M. Read, John M. Kennedy,
John M. Coleman, Edward A. Penniinan,
Henry L. Benner, Jacob F. Hoeckley,
John M. Ogden, Thomas S.. Smith,
Francis Tiernan, Peter Williamson,
William White, Alexander Cummings,
George W. Tryon, Jacob Esher,
Job R. Tyson, Christopher Fallon,
John G. Brenner, Michael Pray.
Chief Justice John M. Read had collected and
published the statistics of the City, Districts, and
County, their taxables, assessed values, indebted
ness, dates of incorporation, etc., and was an early
and sincere friend of the cause.
The Committee addressed a Memorial to the Leg
islature of 185 1. Among other things it says:
" Uninfluenced by either personal or political bias,
and prompted by a sense of the public welfare only,
this Committee, composed of men of all parties, earn
estly commend this measure to the favorable action
of the Legislature."
" That the disastrous and destructive mobs of
1844 developed the necessity of a more united and
efficient Police than then existed in the city and dis
tricts of Philadelphia, and, in November of that year,
a Town Meeting of citizens favorable to consolidat
ing the city and districts into a single city was held,
at which meeting resolutions in favor of the measure
were passed. A committee being appointed to draft
a bill, discharged their duty ; submitted the bill pre-

PREPARA TIONS.

17

pared by them to a subsequent Town Meeting, where
it was adopted and ordered to be presented to the
Legislature." The Committee had, in September, 1850, addressed
notes to the candidates of the different political par
ties for the Legislature. Some gave unqualifiedly
favorable responses ; others with the qualification that
a vote of the people should be taken on the question.
John Cadwalader and Eli K. Price were sent to
Harrisburg to represent the evils under which our
community suffered, and to advocate the passage of a
Consolidation bill. The members of both branches
of the Legislature, generally, met them in the Hall of
the Representatives, and gave them a respectful hear
ing, but no legislation on that subject then ensued. It
was a step in preparation for the future. Judge Cad
walader was then and always a true and able advocate
for consolidation.
Late in the spring of 1853 a number of influential
citizens met at the Exchange to devise means to check
the disorders occasioned by the volunteer Fire Com
panies, and in favor of a paid Fire Department. They
perceived no remedy short of stringent legislation.
There were present Stephen Colwell, Frederick
Fraley, William Welsh, Horace Binney, Jr., William
L. Rehn, Peter McCall, James Page, M. W. Baldwin,
Wm. V. Pettit, Thomas S. Newlin, Job R. Tyson,
Jos. B. Townsend, Daniel M. Fox, Saml. V. Merrick,
John Miller, John Farnum, Wm. P. Jenks, Joshua L.
Hallowell, S. D. Anderson, Henry Farnum, H. L.
Benner, John T. Smith, Saml. Megargee, Isaac P.
Morris, Eli K. Price.

1 8 CONSOLIDA TION.
That Committee. insisted that Eli K. Price should
make the sacrifice to represent the City in the Senate,
and Horace Binney, Jr., brought to him the following
letter from his father, which clearly sets forth the evils
that were felt to exist by himself and the thought
ful and patriotic citizens of Philadelphia, and the
necessary means of obtaining success. Mr. Binney
had deliberated well and long before he came to his
conclusion ; but the intolerable evils overcame the
natural aversion to change, and he saw that nothing
less than consolidation would afford an adequate cure
of our ills.
" My dear Horace, — I regard all the objects of
local and immediate interest, at this time in the City,
as much more intimately connected by intrinsic rela
tions than they are by mere cotemporaneousness.
The fire department, the groggery system, the venal
selection of candidates for office by bargains, express
or implied, for the benefit of the wire-workers, and
the tax collection system, all act upon, and are acted
upon by each other. Those, therefore, who are of
the same mind as to one or two of these may very
properly unite in the reform ticket with those who
are more interested in the other subjects. Their
combined force is necessary to gain the end proposed,
and there is nothing in the success of a part of the
measures desired that can make the others less likely
to succeed in the end, or aggravate present evils of
any kind. I incline to think that the objects all hang
together, and must fail or succeed together. I myself
take more interest in the suppression of some of the

PREPARA TIONS. I g
mischiefs referred to than in the suppression of the
others ; but I am willing to unite with all who desire
reform in any of them, and in the choice of respecta
ble men, whose fair judgment and efforts will be
given to reform in all of them. I have come to the
opinion that we must have a united power through
all the parts of our City and districts to make any of
these reforms attainable ; and therefore although in
the beginning I opposed what is called consolidation,
and both wrote and spoke against it, and still think
that it will have its specific evils or inconveniences,
yet its highly probable effect will be to put down
certain very gross abuses of recent years, and there
fore I no longer oppose it. Indeed, in some respects,
the grounds of my opposition have become obsolete.
That has already happened in the City which I feared
consolidation would bring about ; and consolidation,
under a good charter, may now tend to prevent
further progress in the same bad course.
" I am not, however, very sanguine, but surrender
all my objections for the sake of union in the objects
I have mentioned.
"Unless we succeed, the whole and all its parts
will become remarkable for the evils they will show
rather than for any good.
" To succeed in such an effort as is now making,
it is indispensable that men of undoubted and estab
lished weight in the City should not only give their
names and votes, but their services, and some portion
of their personal convenience and comfort, to the
furtherance of the common purpose. Your object is
a highly respectable list of candidates for the State

20 CONSOLIDA TION.
Legislature, and you cannot succeed without it. Re
spectable names in the general sense will not answer.
They must be so in all senses. There must be a
weight in the ticket sufficient to counterpoise a great
deal of bad combination, and to crush a good deal
of corrupt intrigue. The ticket must be one, in fine,
that will test the virtue of the City, and ascertain
whether there is enough in it to be capable of restora
tion. I believe there is, and that a proper ticket will
find it out, and bring it out.
" Some of the names of candidates you have men
tioned to me are excellent. They are men who are
named for the occasion, to help the City, not to help
rriembers, nor to help their party or personal friends.
" I should think your battle would be half won if
you could place Eli K. Price's name, with his consent,
at the head of your list.
" His name is a pledge already given, and not
likely to be forfeited, for qualities specially necessary
at such a time and on such an occasion, — experience
in civil affairs, general knowledge, talents, integrity,
moral courage, constancy, and conscientiousness. He
has, moreover, great practicalness and facility that
enable him to impress other minds with his own con
victions. If the election shall be gained in the City,
the cause is to be won in the Legislature, — and to be
won by appeals to reason, to practical good sense,
and to moral principles, in the representatives from
the country. I dare say the post may be inconvenient
to him ; but my opinion of him is, and always has
been, that if he is satisfied that it is his duty, or even
that old friends, the friends at the same time of public

PREPARA TIONS. 2 1
order and morality, think it is his duty, he will make
the sacrifice; and he' is a man who will be the happier
afterwards for having made it. You are at liberty to
tell him all this from me. If he thinks of me as I do
of him, I do not believe it will do you any harm. He
will at least consider it carefully, and not suffer any
slight objection to hold him back from what is so
important to the cause. Please to remember what I
tell you, that your ticket must be such that men of
virtue in the City will say at once that all the objects
desired by the mission of such men must be good,
and of the first importance to the City; and then they
will sustain it in spite of existing £ombination.
"Affectionately .yours,
"Horace Binney.
" H. Binney, Jr., Esq.
" SO0TH Fourth Street, 23 June, 1853."
Mr. Binney, Jr., brought this letter to Mr. Price,
and left it, as intended for him, and at the same time
expressed his own views in a very impressive manner,
concluding them with the solemn remark, " You are
now in the hands of God and the people, and they
look to you to perform this duty." Mr. Price had
said to a sub-committee that he would as lieve they
had asked him to strike off an arm; but such appeals
from his highly valued fellow-citizens, and his own
abiding sense of the great evils to be remedied, caused
him to surrender his own inclinations, and to make
the demanded sacrifice.
But Mr. Price consented to run only on condition
that all the reformers should go with him for the

22 CONSOLIDATION.
Consolidation of the City and district corporations ; a
measure of which he had been an advocate for several
years. The friends of the demanded reforms then met
in a nominating Convention, and on the 30th of July,
1853, nominated Eli K. Price for the Senate, and
Matthias W. Baldwin and William C. Patterson for
the House of Representatives. Mr. Price expressed
in the following letter the terms of his acceptance of
the nomination. In convention Jos. B. Townsend
read the following letter from Eli K. Price:
" Gentlemen, — It is with sincere regret that I find
myself appealed to by citizens, whose opinion is
authoritative with me, to allow my name to be used
as a candidate for the Senate of Pennsylvania. A
private station has been the chosen purpose of my
life, from which I expected no influence could ever
move me, and I can only leave it at large sacrifice to
my business and my happiness. Were I sure of a
defeat, it would be an easy task and welcome duty
thus to manifest, at so cheap a cost, a willingness to
aid the great and good measures you have in view ;
and I should esteem it incomparably more honorable
to fail under your nomination than to attain a triumph
that would pledge me to the perpetuation of existing
evils. Against these, indeed, I should wish with the
smallest minority, or even standing alone, to make
my solemn protest, and at least obtain an exculpa
tion from a participation in their continuance. But I
cannot doubt that the body of our fellow-citizens, if
sufficiently unfettered by party trammels, would desire
the reform of existing abuses, and would will their

PREPARA TIONS.

23

correction. They must feel them to be dangerous to
the peace and prosperity of our community, and to
the purity and permanence of our political institutions.
There is a deep-seated, painful, and pervading con
viction that there has long existed, and yet exists, a
disloyalty to the principles of our republican govern
ment, that if not checked and corrected by the virtue
of the people must prove fatal to it; and the patriotic
bosom is wounded and incensed in the belief that
much bad legislation is from year to year produced
and good prevented by other influences than a single
regard to the public welfare. It will be for the people
to determine whether they will now apply the needed
remedy or leave abuses to ripen for a day of severer
retribution. "The exercise of the elective franchise has become
almost valueless, since the citizens are under a com
pulsion to vote for those whom they do not approve,
or vote not at all. In the inceptive movement of
ward meetings to choose delegates to nominate can
didates for the votes of the people, the active force
usually consists of office-holders and office-seekers
and their adherents ; the delegates nominate to please
those who send them into the nominating convention ;
and thus the public servants virtually perpetuate their
own power, and become the public masters; and
when the people appeal to the Legislature for a re
dress of grievances, they are taunted with the ques
tion, How many delegates can you send to the Con
ference ? If you are part of the working machinery
of party, you may expect there to be favorably heard ;
but if only quiet and unobtrusive citizens, anxiously

24

CONSOLIDA TION.

concerned to secure the peace, welfare, and reputation
of the community, it implies great simplicity to ex
pect, at your solicitation, a redress of aggravated evils.
"Thus, in the comparatively small matter of the
compensation for the collection of the taxes, every
effort for a change for years past has been abortive,
because the collectors and their friends can manage
to send enough delegates to the nominating body to
decide who shall be the candidates for the Legislature,
and their chosen representatives will not alter the law
to allow the people to pay their own taxes to a gen
eral receiver, and thus retain and save to themselves
the five per cent, on the taxes now paid to the col
lectors. "And likewise in respect to the subject which has
claimed your special attention, the evils resulting from
the present means of extinguishing fires, appeal has
been made in vain for legislative correction. Those
who become Legislators by the mere operations of
party machinery, moved for selfish ends either ex
pressed or implied, cannot afford to risk the loss of the
support of a few thousand firemen, forgetting that a
majority of these must, as good citizens, also lament
existing evils, and would not be averse to their re
form. These cannot but know and feel that our
community and its prosperity suffer irreparable dis
grace and injuries by the disorders, riots, and blood
shed incident to our plan of putting out fires, and
that they owe a paramount obligation to the public
welfare and the maintenance of the autljiority of the
law. They must know and feel that our form of
government must fail in its purposes if every citizen

PREPARA TIONS.

25

cannot^know that he has a legal right to be protected
from the dangers of fire as well as to be secure in his
person and property from the attacks of the midnight
robber, beyond the possibility of a denial from the
neglect or caprice of volunteers, under no legal obli
gation or compulsion to serve him. It is true, the
zeal and energetic service of the firemen have not
often been withheld, but, it has repeatedly happened
that the well-disposed have been prevented byj:he
disorderly and wicked from extinguishing fires, to the
heavy loss of the county and the burthen of the
tax-payers. "Again, we have a system of tavern-licensing that,
in its unlimited permission to all to become vendors
of liquors, has produced a fearful increase of intem
perance ; and, in the numbers engaged, arrays a for
midable body of citizens against its reform. The
revenues so readily paid for licenses can never begin
to compensate for the ruin of the good constitutions
of thousands of otherwise useful and valuable citi
zens ; nor to provide for the increased burthen of
taxation resulting from the consequent pauperism,
misery and crime, much less to repair the loss to the
community and families from the idleness and inabil
ity to labor, begotten by depraved appetites for strong
drink. The public good demands a correction of
this evil that cannot be expected from representatives
who look upon it and its adherents as an element of
support. With his' face set towards a correction of
the terrible evils of intemperance, no well-wisher of
his fellow beings would wish or dare to stop so long
as there shall be curable evils that can be reached by
B 3

26 CONSOLIDATION.
the power of the law, wisely and constitutionally
enacted. " But the hope of being the instrument of good in
the correction of the evils and abuses to which I
have referred,/is not alone the moving motive with
me. There is another measure upon which the pub
lic opinion, after years of discussion, is now mature
for action, and which heretofore has found its chief
resistance in the party influences before noticed. As
a means of the correction of soine of the evils re
ferred to, it is the only efficient remedy, and cannot
but be productive, when fully accomplished, of great
and enduring public good. Philadelphia has become
a great and is a rapidly-increasing community ; but
her many municipal corporations are the cause of
feebleness and many disorders. The power and
prosperity of the whole are neutralized by conflicting
sectional interests, jealousies and hostilities. The
parent city has often evinced an illiberal policy to
wards her surrounding children, which they have
more than requited by a spirit of retaliation ; and the
latter, often too feeble to cope with their own dis
orderly and riotous citizens, yet could they not brook
her intervention without a deadly hostility. But
bring them all under one municipal government, in
which all will be equally and fairly represented, and
that according to their differing political party com
plexion, then all conflicting views will be discussed
and peaceably settled in the same council chambers,
and every portion of the great metropolis will be
equally cared for and equally benefitted by all mea
sures adopted for the common welfare. Then the

PREPARA TIONS.

27

jealousy and hatred that provoke to hostility must
cease, and the power of the whole will be pledged
for the maintenance of the good order and peace of
the whole. By the expansion of fjie limits of the
city, the basis of her taxable resources and wealth
will be increased, to go on enhancing in value through
the future of time, and to accelerate her commercial,
manufacturing, and social prosperity and happiness.
Philadelphia will then stand out in 'bold relief as one
great city, instead of an agglomeration of incongru
ous municipalities, and stand in her just proportions,
strength, and beauty, in comparison with the other
great cities of the world. One impulse, one heart, and
one pulsation will equally pervade and give life and
power to the whole, and no member of the same body
can rise in hostility to it; while no jealousy would be
felt, if in the overflowing prosperity of trade some of
its depots should be located beyond the present nar
row limits of the city proper, or if in a wise foresight
public squares or parks should be provided for the
health and enjoyment of the people, beyond the
limits of the present built town, especially when it is
considered that in future the citizens doing business
within the two square miles will be generally resi
dents beyond them. Philadelphia would then em
brace her own Girard College grounds, Fairmount
and Lemon Hill, and improve them for the benefit
of her own citizens.
" The appeal made by you to me, presents for my
decision these considerations : First, that my name
may sustain a defeat, but this would cost me nothing
in feeling, and would be personally a great relief

28 CONSOLIDA TION.
Second, that it may succeed, and if so would be an
irresistible demonstration of the public will that the
reforms and change of municipal government, I have
adverted to, should be accomplished. — With such a
hope and promise before me, I hav.e felt, under the
closest scrutiny that can be taken of my duty, that I
dare not refuse the call you have made upon me to
make a sacrifice for the general good. I will, how
ever, take no part to promote my election, but if your
ticket shall succeed, will, with God's help, faithfully
serve the people for all measures designed for their
good, and the repression of all evils that do them
harm. " But I make this concession upon the condition
that the highest intelligence and virtue to be found
in the community, shall be exerted for the accomp
lishment of its own work of reform. Bills required
to carry out their proposed measures must demand
great care, time, and circumspection in their prepara
tion. The iilterests at stake are large and moment
ous, though the principles that must govern, will not
be difficult to understand or apply. To delay the
preparation of the bills until the meeting of the
Legislature will be to lose the session, or to do the
work crudely and unwisely. The most capable men
of differing political parties should unite in preparing
the bills, and obtain for them such a professional
sanction, by eminent lawyers, as will command the
confidence of the people and of the Legislature.
These will require to be assured that no vested rights
of property shall be invaded, no trust diverted from
its purpose, or risked in the change or modification

PREPARA TIONS. 29
of the powers of the trustees ; that no provision of
our Constitutions shall be violated. To bills thus
prepared and sanctioned, I would give my humble
advocacy. To any specific form, measure or extent
of relief or change, I now make no such pledge as
will forestal discussion, or preclude the adoption of
the results of the invited labors of the citizens in the
preparation of bills, or of their further discussion in
the Legislature. I cannot doubt they would be such
as to stand the test of time, and that a practical trial
of them would but test the wisdom of the. framers,
and that they would promote and establish the en
during welfare, prosperity, and happiness of this great
community.
" Eli K. Price.
" To Stephen Colwell, Chairman, and other con
ferees.
" July 30th, 1853.
"Mr. Binney, Jr., moved the following resolution:
"Resolved, That the Committee on the Address be
continued, with power to take order upon it and on
its publication, and on the publication of any other
documents intended to promote the success of the
object of this Convention.
" Mr. Morris moved that a Committee of Finance
be appointed, consisting of three members of the Con
ference, and that the chair appoint the committee;
which was unanimously agreed to.
"The chair appointed as Finance Committee,
Thomas S. Newlin, Isaac P. Morris, William L.
Rehn. •3*

30 CONSOLIDA TION.
" On motion, adjourned to meet again at the call
of the chair. "Stephen Colwell, Chairman.
"J. B. Townsend, Secretary!'
A City paper contained the following :
" The following is a copy of the letter from the
Hon. Richard Rush to Eli K. Price, Esq. The letter,
as the contents of it will show, was called forth by
the recent excellent letter of Mr. Price to the Con
vention of the friends of the Paid Fire Department.
The contrast wJiich Mr. Rush presents of Philadel
phia as it once was, the foremost city in the Union,
and the fact that it has been so far outstripped as to
be only the third city in the Union, is forcibly ex
hibited. The causes are worthy of every citizen's
consideration : " ' Sydenham, near Philadelphia,
"•August I, 1853.
" ' My DEAR Sir, — I have just read in this morning's
"Ledger your letter of the 30th July about Philadel
phia, and cannot refrain from giving you my thanks.
A native of the city, though much away from it, I
have too often since returning to an ancient home,
litre in its vicinity, deplored our falling off from
former days. I left Philadelphia in 181 1, then the
first city of the Union in wealth, numbers and busi
ness — as always in natural advantages. We stood
first before the Revolution, during the Revolution,
and many years after the Revolution and formation
of the Federal Constitution. Getting back after a
long absence, and eager to indulge in the fond parti-

PREPARA TIONS.

31

ality of the native, I was met by the woeful fact of
our being only the third city, and that we were con
tinuing to lose ground — our natural advantages being^
the same as ever, with the new developments of our
matchless mineral wealth all superadded. I could
only account for this by supposing that we must
have faWen off in the wisdom suited to the times,
whilst our rivals were alive to it ; they active, we
sleeping. Mr. Tyson's excellent letters to the late|
British Consul were well calculated to stir up anew!
our Philadelphia pride and hopes. Since their ap-j
pearance I do not remember to have seen anything
which has so forcibly brought into one view some of
the operative causes of our decline, as your letter.
I say decline, because, although we may all witness
with pleasure recent indications of revival in our
noble old city of " Independence," not to go forward
in line with our rivals in this quick age, is, in effect,
to decline. We are still a good way behind, where
we shall remain, and get relatively worse, if we do
not fully awake up to our true condition. It is, there
fore, that, as one individual of this community, I
desire to convey to you my poor, but sincere acknowl
edgments for your frank, manly, well-timed, sterling
letter. In such feelings as these, I beg to subscribe
myself, with great respect,
" ' Your very thankful fellow-citizen,
" ' Richard Rush.
" ' To Eli K. Price, Esq.' "
The North American and United States Gazette, the
Public Ledger, the Daily Register, the Evening Bulletin,

32 CONSOLIDATION.
the Germantown Telegraph, and. the Sunday Mercury
opened their columns to communications and wrote
editorials advocating Consolidation, inclusive of legis
lation to put the Fire Companies under the control
of the Councils and the Courts. Willianj F. Grayson
and Mr. Birney were active and efficient writers and
advocates. Eli K. Price was elected to the Senate
for three years, and M. W. Baldwin and William C.
Patterson to the House, pledged to the measure of
Consolidation, by independent voters, who left their
party attachments and discipline.
As soon as the election was over Mr. Price caused
to be called together many of the active friends of the
reforms, to meet ajl the members elect of the Legis
lature for the City and County, at the Exchange, to
frame a bill for the New Charter of the City of Phila
delphia. Among those actively engaged upon this
work, for several weeks meeting twice a week, were
Morton McMichael (Chairman), Frederick Fraley,
John K. Kane, John M. Ogden, John Cadwalader,
William L. Hirst, Philip M. Price, Daniel M. Fox,
Horace Binney, Jr., Henry M. Phillips, Alexander
Cummings, Thomas S. Smith, William V. Pettit,
Thomas S. Newlin, Andrew Miller,- Henry M. Watts,
Philip R. Freas, William H. Stokes, George G. West,
N. B. Browne, James A. Campbell, James Page,
Samuel H. Perkins, Samuel V. Merrick, John M.
Kennedy, William S. Price, James Veree, John H.
Dohnert, Peter McCall, Jacob F. Hoeckley, George
W. Biddle, Peter A. Keyser, Isaac Shallcross, George
Northrop, Michael Pray, John Robbins, Stephen Col
well, Isaac Hazlehurst, Henry L. Benner, John Deal.

PREPARA TIONS.

33

William L. Hirst, Frederick Fraley, and Eli K.
Price were made a committee to revise and amend
the fiill laid before the General Committee. Messrs.
Hirst and Fraley rendered very important services in
putting in shape their own views and those of their
fellow-members of the Committee ; and Mr. Hirst
exerted an important influence as Chairman of the
State Executive Committee of the Democratic party,
and in collecting the statistics and in preparing the
memorial to the Legislature.
The members of the Legislature invited to a
conference were : City Senators, W. A. Crabb, Eli K.
Price; County Senators, S. G. Hamilton, W. Good
win, Levi Foulkrod ; City Representatives, William C.
Patterson, M. W. Baldwin, George H. Hart, Henry
K. Strong ; County Representatives, Thomas Mander-
field, R. M. Cariisle, George W. Hillier, John J.
Boyd, R. B. Knight, Isaac W. Moore, Richardson L.
Wright, E. Poulson, J. H. Hurtt, Benjamin R. Miller,
Joshua S. Fletcher.
The Sunday Mercury said of the Committee :
"The committee appointed by the citizens of Phila
delphia and the surrounding Districts, to frame a bill
to present to the next Legislature, by which Consoli
dation might be effected, have at last adjourned sine
die. A more intelligent or liberal-minded body of
men could not be brought together for any purpose.
At great personal sacrifices, the different gentlemen
cdmposing the committee, discharged faithfully the
duties they had assumed. For months they have
held weekly meetings for the purpose of discussing
calmly and carefully every section of the bill. The

34

CONSOLIDA TION.

expenses of the whole proceeding — which have not
been light — the members defrayed out of their pock
ets or used their own personal influence with their
friends to raise a fund. Whatever may be the fate
6f the bill, the public are satisfied of one fact, that in
its preparation the intelligence, experience, and learn
ing of the county have been engaged."
And the Germantown Telegraph, of December 28th,
1853, said:
" The Executive Committee having in charge the
preparation of the bill to be submitted to the Legis
lature, providing for the Consolidation of the city and
county of Philadelphia into one municipality, con
cluded its labors on the 20th inst, after a session of
two months, and the bill is now being transcribed,
and will, we presume, be published as soon as it can
be got ready. This Committee, composed of some
of the ablest and most respectable citizens of the city
and county, numbering between fifty and sixty, held
two long sessions a week, and the Sub-Committee an
equal number, and zealously labored from the begin-
ning'to the end, with the view of preparing the bill,
embracing so many important and distinct objects,
with all the care and accuracy that it was possible to
bestow upon it, in order that it should protect the in
terests and meet the reasonable demands of every
portion of the enlarged city. And they have suc
ceeded — if our judgment is worth anything in deter
mining the measure of success — succeeded to the
satisfaction of every impartial person, who will take
the trouble of fully investigating and weighing the
question in all its parts and bearings, and the very

PREPARA TIONS.

35

delicate and intricate duty the Executive Committee
had to perform."
While the Bill for consolidation was in progress
Mr. Price wrote articles for the papers advocating its
provisions and passage, and sent copies to influential
persons elected to the Legislature, through the State,
to prepare them for its adoption ; and many editorials
were also published. These are not here given,
because the substance of them is embraced in the
report made by Mr. Price to the Senate from the
Committee of City members.

CPIAPTER IIL
THE passage of THE ACT OF CONSOLIDATION.
The Bill was presented immediately after the
organization of the Senate, January 3d, 1854, and
printed, accompanied by a printed memorial from the
Committee, setting forth our local statistics, and the
grounds upon which consolidation was demanded.
Among other things in this memorial it is said, —
" The same population with the same interests, on
the same plot of ground, and forming to the eye of
the stranger the second great city in America, ought
unquestionably to have the same government, tlie
same laws, and the same police. This is the clear
right of its citizens; and the Legislature, for their
sake, and for the general interests of the State at
large, should at once place all its inhabitants under
the charge of one Municipal Corporation, obliterating
by a single act of its power those artificial distinctions
which have produced all the evils of conflicting juris
dictions and prejudices, and at one period led to the
shedding of blood, and the practical imposition of a
voluntary martial law.
" It appears, therefore, that sound policy dictates
that the whole of Philadelphia should be united under
one municipal government, with an executive head,
(36)

PASSING THE ACT.

37

to be called a Mayor, whilst the Legislative power
should be vested in a Select and Common Council,
elected by the respective wards, and not by a general
ticket, so that all parties may be represented accord
ing to their numbers.
"At present, including the County, the Guardians
of the Poor, the Comptrollers of Public Schools, and
five suburban Boroughs, there are nineteen distinct
Corporations, with that number of distinct set of
taxes, collected by distinct sets of Tax-collectors, and
with at least twelve distinct debts.
" This change will secure only one set of Ordinances
for the government and regulation of the good people
of Philadelphia, easily learned and known by all, in
stead of distinct codes of municipal laws, varying
according to the prejudices and passions of each
Municipality, and really inaccessible to the citizen.
"The same corporate unity dispenses with a multi
tude of Treasurers, Solicitors, Clerks, Superintendents,
or their equivalent, besides hosts of subordinates. It
dispenses with one hundred and sixty-eight Tax-
collectors, and will cause a saving in this item alone
of one hundred thousand dollars per year.
" It creates, instead of numerous different sets of
debts of varying value and uncertain credit, one con
solidated city debt of the same value and undoubted
credit, and replaces at least twelve different sets of
books by one set kept in the simplest form.
" Your memorialists will not enter into an analysis
or explanation of the provisions of the bill herewith
submitted. They speak for themselves. It is believed
that they comprehend every subject necessary to be
4

38 CONSOLIDATION.
considered by the Legislature in providing for Con
solidation." Before the Bill was reported a deputation was sent
by influential citizens to ask a reconsideration of the
measure ; and a Committee of Firemen to deprecate
action bearing upon them ; but without inducing any
change of purpose in the Consolidation Senator and
Representatives. . The Bill, reported January lOth, was considered
in Committee of the Whole. Mr. Price made an
argument in its favor; and on the i8th it was passed
by the Senate, upon a call of the yeas and nays,
unanimously. -
While the Bill was pending in the House an
opposition arose in the City Councils, in shape of the
expression of an apprehension that the City trusts
might be endangered. The following action ensued:
" Consolidation Committee. — A special meeting of
this body was held on Friday afternoon, January 20th,
1854, pursuant to a published call.
" Morton McMichael, Esq., presided.
" Mr. Hirst, Chairman of the Sub-committee which
prepared the bill now pending in the Legislature, said
that the committee assembled under peculiarly grati
fying circumstances. The bill matured here had been
passed by the State Senate with a promptness and
unanimity hitherto unparalleled. It had been printed
and laid on the tables of members on Saturday, and
was passed on the following Wednesday without a
dissenting voice. And what was perhaps not less
remarkable, though of unusual length, and embracing
a vast number of sections, it had been copied by the

PASSING THE ACT. 39
industry of the transcribing clerks, and presented to
the House on the following morning. Mr. Hirst
then submitted the following resolutions, which were
unanimously adopted :
"Resolved, That this Committee on behalf of their
constituents, the citizens of Philadelphia, tender to
the members of the Senate of Pennsylvania their
grateful thanks for their prompt and decisive action
upon the Consolidation Bill, and hail the unanimity
of the vote as a cherished proof that our brethren
throughout the State will unite with us on all meas
ures calculated to promote the prosperity, greatness,
and good government of Philadelphia.
"Resolved, That this Committee do most respect
fully and earnestly entreat the members of the House
of Representatives to concur in the result of the
deliberations of the Senate with like spirit and una
nimity, and to clear away all obstacles to the imme
diate consideration and final passage of the Bill, thus
affording to our citizens abundant time and oppor
tunity to prepare and adapt themselves to their new
municipal condition.
"Resolved, That the members of the House of
Representatives from the City and County of Phila
delphia are respectfully and most urgently solicited
to facilitate the bill through the Committee of which
they are the members, and to report the same to the
House without any delay ; that we feel certain that
in the expression of this wish we are supported by,
and truly represent, the earnest desires of the great
mass of our citizens, who will look upon any obstruc
tion placed in the way of the immediate passage of

40

CONSOLIDA TION.

the bill as mischievous and inimical to the interests
of the people of Philadelphia.
"Resolved, That copies of the above resolutions be~
addressed by the President and Secretary to each
member of the Senate and House of Representatives.
"Resolved, That the President and Secretary be
requested to tender the thanks of the Committee to
Messrs. Henershotz, Weiser, Blair, and Stehley, the
Transcribing Clerks of the Senate, for their praise
worthy promptness in engrossing the bill in time for
presentation to the House of Representatives thev,
next morning after it passed the Senate.
"Resolved, That the members of this Committee
already appointed by the chair for that purpose, be
requested to visit Harrisburg, and on behalf of the
whole Committee, to personally urge upon the mem
bers of the Legislature the merits of this great
measure, the necessity of the immediate passage of
the bill, and its importance to the interests of the
city and the Commonwealth.
" Mr. Fraley said — I am surprised at the action of
the Councils last evening. Up to the present time I
have felt as though I was engaged in a work which
would effect great public good, and a work that my
fellow-citizens of all parties united in for the simply
benefit of the public generally. The bill was prepared
with peculiar care and deliberation, the local and
technical knowledge which has been brought before
the Legislature in the shape it has, is worthy of the
prompt action of that body. The members of the
Senate, who have relied on the acts of the Committee,
have without any amendment passed the bill as made

PASSING THE ACT.

41

by us. The bill was subjected to a larger circle of
criticism than any other bill which has ever been
brought before the Legislature. It was framed, and
published before the Committee took any final action
upon it. Various amendments were made, which
this body deemed necessary, so as to effectually make
the bill a law, and place our city on a level she should
occupy, so as to compete with other cities of the
Union. I regret that the City Councils, after passing
resolutions with great unanimity approving of the
bill as framed by this Committee, should, at their
meeting on Thursday evening, doubt that the trusts
of the city would be properly cared for.
" I think that the actions of the Councils are unad
vised, and I fear that this action on their part will be
viewed as a demonstration of the Whig party of
Philadelphia to oppose the passage of the bill. But,
sir, I am satisfied that such an inference would be
erroneous. I am happy to concur with the Demo
cratic party in this measure, and I think it has been
brought before Councils by some office-holders who
hold offices by the patronage of the Whig party, and
fear they may be abolished or filled by other incum
bents. " As a member of the Whig party I have felt it my
duty to cheerfully throw aside all party considerations,
and during the last twenty years my mind has been
impressed with the subject of the Consolidation of
the City and Districts, and no matter how it might
affect the poHtical interests, a question of so great
and so vital importance should make party questions
subordinate to the public good. I think, sir, when

42

CONSOLIDA TION.

the members of Councils come to their second sober
thoughts, they will recall their action of last evening,
as they certainly must be cognizant of the fact that
nine-tenths of the citizens of Philadelphia de'sire the
passage of this bill, well knowing that the tru.sts
endowed by liberal citizens will be preserved invio
late. " Mr. H. Binney, Jr., thought that the resolutions
of Councils were eminently superfluous in expressing
a doubt that the interests of the city would suffer.
Whatever doubts they may have had relative to the
bill, there is no section of it more perfect than that
relative to trusts.
" Why, sir, the trusts will protect themselves, for
the Legislature can do nothing to impair them in
any shape or form. If they needed protection, they
have received it in the best and simplest manner.
The Consolidation Bill makes the city fully as much
the Trustee of these trusts as the present organization
now acts in the premises. I consider, sir, the meas
ures embraced in this bill, on this subject, are
perfect. " It seems strange to me that the Councils have
thought of the interests of the city at the eleventh
hour; certainly they could not suppose that the gen
tlemen of this Committee would overlook measures
of such vast importance, and the very simplicity of
the bill should satisfy the mind of any one who reads
it, that full justice has been done the city.
" The bounty of Girard, the charity of Scott, to
gether with all benevolent donations entrusted to the
care of the city, will be fully as safe under the acts

PASSING THE ACT.

43

of this bill as they now are, and he who thinks to the
contrary is guilty of weakness.
" I hope, sir, the attention of the members of
the House of Representatives and Senate will be
awakened to the interests of our city, and this bill,
as it emanated from the Committee, be passed.
" The great secret of the actions of the Councils
last evening, obviously is to delay, and by that delay
peril the bill on the eve of its final passage.
" Mr. Kennedy — Mr. President, as a citizen of the
District of Northern Liberties, I refer with pride to
the resolutions passed by the Commissioners of that
District a few evenings since. While I honor them
for the bold stand taken, I equally regret the uncalled
for action of Councils last evening.
" Colonel Page — Sir; there are times when it be
comes every honest man to look to the general good
and throw aside politics. I am pleased, sir, to stand
in this place and say that no action has been taken
by the Democratic party to oppose this bill. Northern
Liberties, the cradle of Democracy, has sent its po^
tential voice up in favor of Consolidation. So also
has Moyamensing, and everywhere that the Demo
cratic party has spoken through its organizations, a
large majority has been found in favor of Consoli
dation. " The people generally are in favor of this bill, and
the opposition arises from mere selfish principles, and
springs only from office-holders, who have a personal
interest in the result. The benefit of this bill will be
past comprehension, and as one, I feel no party ad
hesion; no personal or individual motives should

44

CONSOLIDA TION.

prevent its passage. I hope, sir, this bill may pass
the House, be signed by the Governor, and go into
effect, as has been very appropriately suggested, on
the 22d of February next ; for, certain is it, that it
will bring peace, order, and good government over
half a million of people. I am cordially in favor of
the bill, and I regret in common with the gentlemen
who have preceded me that Councils, after seeing the
actions and labors of this committee, and having been
afforded the most ample opportunity of inspecting
the bill, should at this late day appoint committees
to see that the interests of the City are taken care of
I earnestly hope, sir, that all who raise objections to
this bill, may live to be disappointed.
"Mr. Watts — Mr. President, with other gende-
men I have seen with regret the action of Councils,
who have heretofore expressed satisfaction of the
proceedings of this body, and I cannot now see why
they should express doubts as to the trusts of the
city. Should hesitation be brought to bear on the
members of the Legislature as to the passage of this
bill, it is my opinion that the member of the Legis
lature who dare in any material respect to alter this
bill, assumes a responsibility that few men are bold
enough to undertake. I do not wish to disparage
the industry, capacity, or fidelity of any of the mem
bers of the Legislature ; but I do declare that, if I
stood in the position of those gentlemen, I would not
dare to dot an i or cross a / in any portion of that
bill. I mean so great has been the intelligence, and
assiduity of the Committee, and, so great has been
the technical skill employed, and so much care hav-

PASSING THE ACT.

45

ing been bestowed on each provision of the bill, can
not affect disadvantageously the interests of the city.
" As a representative of the citizens of this Com
monwealth, I would bow with deference to the will
universally expressed by our Courts, Grand Juries,
and the will of the people so universally expressed.
" Mr. William L. Hirst said that he did not by any
means consider the bill in danger; and, if he could
do so, he would regard the experiment of representa
tive government as a failure. There was but one
part of the bill which could give rise to a political
feeling, and that was the division of the city into
wards. And on this point he desired to say that if
the boundaries fixed by the bill should be disturbed
by amendments, it would be a violation of all pro
priety. In this Committee there had been a general
yielding of political considerations, and the division
into wards had been made especially in such a man
ner as to avoid political difficulties. He said further,
that the accounts he received from Harrisburg were
to the effect that the House of Representatives was
prepared to be as prompt and unanimous in its action
on the bill as the Senate had been. He would not
believe that there was any danger of the failure of
the bill, and he knew there was not the slightest
reason for apprehension, if the members from the
city and county were true to the obligations they
owed to those who had elevated them to power.
" Mr. Andrew Miller concurred fully in all that
had been said. The legal gentleman who had re
vised that portion of the bill relating to the trusts
was one in whose hands he would entrust his life

46 CONSOLIDA TION.
with perfect confidence. Mr. Miller said, in addition,
that though the boundaries of all the wards were not
such as he had desired and urged, he had cheerfully
acquiesced in the general decision on the subject, and
he hoped all others would do the same.
" Mr. George Northrop agreed with Mr. Watts
that the object of Councils making their last move
ment was not stated in the resolution which they had
adopted. He explained that in the matter of the
trusts, no law consolidating the city could impair
them, inasmuch as the corporations were merely
trustees, standing in the same relation as in individ
ual trustees. If the individual trustee were changed,
as sometimes became a matter of necessity, and as
was done by legal authority, it did not in any man
ner affect the trust itself So, if a trust were vested
in one of our municipal corporations, it could not be
destroyed by the mere act of consolidating the city,
but passed into the hands of the new corporation
which legally was created to take the place of the
old one. Eminent legal counsel had been consulted
by the Committee on this very subject, who had given
the opinion that the bill in nowise affects the trusts.
In fact, as Mr. Binney had said, the trusts protect
themselves. This opinion, he remarked, was given by
one, who had been the counsel of the city corporation.
" Mr. McMichael said — Gentlemen, as your Chair
man, I have not had an opportunity in the debates,
and, although I have had considerable experience in
deliberative bodies, yet I have seldom listened to dis
cussions participated in by men of such high attain
ments. I have never known of anything being so

PASSING THE ACT.

A7

thoroughly discussed, nor yet have I known of a
body of men confining themselves to the point, as
has been done in the two months' deliberations of
this body. Experience, combined with practical
sense, has been adduced : and I have taken great
pleasure, apart fr(jm my personal interest, in listening
to the debates. The givijig up, all round, of personal
prejudices, was eminently praiseworthy. I think that
the members of this body possess as much intelli
gence, and quite as much honesty, as the members of
Councils." On the 30th of January, 1854, the Bill passed the
House, after slight and unimportant amendments, by
a vote of 79 yeas against 3 nays. On the 31st, the
amendments were concurred in by the Senate ; and
on the 1st of February the Bill was compared, and in
the evening sent to the Governor. Governor Bigler
was then at Erie, owing to the Railroad War between
that City and the Railroad Companies. There was
urgent necessity that the Bill should become a law
without delay, to put an end to the legal powers of
the District corporations to contract debts, as they
were beset to make Railroad Loans, and some of them
were tempted to incur debts for local advantages
which they would not have done if they should have
the debts to pay, but were quite willing and eager to
incur them when they knew that the Consolidation
Law would throw the obligation of payment on the
large City. William C. Patterson therefore went with
the Assistant Secretary of State and the Bill to Erie,
and procured the signature of the Governor, whereby
it became a law on the 2d of February, 1854; they

48 CONSOLIDA TION.
having been in the cars from the evening of the pre
ceding day, and having called the Governor from his
bed before midnight of the day of its date to sign the
Bill ; which he was enabled to do at once, since he had
been acquainted with the purposes of the Bill before
leaving Harrisburg, and also felt* the necessity of
prompt action.

CHAPTER IV.
GROUNDS PRESENTED FOR THE PASSAGE OF THE ACT.
Mr. Price, as Chairman, presented the following
to the Senate :
" The Select Committee of the Senators from the
City and County of Philadelphia respectfully report :
" That the bill referred to them entitled ' An Act
further to amend an act entitled an act to incorporate
the city of Philadelphia,' has claimed their careful
consideration, and they recommend its enactment
into a law. For more than ten years the subject of
extending the limits of the city of Philadelphia has
engaged the attention of our constituents, successive
bills have been framed by citizens of distinguished
intelligence and ability, and the bill now reported is
the result of their deliberations after full discussion
and mature consideration. The measure has from
year to year increased in public favor, until the people
have become so nearly unanimous as to silence pub
lic opposition. This unanimity of feeling is not now
to be distrusted as a popular impulse that is unsafe
for legislative action. It has encountered the long
continued opposition of the interested by office and
power to oppose it, and of these who apprehend dan
ger in all advancements and changes, and by obstruc
tion and time has gathered resistless strength. This
c 5 ( 49 )

so

CONSOLIDA TION.

continued discussion and long lapse of time, waiting
for and obtaining the slow acquiescence of the cautious
and wary, who now see in the measure the only effect
ual relief against intolerable evils, afford the desired
assurance of a safe and prudent legislation — of legis
lation that shall be the expression of wisdom and
justice as well as of power.
"The municipalities of Philadelphia have received,
at various periods since the revolution, the deputed
powers of the Commonwealth, variously expressed
and limited in their different charters. They were
the free gift of the sovereign power to subserve the
public welfare, more especially, it is true, as respects
the people therein inhabiting, but also as regards the
citizens and important interests of the State. Those
powers were conferred because there are many local
improvements and laws demanded for the well-being
of large towns, that are not required for the sparse
population of the country. Those delegated powers
¦ are but a trust to be exercised for and in behalf of
the Commonwealth, through agencies more inces
santly active and prompt of execution than the ordi
nary course of administrative justice, or of. distant
and but occasional legislation. They partake not of
the nature of a contract, incurring as such constitu
tional inhibition against a repeal, but that of a depu
tation or agency subject to revocation. Those powers,
therefore, which the Legislature has conferred only
for the public good, the same authority may withdraw
or modify when the public good shall require it; and
the duty thus to do in such emergency is the same
that induced their original delegation. But it follows

ARGUMENT THEREFOR.

SI

not that by the dissolution of a charter or its modifi
cation, any change can be made in the rights of prop
erty. The change of a trustee or a modification of
his powers works no change in the beneficial, owner
ship. By the principles of everlasting justice as well
as the guaranties of our constitutions, the rights of
property cannot be impaired, and when held in trust
it must be preserved for the uses to which it has been
devoted. The bill now reported, in abundant caution
expressly declares that all trust estates shall be held
by the city of Philadelphia upon the same uses, trusts,
and limitations upon which they are now held. Nor
ia the identity and continuity of the old city charter
severed or touched, but only modified with extended
boundaries. " The present limits of the city of Philadelphia re
main as they were fixed by the founder nearly two
centuries since, containing two square miles. They
have known no expansion or retraction, but, as upon
the Procrustean bed, all things upon the city plot have
been made to conform to the contracted space, until
it may be naturally apprehended that the mind and
energies of her citizens have been, in a degree,
cramped and fettered by their narrow bounds for
scope and enterprise. While nearly all other cities
of our continent have been allowed freedom of ex
pansion, and have bounded forward in population,
and wealth, the city of Philadelphia had fallen, in
1850, from, the first to the second in wealth, and the
fourth in population. Had she, from time to time,
as the town extended, annexed territory, her growth
would have been natural, and the system of gov-

5 2 CONSOLIDA TION.
ernment been preserved simple and uniform, with an
ever increasing strength. But the accretions round
the city have been independent corporations, nour
ished by her strength and created by the overflow of
her population and wealth, until the nine district
municipalities, formed upon the original nucleus, ex
ceed in population the parent city. The city, by the
census of 1850, was in population one hundred and
twenty-one thousand four hundred and seventeen,
and of the city and county four hundred and nine
thousand and forty-five. New York was five hundred
and fifteen thousand five hundred and forty-seven,
Baltimore one hundred and sixty-nine thousand and
fifty-four, Boston one hundred and thirty-six thousand
eight hundred and eighty-one, and by this time Cin
cinnati and^ New Orleans, then but a few thousand
less than the city proper of Philadelphia, have gone
ahead of her.
" It is not to be supposed of human nature that the
people of these many separate local governments
have not been actuated by a preference and zeal for
their separate interests, nor that collisions and hostile
feelings have not arisen obstructive to a concert of
measures for the common welfare. With no para
mount or pervasive power of legislation or control,
no laws, uniformly operative over the whole, could
be adopted or executed beyond the respective bounds
of each. Rioters suppressed within one jurisdiction
take refuge and find impunity within another. Meas
ures of public improvement, by the city or respec
tive districts, are arrested at each extreme of their
narrow limits; and works erected competent to sup-

ARGUMENT THEREFOR. 53
ply the wants of all with but slight additional ex
pense, are curtailed of their usefulness, and other
works at large expense uselessly erected by other
corporations. The varying laws of so many localities
in close contiguity, are so numerous and little known,
that the citizens, in their hourly movements, are sub
jected to legal obligations and powers of which they
have no knowledge. These divisions and unseen
lines and complication of powers, are potential alike
to paralyze or arrest every effort to advance the com-,
mon welfare and to suppress general evils.
" Partial efforts have been made for co-operation
between the city and districts, which have resulted
in good not unmixed with evil- They have produced
bodies that are irregular excrescences upon a bad and
disjointed system, but the necessary shifts to avert
greater mischiefs. We have ' County Commissioners,'
in number and powers corresponding with those of
other counties, but with affairs to manage of so much
greater magnitude as to require a ' County Board,'
composed of the members of the Legislature, to be
a check upon them, and to a.ssume the responsibilities
of fixing the rate of taxation, making appropriations,
etc. We have a board of ' Guardians of the Poor,'
whose members are appointed by the city and dis
tricts, invested with an independent power to levy
taxes, and, beyond the supervision and control of the
appointing power, to check expenditures or correct
abuses. We have a 'Board of Health' appointed in
like manner, in receipt of head-money from emigrants,
and beyond supervision and control. We have the
' Port Wardens,' the master appointed by the Gov-
5*

54

CONSOLIDA TION.

ernor, and thirteen assistants appointed by the city.
Commissioners of certain districts and the Borough
of Bridesburg, who have control without accounta
bility, of matters that seriously concern important
commercial interests. We have numerous ' Direct
ors of Public Schools' appointed by the city and dis
tricts and elected by the people in the townships, and
the Directors choose a ' Board of Controllers,' and the
latter have indirect taxing powers, and are accounta
ble to no supervising authority. We have, more
over, a ' Board of Police,' composed of the presidents
of the City Councils and District Commissioners, and
of the Police Marshal, the latter elected by the people
and subject to no direct control by any other body.
We have besides these a ' Board of Prison Inspectors,'
appointed by the courts and mayor, recorder and
aldermen, without the supervision or control of any
superior authority. Thus we have ten corporations
or separate organized bodies, mostly emanating from
the ten municipal corporations, overlapping and inter
twined with them, and exercising each a share of the
local government in and about Philadelphia, the ex
tent of whose powers and doings are generally un
known to the citizens, who, when they perform their
duty of paying their taxes, know little of the manner
or purpose of their expenditure, or of the fidelity of
their public servants in the disbursement of them.
It is true, there are in all these bodies many valuable
public-spirited citizens serving the community with
out compensation, but for whose faithfulness and
integrity such an incongruous accumulation of func
tionaries could not have been so long endured with-

ARGUMENT THEREFOR.

55

out a liability to that supervision and correction of
abuses which is needful in every department of re
publican government. The bill now reported, brings
all those, bodies, so far as retained, subject to the
supervision of .the City Councils for the correction of
all malpractices. TJieir members, too, are generally
made elective by the people, who will yearly have the
opportunity of a new selection, and of omitting such
as may have been exceptionable in conduct. ,
"Add to the ten municipal 'corporations, the County
Commissioners and the ten enumerated excrescent
bodies, adjunct and helpful by reason of the restricted
linrvits and infirm.ities of the eleven, and we have
twenty-one governing bodies in the city and districts
of Philadelphia; and add to these the six boroughs,
and thirteen townships, and the sum of the whole is
forty corporate, or quasi-corporate bodies, to govern
the people and manage the public affairs of the
smallest county in the State; and with the help of
them all it is undoubtedly the worst governed, from
the number of limited territorial divisions and incon
gruous powers and conflicting interests of these
various governing and executive institutions.
" When it is considered how many are the function
aries and persons employed in and under all the
enumerated corporate bodies, and in the collection of
the taxes, it cannot be a matter of surprise that the
purpose of consolidation has been long resisted,
baffled, and delayed. But the , people, with a united
voice and irresistible strength, have demanded a
single government of more extended rule, that shall
have greater power to subserve the public good.

56 CONSOLIDA TION.
To the Legislature of the Commonwealth they make
their appeal for relief, and ask that form of govern
ment that properly appertains to the community in
habiting one large city, with the same large commer
cial, manufacturing, and social interests ; a single
government, that shall produce fraternal feelings,
harmonious action, advancing alike the welfare and
prosperity of the whole and every part. They make
this appeal hopefully and confidently, in the full con
viction that the Legislature will not refuse what the
welfare and happiness of any portion of the Com
monwealth requires. Philadelphia, though cramped,
fettered, and paralyzed by a pernicious and compli
cated system of government, is an important portion
of the State. She is part and parcel of Pennsylvania,
to whom the State owes the duty of furnishing a good
government. She is the only great seaport of the
State, that transacts the commerce between the ocean
and the interior, not only of the State but of the Con
tinent. And with her rightful dimensions, though
the smallest county, she contains nearly one fifth of
the population and more than one-fourth of the taxa
ble wealth of the Commonwealth. Add to this the
outlying lands of her citizens, the capital moving and
afloat of her merchants, their shipping at home and
abroad, their merchandise and debts of customers,
and you have an aggregate of wealth that cannot be
readily told. For the protection of these large inter
ests, for the prosperity and happiness of her people,
she claims the benignant and kindly consideration of
the Commonwealth, not as to strangers, not as to a
portion of the State having distinct or opposing in-

ARGUMENT THEREFOR.

57

terests, but as a part, and not an unimportant part,
of the great State of. Pennsylvania, as one in feeling
and one in interest with the whole body of their
fellow-citizens, having the same government to sus
tain and defend.
" How much Philadelphia has outgrown and is
outgrowing the city limits; and how much her popu
lation has overflown her boundaries, may be seen by
the following tables: In 1850, three of the districts
north of the city exceeded her population by over
thirty thousand. In that year all the districts con
tained 238,121 inhabitants, and the city but 121,417;
difference 117,704, or nearly double; and now they
are more than double the city in population.
" The increase of the city is but 29^ per cent, in
ten years, that of Spring Garden is 1 1 1 ^ and of
Kensington 109^. The city of Philadelphia is no
part of it in the centre of Philadelphia. Vine street,
her northern boundary, is south of the centre of pop
ulation. There were in 1850 but 188,802 inhabitants.
between the rivers south of Vine street, while there
were north of that street, between the two rivers,
206,885 j ^"'i in three and a half years that difference
has greatly increased. The aggregate increase in ten
years south of that line is but fifty-two per cent.,
while north of it the increase is nearly eighty-three
per cent.
" The valuations of real estate for taxation also
show that the new districts are rapidly outstripping
the city, and each successive year will increase the
disparity of the ratio, as a widening circle extends
the line of improvement. The city valuation in-
c*

58

CONSOLIDA TION.

creased in nine years fifteen and one-fourth per cent,
while the average increase of the whole county was
twenty-seven and five-sixths per cent., and the dis
tricts on the margin of the town, with room for new
buildings, were above sixty-five and eighty-eight per
cent, increase. And herein is apparent the future
advantage to the whole city when enlarged, of those
districts having large open space yet to be built
upon ; for though their surveys, grading, culverting,
&c., may be expensive, they have a power to increase
revenue for a long time to come, which in the present
city and the Northern Liberties is nearly expended,
by their plots being generally built up. The future
availability of the young and thrifty is more than
compensatory for their present indebtedness and future
occasion of expenditure.

POPULATION.

City of Philadelphia 
Southwarlc 
Moyamensing 
Passyunk 
Total south of Vine street.
Northern Liberties 
Spring Garden 
Kensington 
Residue of county north of
city and east of Schuylkill.
Total norlh.of Vine street.
West of Schuylkill 
Total city and county 

1840.

93.66527,548 14,573 1,594

137,380

34,474 27,84922,314
28,467

113,104
137,380 7,553

258,037

1850.

121,417 38,79926,979 1,607

188,802

47,223 58,895
46,776 53,991

206,885 188,802 13,358

409,045

29^ per cent.
41 nearly.
85^ per cent.
4-5 1 do.
52 do.
37 dj-
111^ do.
169^^ do.
895s do.
82;^ do.
82^ do.
*l%% do.

* Aggregate.

ARGUMENT THEREFOR.

59

" Taxable inhabitants in 1853. — City, 22,024; South-
wark, 8,193; Moyamensing, 6,153; Passyunk, 335, —
total, 36,705.
"Northern Liberties, 9,130; Spring Garden, 12,817;
Kensington, 11,563; Penn, 2,658; boroughs and
townships north of city, 11,332, — total, 43,496.

VALUATION OF REAL
ESTATE.

1844.

1853-

INCREASE.

City 

^557,708,858 5,367,581 2,323,2109,056,9489,149,604 3,793,508
12,893,513

;f66,497,465 6,036,047 3,838,791 9,637,466
15,128,817 7,148,502
19,931,570

1 5^ per cent.
I2j4 do.

Sonthwark 

65 >^ do.
6^ do.
65K do.
88 1-5 do.

Northern Liberties 

K.ensington 

Other districts, boroughs,
and townships 

54% do.

Total 

100,293,222

128,218,658

27 5-6 do.

"It is apparent that by the double process of the
growth of the town outside, in an ever-expanding
circle, and the conversion of dwellings in the city
into uninhabited stores and warehouses, the latter
will become, as respects population, of subordinate
importance, and the property of the wealthy, who
^ shall retire outside the vortex of business, be left to
the government of those who will own but a small
.proportion of it, if the present divisions be maintained.
Such has been the process in London. There wealth
and fashion have receded from the city as defined by
its ancient walls, as if the contact with trade imputed
vulgarity; and here, if no less worthy motive, the
attractions of quietude, fresh air, health, and nature's
6o CONSOLIDA TION.
charms, will continue to accelerate the villa improve
ments that have begun to adorn West and North
Philadelphia. It should not be that the city should
sink to be an appendage to her own colonies, nor to
stand in the sixth rank of American cities, when, by
the enactment now recommended, she may instantly
become the first in size, the largest in the number of
well-built houses, of all the cities in the Union. If
the surrounding habitations and people be not thus
secured to the city, she will as inevitably sink in
relative importance''to the towns now rapidly grow
ing round her, as that the nations of Europe, within
contracted territories, will dwindle in the comparison
with the ever-swelling population and rising greatness
of the North American republic.
" In times past we have heard of objections to con
solidation that may, perhaps, be repeated. It is said
that London and Paris are respectively small cities,
around which other municipalities were formed like
those round the city of Philadelphia, until the aggre
gate London and Paris became to be millions in
population. And that\ is true. But let it be recol
lected that London and Paris have had their growth
during a period . commencing before the Christian
era ; that they had no such elements of progress as
are witnessed in the United States ; that they' have
been for nearly two thousand years the seats of two
of the most powerful governments of the earth —
governments sustained by immense standing armies ;
and that the soldiery and police are an arm of the
State, whose power pervades all parts and maintains
the peace by an iron rule. No such power is present

ARGUMENT THEREFOR. 6 1
in Philadelphia. God grant it may never be. Happily
our governments need no standing army; the people
are their voluntary and best support. Yet in all large
cities the elements of disorder and misrule lie in close
and fermenting proximity, easily kindled and of ex
plosive power, and demanding a preparation and
means of suppression as prompt and of unquestion
able efficiency. These means imply the necessity of
a pervasive authority, as quick and far reaching in
execution as the riot or tumult to be suppressed, and
admitting of no border refuge to the violators of the
law. These we must iattain by a single head to direct,
and an efficient chief of police with adequate force to
execute ; and for these we provide by the bill for
consolidation, without obstructive divisions and with
exterior borders sufficiently remote to afford no place
of lodgment within striking distance. To the govern
ment of the State we have not been accustomed to
Ipok for a police force to suppress the riots and dis
orders that arise in cities, until the crisis demands
a large military power, but by deputed municipal
powers to take the duty, expenses, and burthens
thereof on the local community. This duty and
these expenses and burthens this community are
willing to do and to bear, but only ask from the com
mon legislature the legal means and facilities best
adapted to the purposes of self-protection, for our
peace, prosperity, and happiness.
" Another objection, much more specious than solid,
under which an appeal was made to patriotic feeling
and the pride and principle of State rights, was raised
by taking a comparison between the act of consolida-
6

62 CONSOLIDA TION.
ting the districts and that of the States of the Union.
There is no just parallel between the cases. The
States, on the achievement of the revolution, became
respectively independent sovereign nations, with orig
inal, inherent, and absolute power, for all purposes,
the smallest and greatest. By the formation of the
constitution of the United States, only a few specific
powers for general objects were surrendered, and all
others reserved to the States and the people thereof;
and awing to this distribution of powers it is that we
have derived the capacity of comprehending as a
united nation the territory of an empire, without im
pairing the due strength of government in every part.
Our municipal districts exercise but a deputed au
thority for local objects, such as paving and lighting
the streets, watching and police, without any original
or inherent rights as such corporations. That power
that created them for good may revoke the delegated
authority, when it fails of its object, or to reconfer it
for a greater good ; and the creature, in such case,
has no warrant to become heroic in defence of rights
that were wholly derived from the creator of them.
' Shall the work say of him that made it. He made
me not?' Our Magna Charta declares it to be an
inalienable and indefeasible right of the people to
alter, reform, or abolish their government (Const.
Art. 9, Sec. 2), the work of their creation, and may
not their representatives, exercising their sovereign
will, revoke for satisfactory cause their own delegated
powers ? We have it recently declared by the
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania that ' public corpo
rations are cities, counties, and townships, which are

ARGUMENT THEREFOR. 63
erected for political purposes. Their charter may be
granted or repealed without the consent of the mem
bers, and their affairs are managed by public officers.'
(Per Chief Justice Black, Sharpless vs. City.) And
again, by the Supreme Court of the United States, that
' if a charter be a mere grant of political power, if it
create a civil institution, to be employed in the ad
ministration of the government, or if the funds be
public property alone, and the government alone be
interested in the management of them, the legislative
power over such charter is not restrained by the con
stitution, but remains u?ilimited! (Story on the Const.
§ 1393, citing Dartmouth College vs. Woodward, 4
Whea. 518; and see i Whar. 25.)
" There is, however, one parallel between the his
tory of the confederated States and that of our mu
nicipalities that it may be useful to consider. While
held together by the imperfect ligature of articles of
compact, it was found by experience that even with
the aid of the patriotic feeling of the revolution,
their action was not consentaneous and uniform in
support of that congress and commander-in-chief
'who, through many difficulties thereby aggravated,
conducted them to victory and independence. It
became a necessity to abandon the federative articles,
to form a constitution, and to establish a government
with its own direct and efficient powers, as absolute
and far reaching as the purposes of the constitution
required. The same paralyzing inefficiency exists
among the city and districts to accomplish any ob
jects for the general security and advantage of the
whole, without the permitted power to attempt a

64 CONSOLIDA TION.
remedy by mutual compact. The Union was formed
by a constitution established by the people ; the city
charter was formed and can only be reformed by the
legislative authority who granted it. The rights of
the United ^tates and of the State governments stand
consistently together for different objects, but a city
charter to cover the same limits cannot co-exist with
the district corporations for the same objects. Phila
delphia is one community, one dense population, one
town of houses standing together, and rapidly ad
vancing her streets and mural improvements upon
the surrounding fields; in nature, character, purposes,
and interests she is one community and should be
one city, one consolidated city, and not many corpo
rations with many attendant satellites moving in ir
regular orbits of neutralizing influence and clashing
in power.
"A further objection made to embracing the whole
county in one city is, that if the city as thus enlarged
should vote by general ticket, there would be a proba
bility that the members of the Legislature would
generally be of one party, and give to the city an
undue weight in the Assembly. The bill obviates *
this result by a clause, usual in the formation of new
counties, continuing the present apportionment for
the residue of this septennial term, which will be
until 1857, and that thereafter representatives shall be
elected in the city by separate election districts. In
the formation of senatorial districts, it is admitted,
that neither the city of Philadelphia of two square
miles, nor any county can be divided ; but the sena
tors are elected in successive years, and in a city

ARGUMENT THEREFOR. 65
nearly balanced in respect to the relative strength of
parties, it will undoubtedly happen that from tempo
rary causes, as the desire to carry particular measures,
or general influences, or greater fitness or popularity
of candidates, different parties will succeed in differ
ent years, and thus will senators be elected and be
found at the same time in the Senate of opposing
politics. Again, if by uniting the city and county in
one senatorial district the number of senators at the
next apportionment should be reduced to four, that
would relatively be a gain to the rest of the Com
monwealth. " May then the city be divided into separate dis
tricts for the election of representatives ? The con
stitution is express in respect to the formation of
senatorial districts that, ' Neither the city of Philadel
phia nor any county shall be divided in forming a
district.' There is no such prohibition in respect
to the election of representatives, and the express
inhibition in the former case and its omission in the
latter is an exclusion of it in the latter, otherwise it
would have been inserted. The constitution directs
no districts to be formed for the election of repre
sentatives, whether by counties or otherwise, nor that
counties must be adjoining and must not be divided,
which was necessary in respect to senators, because
these being required to be from one-fourth to one-
third less in number than the representatives, de
manded a proportionately larger basis of representa
tion requiring counties to be added together, and
consequently a check against contrivances for party
advantage. The only duty prescribed in respect to
6*

66 CONSOLIDA TION.
representatives is, ' That the number of representa
tives shall be fixed by the legislature and apportioned
among the city of Philadelphia and the several coun
ties, according to the number of taxable inhabitants in
each.' There is no limitation upon their number but
that of the taxable inhabitants, no direction to form or
to omit to form election districts, nor to divide or not
to divide any city or county in electing representatives.
The whole purpose is to secure a rateable apportion
ment of the representatives to the number of taxable
inhabitants, that an equal and just rule shall be ob
served throughout the Commonwealth, in respect to
the city and counties relatively to each other. This
purpose being secured, the requisition of the consti
tution is satisfied. This purpose is equally secured,
whether the proper proportionate number for a city
or county, adjusted by the prescribed rule, be elected
by general ticket or by single districts. The number
of representatives is directed to be apportioned among
the city and counties ; but whether to be elected by
one ticket for the whole, or separate for parts, is not
said. It is not directed that the election shall be by
the whole city or county, nor is it prohibited that
proportionate parts shall not elect a proportionate
number of the representatives. It is all the same to
the residue of the State, whether the- enlarged city
should elect fifteen representatives by general ticket
or the same number in fifteen elective districts, except
that in the latter case the party phalanx would be
broken, and each party have its fair representation,
and the latter is the result desired by the voters ask
ing to be incorporated, and that which will be most

ARGUMENT THEREFOR. 67
acceptable to the citizens of the residue of the Com
monwealth. "The constitutions of 1790 and 1838 use the same
language as to the apportionment of representatives
among the city of Philadelphia and the several coun
ties, yet both had in view that the Legislature might
form other elective districts than, the entirety of any
city or county. The third section of the former pre
scribes, that ' no person residing within any city,
town, or borough, which shall be entitled to a separate
representation, shall be elected a member for any
county ; nor shall any person, residing without the
limits of any such city, town, or borough, be elected a
member therefor.' This distinctly declares that a
city, town, or borough might have a separate repre
sentation from that of the county in which they vvere
situated, and that consequently counties were not the
only elective districts the Legislature could form,
although bound to apportion the representation
among the respective counties. The constitution of
1838, it is true, wholly omits the' clause last quoted.
But it substitutes, in the previous clause of the same
section, the word ' district ' for the words ' city and
county ' in the former constitution, and thereby re
tains the intent that the elective districts to be formed
may be other than those co-extensive with the bound
aries of a city or county. It does not require merely
of the representative that he be qualified by a year's
residence in the city or county for which he is to be
chosen, but of the district in and for which he shall
be chosen, showing clearly that such district might
be different from the lines of a whole city or county.

68 CONSOLIDA TION.
" If the representation were required to be by each
respective county and not otherwise, two or more
counties could not be joined together to form a dis
trict, yet such has always been done, and that too
when together voting for more than one representa
tive, thus making the two or more representatives
chosen represent two or more counties as one dis
trict. "The construction of the Constitution of the United
States, and the practice under it, will also illustrate
the subject. By it, ' representatives shall be appor
tioned among the several States, according to their
respective numbers.' It is silent whether they shall
be elected in districts or by general ticket; and
down to 1842 the acts of Congress, making the ap
portionment of representatives in Congress, were
silent on the subject, and some States elected by gen
eral ticket and some by single districts, as their re
spective Legislatures enacted. The provision of the
constitution was equally satisfied in either way. The
act of Congress of 1842 directed, in conformity with
the spirit of the age, that each representative, in the
respective States, should be elected by single district,
composed of contiguous territory, and so the law
and practice have continued since.
" The Constitution of Pennsylvania also provides,
that ' the Representatives shall be chosen annually
by the citizens of the city of Philadelphia, and of
each county respectively.' And do not the citizens
of each county respectively elect the representatives
thereof, whether they do so as one, or as several elec
tion districts ? In either case, no more nor no less

ARGUMENT THEREFOR. 69
than the citizens of the county elect the representa
tives thereof, and it does not affect the rateable ap
portionment which it is the object of the Constitution
to secure, whether they be elected jointly or sepa
rately. It is further provided, that each county
shall have at least one representative ; whence it is
argued that a county cannot be divided into elective
divisions. Certainly not where but one is to be
elected ; but' that clause can have no bearing upon
the case of a city or county entitled to several repre
sentatives. The Constitution proceeds to say, ' but
no county erected shall be entitled to a separate
representation, until a sufificient number of taxable
inhabitants shall be contained within it, to entitle
them to one representative, agreeably to the ratio
which shall then be established.' This only further
shows, that county lines are not always to be the
boundaries of elective districts, as between the coun
ties themselves ; but can have no bearing upon the
question of separate elective districts within any city
or county. It does not follow that because any city
or county may elect in separate districts, that part of
such city or county shall be added to another county,
or part of another be added to it in forming the dis
tricts. It is only asked, that the city or county itself,
no more no less, be thus divided ; and against that,
there is neither direction, express nor implied, much
less any prohibition in the Constitution.
" In construing the Constitution of Pennsylvania,
we are not to forget its first line, ' The legislative
power ofsthis Commonwealth shall be vested in a
General Assembly.' The legislative power is the

yo

CONSOLIDA TION.

sovereign power ; the fullest, largest, highest power
that man can exercise on earth. It is omnipotent, so
far as man can exercise power over man, and is only
restrained by the powers granted exclusively to the
United States, or prohibited to the State by the Fed
eral or State Constitution. There is no prohibition
in either against the election of representatives by
single district. The Constitution directs the end to
be attained; it leaves the means of attaining that end
to the wisdom of the Legislature. The Constitution
declares that repr^entatives shall be apportioned
among the several counties, but by what divisional
districts they shall be elected, it does not declare, and
does Hot prohibit the proposed mode. ' The Consti
tution allows to the Legislature every power it does
not prohibit.' (Per Ch. Justice Gibson in Norris vs.
Chymer, 2 Barr, 285.) Congress has no powers but
those conferred by the Constitution of the United
States, being a government for limited purposes; but
a State Legislature has all powers not prohibited by
the Federal or State Constitution. (9 Rob. 411, Bo-
zant vs. Campbell.)
" Should, however, any doubt remain upon the
mind of the Legislature of its ability to district the
enlarged city for the next septennial period, there
remain two views to afford relief from the suggested
apprehension of an election by general ticket. An
other arnendment of the Constitution may be made
in 1855, after a resolution by tWo Legislatures, and
it would be but to meet the wishes and demand of
the people of the State, to have separate election dis
tricts for senators and representatives. In this re-

ARGUMENT THEREFOR.

n

spect the sentiment of the people of the city and
county of Philadelphia accords with the desire of the
people of the residue of the Commonwealth.
"Again, the 'city of Philadelphia,' as spoken of in
the Constitution for election purposes, is a division
of the State for apportionment of representatives of
two square miles, neither more nor less ; and it would
but conform to the letter and spirit of the Constitu
tion to enlarge the city boundaries, subject to the
retention of the same limits, as a division for ap
portionment for both senators and representatives.
.William Penn, in 1682, surveyed the city on a plot
covering two square miles, (i Proud, 243.) Plis
charter to the city, of 1701, made 'the limits and
bounds as it is laid out between Delaware and Schuyl
kill.' Although that charter had expired by the
Revolution, the Constitution of Pennsylvania, of
1776, recognized 'the city of Philadelphia' as entitled
to a separate representation for members of the Gen
eral Assembly and of the Supreme Executive Council.
In 1 789 -a new charter was granted by the Legislature
to the city of Philadelphia, still of its former dimen
sions. The Constitution of Pennsylvania, adopted in
1790, declared that the representatives should be
' apportioned among the city of Philadelphia and the
several counties, according to the number of taxable
inhabitants in each ;' which are the words continued
in the amended Constitution of 1838. The Consti
tution did then mean, and must continue to mean,
that such section or division, for apportionment of
representatives, should be between the rivers Dela
ware and Schuylkill and Vine and Cedar streets ; and

72

CONSOLIDA TION.

it can be no infraction'thereof to continue a division
for that purpose of the same size, although the city,
for all other purposes, be enlarged to the size of the
county. Under this view, the present city and county
limits of Philadelphia may, it is believed, be con
tinued two divisions for apportionment of representa
tives, as heretofore, liable to sub-divisions into elec
tive districts, if the former position be correct, as
regards members of the House of Representatives.
" The city of Philadelphia of enlarged limits may
be the same city, bearing the same name under an
amended charter, as to corporate identity, but will
not be the same division for apportionment of repre
sentatives intended by the Constitution, inasmuch as
it will be a much larger section of the State. If the
enlarged municipality were called the city and county
oi Pemi, it could not be doubted that the city limits
meant in the Constitution by the city of Philadelphia
would be only the original two square miles ; and
this cannot be less the case, by calling the enlarged
city by the old name. The present city was a sepa
rate representative and senatorial division in the
county of Philadelphia, forbidden to be divided as to
senators, but not as to representatives; and the Con
stitution cannot be invaded, by adhering to the same
limits in apportioning the representation, although
the other parts of the county are to be also embraced
in the corporate limits and called the city of Phila
delphia. If the two square miles were incorporated
under the name of the city oi Delaware, and the residue
of the county as the city of Philadelphia, the former,
and not the latter, must remain the intended constitu-

ARGUMENT THEREFOR.

73

tional division. It is the geographical space and the
people therein inhabiting, and not the name, that
would establish the identity of the representative
division, for this is what was in view when the Con
stitution was formed.
" The question of the extent of the limits of the
enlarged city, as one principally affecting the citizens
within the proposed boundaries, has claimed their
own serious consideration. To take into the city but
the present city and districts, would leave the two
extremes of the county disconnected, and impose
upon their inhabitants the necessity of joining con
tiguous counties; of seeking justice at distant county
seats in the reverse direction from their ordinary calls
from home, and of leaving those records which have
preserved the muniments of their titles from the set
tlement of the province. The more vigilant pursuit
of offenders, by the city police, would drive violators
of the law to seek shelter or make their depredations
outside the city, or thence make depredatory visits
into it to the injury of peaceable citizens on both
sides the border. With the rapid progress m^de in
building, such an enlargement would have soon to be
repeated by further annexations, for between Phila
delphia and Frankford, Germantown, Roxborough,
and Hestonville, there is already a continuous build
ing connection. These considerations have had a
decisive influence with the next contiguous boroughs
and townships, to produce a willingness to come
within the city bounds; and in a diminished degree
the same influence has extended to the outer town
ships. But it is only necessary to look at the small
D 7

74

CONSOLIDA TION.

number of the inhabitants of the latter, to make it
apparent that it is not unreasonable to put them to a
choice of suffering themselves to be embraced by the
new limits of the city or of joining other counties.
They are less than five thousand taxable inhabitants
out of nearly eighty-seven thousand. Shall the du
plicate county machinery of county commissioners,
treasurer, county board, &c., be kept up at great
expense and disadvantage to retain so comparatively
small a number? They would be parted with in re
gret, but a proper economy and duty would require
the sacrifice, were it their choice not to be incorpo
rated in the city.
"The large body of citizens, including some from
every section who framed the bill, were unanimous
in their vote to embrace the whole county, and time
and explanation, it is believed, have reconciled many
who were at first opposed to the including of the
upper townships. The bill has been framed in a
spirit of kindness and conciliation towards them.
They are allowed wards with less than the average
number of taxable inhabitants; they are not to be
taxed for purposes that relate exclusively to the built
portion of the city; their representatives in Councils
are to share equally in the patronage with those of
every other ward, while whatever general advantages
shall be derived from the measure of consolidation, will
equally result to them, nay, will be enhanced to them,
as the impulse thereby, to be given to the growth of
the town, will rapidly spread it upon the rural terri
tory, and convert the fields into city building lots.
" To say that -property generally will not be en-

ARGUMENT THEREFOR.

n

hanced in value by the proposed change, other cir
cumstances remaining the same, is not to speak the
language of a sound and practical judgment. With
a single and sirnple form of government, and one
efficient police, to replace many, and works of im
provement to subserve all sections, with but a slight
increase of expense compared with the service per
formed, should reduce expenditures and taxes; with
united action, and the concentrated intelligence and
energy of the whole community, all enterprise must
be better directed and more efficient ; by the economy
of general means, directed to common ends, money
will be saved, and better adapted measures to pro
mote manufacturing industry, and to facilitate and
retain trade, profit, and capital will be increased, and
these all produce demand for the sites of business
and dwellings, and increase of the means of paying
for them ; and thus by the double operation of in
crease of demand, and of increase of money, price
will rise. To say the contrary of this, is to contra
dict all experience and an inevitable law of political
economy. " While the whole will be benefited by the general
measures to result from consolidation, there is no
partial injury to result to any portion. Considered
in respect to the burthen of existing debts, and a
future liability to taxation, no section will have a just
ground to complain of any other. To notice first the
city proper, its property and resources exceed in value
its debt ; it imposes no burthen on any other portion.
The district of the Northern Liberties is in like con
dition, and imposes no burthen on any other. But

76 CONSOLIDA TION.
the city and the Northern Liberties have nearly built
up all their territory, and have no room for growth.
Their capital expended in improvement must now be
largely spent in other sections, and go to contribute
to the growth and taxable resources of those portions
now in a less favorable financial condition. It is this
room and capacity for growth that make these worth
to the enlarged city more than their present indebted
ness. They have a future availability that makes
their acquisition a profitable investment at the cost
of their liabilities ; they afford a basis for taxation
and power, which they are too weak of themselves
advantageously to develop, but indispensable as the
foundation of a great city. When brought within
the city limits and city government, capital will be
more freely invested in a better character of buildings
than now obtains in outside sections. This will call
for surveys, grading, culverting, &c., by a present out
lay of moneys, but to be abundantly repaid in the
future revenue. It will be a process of mutual benefit.
The strength, the credit, and' prestige of the city will
be extendedTor the present help of those who alone
could but feebly and slowly achieve their growth,
but soon to be repaid with increase of wealth and
power. "Through consolidation, Philadelphia city and
county will achieve an improved mode of collecting
the taxes, that will save to the tax-payers about one
hundred thousand dollars per annum. The system
established by this bill will also insure a much earlier
collection, for the advantage of the finances and credit
of both the city and the State.

ARGUMENT THEREFOR. yy
' In establishing an organic change, forced upon
us by the pver-growth of the original limits for nearly
a century, it is, perhaps, not to be expected that the
Committee should notice the effect upon the existing
political parties. It is a measure demanded, irrespec
tive of party, by all political parties; for all parties
see in its consummation the public good; and every
party knows that if it resist a measure for the gen
eral good, when demanded by the popular voice, it
must suffer loss. But happily this is a measure that
will result to the injury of no party that does not
resist it, and will make all parties subserve the general
welfare. With elections by separate districts or
wards, each section will be represented in the city
and State Legislature according to the political com
plexion of the local constituency. The State repre
sentation will be divided between the parties, as it
now is ; and the city representation will be divided
as the City Councils and District Commissioners now
are not. Instead of City Councils all of one party,
and District Commissioners nearly so, exposed to the
temptations of opportunity and impunity, members
of opposing parties will always be present to watch
and check each other, and, with fuller information,
discuss and decide every question, with a closer re
gard to what may be required by the public good;
for. by that test must each answer to a watchful com
munity, and hope to command app'roval and obtain
strength. " Judging by the results of the elections for mem
bers of the Assembly and for county officers, the two
great political parties, when the Whigs and Natives
7*

78

CONSOL IDA TION.

act together as one, will approach an equality; and
the ward divisions will show that result in City Coun
cils. Which .shall predominate at any time will
probably depend upon the fact which shall present
the best men to the choice of the electors, and pursue
those measures they most approve; and should either
fail in these respects, the means of redress will readily
be within the reach of the people, where the disparity
to overcome is inconsiderable. This will be a posi
tion of affairs the people are not likely to com
plain of
" A further gain to the public will be, that with
larger wards than heretofore, and with larger interests
to guard and promote, exceeding those of many
Commonwealths of this Union, it may be confidently
hoped that men of large experience and stake in the
community, may be willing to serve in the city coun
cils. The city authorities then would combine the
influence of the strongest men of the different politi
cal parties for the common welfare. The city then
would always have in her service men in sympathy
with the existing administrations of the State and of
the General Government, that could not but result to
the advantage of Philadelphia in her competitions
with rival cities.
" As things have long existed in the present city,
the community have had no advantage from the in
fluence of more than one party, and that, most fre
quently, not in political unison with the State and
general administrations. In that city are concentrated
the millions of property that make it the focus of the
wealth of the State, and there are shaped the policy,

ARGUMENT THEREFOR.

79

concerted the measures, and provided the means, that
are chiefly instrumental in developing the wealth
and advancing the prosperity of the metropolis and
the State. But neither Democrats, nor Natives have,
for many years, participated in the city administra
tion; and the fact that they possess the power in the
districts, makes their co-operation, for common
measures, but the more difficult and unwilling;
whereas, if all were combined in one legislative body,
they would act with a concerted purpose, and with
the united influence of all parties for the general
welfare. " Nor should the State regard such a result with
distrust or apprehension as likely to produce an over
shadowing influence. It is an indispensable result to
enable Philadelphia to sustain the rivalry of other
cities seeking to absorb her trade, wealth, and popu
lation. Pennsylvania cannot be indifferent to her own
interests and honor in this regard. The increase of
the trade, wealth, population, and power of Philadel
phia, are but accessions to those of the State. What
ever ability is added to the city and her citizens is a
power added to the State to open her avenues of
trade, to increase her wealth and resources.
" Philadelphia united in her counsels, her purposes,
and her strength, could easily open her communica
tions to reach the trade of the north, northwest, west,
and southwest. The vast trade that floats past, profit
less to Pennsylvania, might be transported on her
own soil from her only lake-port to her only great
seaport. Fleets of ocean steamers might bring not
only the foreign importations, but the freights of

So CONSOLIDA TION.
Boston and New York upon the lines of Pennsylvania
railways and canals, and find thereby the cheapest
transit to the far west, and by the same channels be
returned the produce of the interior and the iron and
coal of Pennsylvania.
" On the day that the bill consolidating the city and
county of Philadelphia into one .shall receive the ex
ecutive sanction, Philadelphia will be the largest and
best built city in the United States. She would rank
second in population only because the people are less
crowded an.d more comfortably housed than those of
New York, and her diminished commerce has thrown
fewer immigrants upon her wharves. She is only
second in commerce, because New York first opened
a great avenue of trade to the west, and thus supplied
the return freights for the ships that brought into
port her imports and passengers, until by this action
and reaction, both as cause and effect, a trade has
arisen that outstrips all competition. It becomes us
to take this lesson deeply to heart, and, knowing the
cause, retrieve the error ; and this generation may
yet see Philadelphia achieve in the aggregate, if not
in all the elements, a power and greatness that will
place her the foremost of American cities. But it
will not be forgotten, that whatever be her increase,
it will be so much added to the wealth, prosperity,
and power of Pennsylvania.
" In conclusion, the bill recommended to be enacted
into a law, in place of many corporations, with dis
similar and conflicting powers and laws and opposing
interests, with numerous sets of officers, police, and
watchmen, will establish one city government, with

ARGUMENT THEREFOR. 8 1
one legislative authority, one executive head, one set
of police and watchmen, and other public servants,
with one code of laws and one common interest to
bind all the parts together; instead-of many loans of
differing values, one consolidated loan of one value
and of undoubted credit ; instead of many collectors,
seeking various taxes at every habitation, one general
receiver of taxeSj voluntarily paid, without commis
sions ; instead of many departments without super
vision or accountability, all will be placed under pub
lic observation to the citizens and accountability to
councils, and held bound to the common centre; and
instead of elements of strength and usefulness neu
tralized and lost by division, a union of the power and
intelligence of all parts and parties will be concen
trated for the welfare, prosperity, and happiness of
the city of Philadelphia and the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania." It is deemed important that the preceding report
should be preserved entire, for its statement of the
grounds upon which the Consolidation movement
was based; so apt to be forgotten when the evils
cured bave ceased to be felt, and new generations
can only know of them traditionally or by history.
It is also due to those who gave much time and
talent to the work, that they should be justified in
our municipal history, and have their fair meed of
praise.

CHAPTER V.
PRINCIPAL PROVISIONS OF THE CONSOLIDATION ACT.
Some of the features of the Consolidation Act
should be here noticed. In JDlace of a cumbrous
name that of " The City of Philadelphia" was adopted
as the style of the corporation. The identity of the
corporation was carefully preserved, so that there
should be no ground for a question as to trust titles
and other property. It enacted that "the boundaries
of the said City shall be extended so as to embrace
the whole of the territory of the County of Phila
delphia, and all the powers of said corporation, as en
larged and modified by this act, shall be exercised,
and have effect within the said County and over the
inhabitants thereof" Mr. Fraley's pen thus embodied
the comprehensive id§a of the Sub-Committee and
Committee. No power of the City was surrendered
that was not inconsistent with the act, while certain
powers of the Districts were also preserved, and the
retained and new powers were made to pervade the
area of the enlarged City.
Besides the saftction of the professional opinion
in the General Committee that formed the Bill, Mr.
Price obtained and took with him to Harrisburg the
written opinions of George M. Dallas and John M.
Read, that the titles of the City to trust and other
properties could not be impaired by the proposed law.
(82)

PROVISIONS OF THE ACT. 83
A recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United
States, in the case of Girard vs. Philadelphia, 7 Wal
lace's Reports, I, fully affirms the validity of those
opinions. It is there held that " neither the identity
of a municipal corporation, nor its right to hold
property devised to it, is destroyed by a change of
its name, an enlargement of its area, or an increase
in the number of its Corporators ; and these are
changes which the Legislature has power to make."
The area of the City is divided into twenty-four
wards, from which are to be elected one Common
Councilman for every twelve hundred taxable inhab
itants, and one for every fraction of six hundred or
more; and one member of Select Council for each
ward. They are vested with the municipal legislative
authority. All the property of the Districts was
vested in the City, and all their debts charged upon
the City.
The Mayor is elected for two years; is relieved
from sitting as a police magistrate ; and has greatly
enlarged powers for the preservation of the public
peace : " Besides the powers otherwise conferred by
law, he shall have the like power and authority as
the Sheriff" of the County of Philadelphia now has
for the suppression of any riot, disturbance, and vio
lation of law ; and shall exercise the authority of
making the requisition for the commanding officer
of the military, in lieu of the Marshal of Police as
now authorized by law, and of dismissing all police
officers and watchmen . . . for failure in the dis
charge of duty." He is to make recommendations
to Councils in matters relating to the welfare of the

84 CONSOLIDA TION.
City; and to see that the municipal laws and ordi
nances are executed; may call special meetings of
Councils, and exercise a veto power over the passage
of ordinances, to be an effective negative until over
come by a vote of two-thirds of each chamber of
Councils. A City Treasurer is made elective by the people;
and also a Receiver of Taxes. The taxes are col
lected at a central office, with deductions for early
payments, according to the period of such payments.
This provision superseded many tax-collectors, who,
like the firemen, had incurred the jealousy of the
people on account of their combination and undue
influence in nominating and electing candidates for
office, and to Councils and the Legislature.
A City Controller is a new provision. He is elec
tive by the people; and is to "countersign all warrants
on the City Treasurer, and shall not suffer any appro
priation made by the City Councils to be overdrawn,
and shall perform all the duties now enjoined by law
on the County auditors." He is to superintend the
fiscal concerns of the City, make report to Councils,
and to scrutinize and publish the public accounts of
the City and its trusts.
The performance of executive duties have been
taken from Councils and conferred upon Depart
ments, and these are made subject to the supervision
of Councils. These are the Departments of Law,
of Health, of Prison Inspection, Guardians of the
Poor, of Police, of Highways, of Water, of Fire, of
Surveys, of Education, Revision of the Tax Assess
ments, Port Wardens, all of which have their pre-

PROVISIONS OF THE ACT. 85
scribed duties. The members of the Board of Health
and Guardians of the Poor were made elective by the
people in the Consolidation Bill ; but politically elected
incumbents were found to abuse their trusts in their
management, and by supplement the appointment of
the members of said Boards was conferred upon the
Courts ; and yet later, all the City charitable trusts
have been placed in the management of the appointees
of the Courts. These instances, with others, show
that partisan politics do not work up to the standard
required for the good administration of trusts, either
as respects ability or integrity. The people are always
honest in their desires, but they are not usually
afforded by the political managers such a choice of
candidates, as to ability or integrity, as they might
command, if those who do not seek office or place
were selected instead of those who seek to profit by
office or place, even when no salary is provided by
law for the public service.
The City was directed to organize a police depart
ment, and authorized to organize a fire department,
and to regulate it "for the preservation of the public
peace, the suppression of riot and disturbances, and
for the extinguishment of fires, and the protection of
property thereat, and for this purpose the said Coun
cils shall be and hereby are vested with ample power
and authority in the premises."
The details of the Act may be seen by reading it
and its supplements. It is intended here to notice
only its general features, and to enumerate the greater
powers, by which the great City will be enabled to
make its history, and provide for the welfare of its

86 CONSOLIDA TION.
Citizens when they shall be millions. The legislation
under consideration has conferred the requisite powers,
and it is only required that we shall be true to our
selves to accomplish a great destiny, and stand in the
foremost rank of civilized communities. Consolida
tion has removed many facilities and temptations to
disorder and crime, but it could not promise to reform
human nature ; and many evils yet exist that only
the people themselves can remedy, by electing true
men to Councils, and to fill the municipal offices, and
to represent them in the State and Nation. They
must be ever watchful and fearless in exposing and
convicting the fraudulent and criminal, and thus
purge their municipality, and their State and National
representation of corruption.
The following section is in the Charter, which pro
hibits the offence of corruption, and provides the
remedy, whenever the covers of fraud can be stripped
from the public functionary:
" If any councilman, guardian of the poor, member
of the board of health, controller, or director of the
public schools, or warden, or inspector of the prison,
or any other member or officer or agent of the said
city corporation, or of any corporation or department
by this act recognised, or clerk therein, shall at any
time be directly or indirectly interested in any sale to
or contract for supplies to be furnished to said city,
or to any corporation or department by this act re
cognized or placed under the supervision of Councils,
of which he shall be a member, or officer, or clerk,
or agent, or shall receive any gratuity, money, or
property whatsoever, by reason of such sale or con-

PROVISIONS OF THE ACT. 87
tract, or shall take any fee beyond that prescribed by
law, he, if a councilman, or elective officer, or officer
-appointed by court, shall be impeached in manner
hereinbefore provided, and if found guilty shall for
feit and vacate his seat; and if any officer or clerk
appointed by Councils, shall be removed from his
office or appointment; and any vendor or contractor
participating in such act, shall be incapable of re
covering any demand thus infected by fraud, and all
such offenders shall be deemed guilty of a misde
meanor, and upon conviction of such offence in the
Court of Quarter Sessions for said city and county,
shall be fined and imprisoned at the discretion of said
court." '
Whenever the proofs have been sufficient the
Courts have done their duty, and, judging by the
past, we may believe that they will continue to do
their duty fearlessly.
The Citizens to do their duty, besides exerting a
perpetual vigilance, must know their devices', to ferret
out the frauds of vicious officials. The most usual
devices of fraud are to give out contracts with the
understanding that a percentage of the price shall be
paid to the officials; that stone, gravel, bricks, work,
&c., shall be procured where officials are interested
in the supply ; or that these be sold to the City at an
overprice, or be overcounted, or overmeasured; p.nd
that the funds thus overdrawn from the treasury
shall be divided'&.mong those whose votes or influence
procured the improvement requiring the expenditure
to be made. Those who act upon fraudulent motives
may be considerably in the minority in such bodies

88 CONSOLIDA TION.
as Councils, yet if they be enough to overcome the
difference in votes between honest voters, they may
control the measures of the body. This is the com
mon experience; and more than enough for success
is not wanted in the ring to divide the spoils ; and
thus the good and true men, to whom we all owe
deep obligation, are unable to protect the City from
the plunder which they know will follow municipal
action. Hence it is that required improvements are
often left undone by honest Councilmen.
A most salutary principle of the Charter is that
which requires provision for the extinguishment of a
loan when it is made. " No debt shall be incurred or
loans made by the said City, without a cotemporane
ous appropriation of a sufficient annual income or
tax, exclusive of loans, to pay the interest and sink
the principal of such debt in thirty years." Under
this provision all loans subsequently made to the City
will be in course of liquidation after February, 1884,
and the debts in time will become extinguished by
the Sinking Fund, unless new loans continue to be
made ; and of the occasion of these the people or their
representatives themselves must be the judges.
To the powers conferred by the Consolidation Act,
there is yet wanted the security that they shall not be
capriciously repealed or impaired by the Legislature
or be superseded by Commissions; and that some
further judicial power and quick and sharp remedy
should be had over corrupt and delinquent officials.
Mr. Price, at the instance of the Citizens' Municipal
Reform Association, prepared some amendments
that, if placed in the State Constitution, would supply

PROVISIONS OF THE ACT. 89
these wants. It is for the members of the Constitu-
tianal Convention to provide such protection for the
Cities of the Commonwealth. That the Cities may
be self-governed, without Legislative Commissions
emanating in corrupt purposes, and that the public
contracts may be executed without corruption or
fraud, it is absolutely essential that the Citizens shall
be clothed with efficient powers of prompt prevention
and the sudden dismissal of offending officials. This
being done there should be no occasion or excuse
for any Commission, that, irresponsible to the people
can yet tax them, for any amount of expenditure they
may please to incur. There is in the establishment
of such Commissions a violation of the fundamental
principle which justified our ancestors in venturing
upon the revolution of 1776 ; the principle that there
shall be no taxation of a free people but by the
chosen representatives of the people.

CHAPTER VI.
THE CONSOLIDATION FE-STIVITIES.
In the North A^nerican and United States Gazette,
of the 13th of March, 1854, will be found an account
of the Celebration of Consolidation on the i ith of
the month. The entertainments consisted of an ex
cursion on the Delaware, under the auspices of the
Board of Trade, a ball at the Chinese Museum, a
banquet at Sansom Street Hall, the visits of the
Governor, the members of the Legislature and City
Councils to various Public Institutions, and an illu
mination of the Public Buildings, the Hotels, and
central parts of the City, with the exhibition of
transparencies. The officers of the banquet were, — Chairman,
Morton McMichael; Vice-Presidents, P. R. Freas,
H. M. Watts, N. B. Browne, John P. Verree, Andrew
Miller, William S. Price.
The platform-table was occupied by the Chairman,
Governor Bigler, the Hon. Mr. Chase, Speaker of the
House of Representatives, Judge Sharswood, General
George M. Keim, William D. Lewis, Hon. Hendrick
B.Wright, Hon. Richard Rush, Judges Lewis, Knox,
and Woodward, of the Supreme Court of Pennsyl
vania, the Hon. George M. Dallas, the Hon. James
Cooper, Mr. George B. Matthew, the British Consul
(9°)

FESTIVITIES. 91
at the port of Philadelphia, Mayor Charles Gilpin,
William B. Reed, District Attorney, Judge Oswald
Thompson, and General George Cadwalader.
But brief extracts can be given from the many
appropriate speeches delivered at the banqueting
tables ; and these are now given without the inter
spersed applauses of the audience.
The Chairman said, —
" It has seldom happened, never, I think, in the
history of our own Commonwealth, that so many
persons clothed with the functions of the State have
assembled on an occasion not connected with the
strict performance of official duty. The Chief Mag
istrate, the Members of the Legislature, the Judges
of the highest tribunal known to our laws, the Con
trollers of our public Revenue, the Heads of Execu
tive Departments; in a word, the representatives of
all the co-ordinate branches of our government are
here to-night. Besides those who are here as the
representatives of the State in its independent capac
ity, there are present those vwho represent it in the
general councils of the nation, as well as those who
have been selected from the State to administer and
execute justice in behalf of the Federal Government.
In addition to this, there are here assembled repre
sentatives of the various political, civil, and social
constituencies that compose the strength and the
power of the metropolis of the State. The executive
and judicial local functionaries, — the chiefs of muni
cipal organizations, — -the chiefs of commercial, indus
trial, scientific, literary, and educational associations,
— the chiefs of the various interests connected with

92

CONSOLIDA TION.

the trade, the finances, the economy and the develop
ment of the city, — members, eminent members, of
the various learned professions, and citizens distin
guished by long and useful lives of public service,
are around and before me. Pennsylvania and Phila
delphia are here, symbolized and typified by those
who have been selected by the popular voice, or
through some instrumentality of the popular will, to
exercise legislative and administrative functions, and
thus to embody the sovereigntj' so delegated to them.
Surely, — surely, such an assembly, not in reference
to the individuals who compose it, but the vast con
cerns confided to their care, may well be pronounced
august. "Nor is the occasion of this assemblage less re
markable than the assembly itself A people num
bering half a million of souls, heretofore divided by
absurd geographical lines, and, worse still, too often
making those lines the boundaries of their public
efforts, — a people who, though homogeneous in their
pursuits and interests and affections, have been too
often antagonistical in their practice, because of those
boundaries, — this people, realizing their anomalous
condition, and determined to correct it, have, after
repeated struggles and failures, at length accomplished
the end they had in view, and are henceforth to be
united,- — to become one and indivisible. This grand
event in the history of Philadelphia — for it is grand,
both in its present aspect and future consequences —
is the reason of our gathering to-night; and could
there be a better or more sufficient reason for even
such a concourse as this ?

FESTIVITIES.

93

"But little more than.jixty years ago the:flfst
charter was granted to theXfty ofthila^elphia by
the then existing government of the State. At that
time Philadelphia, though the first city of the newly-
established federal Union in population, in wealth,
and in resources, was a city of scarcely thirty thou
sand inhabitants. Since then, within the period of
three-score years and ten, assigned as the sum of
man's ordinary existence, — within the personal re
membrance of at least one venerable gentleman who
sits near me, — this city has grown to be a city of
half a million; while in the arts, in industry, in com
merce, in science, in all the material of civil and social
advancement, its growth has been commensurate with
the growth of its population. And this growth it has
attained in despite of discouraging drawbacks, — in
despite of misfortunes and vicissitudes, — in desjiite, in
its earlier day, of the ravages of pestilence, and, in its
later day, of wide-spread commercial disaster, — in
despite of unfriendly legislation and misdirected
friendliness, and, above all, in despite of the discord
ant and inharmonious elements of its political con
stitution. It is not my province to-night, gentlemen,
to .dwell upon the topics at which I have glanced, —
that will be more appropriately done by others, — but
in view of what we have accomplished, even under
the restraining influences of adverse circumstances
and hostile sectional interests, may I not predict, and
will you not all join in the prediction, that in the
not distant future there is reserved a fullness of
maturity, such as even our former progress can but
faintly indicate, for Consolidated Philadelphia f"

04 CONSOLIDA TION.
V » i
He concluded by giving,, the toast, " The State of
Penns}/lvania,"'and <5a'liea upon Governor Bigler to
respond. Among other things he presented was a
verbal picture of what this spot was when William
Penn came here, and when he at once founded this
City and the State. He depicted the City's progress,
and what it was within the memory of Hon. Richard
Rush, then sitting by him, when, though the largest
city in the States, her trade was transported first by
pack-horses, and next by Conestoga wagons. He
proceeded, "I have thus far been speaking of old
Philadelphia as she was; as to the new Philadelphia
as she is, augmented by her recent mighty accessions,
I am not prepared to admit that, in an aggregation
of the elements and qualities of a great and happy
city, she is second to any in the Union. She is no
longer wanting in enterprise ; and I am sure her ter
ritorial sufficiency will not be doubted. With an area
of 76,000 acres, inhabited by over a half a million
of industrious, enterprising, and patriotic citizens —
with her rich variety of industrial pursuits — her high
attainments in the mechanic arts — with a sufificient
channel for foreign commerce — with a safe harbor,
and an unequalled extent of wharfage — with one iron
arm already extended to the waters of the Ohio, and
the efforts she is making to extend a similar limb to
the lakes to gather in the rich fruits of the boundless
West — enjoying an unblemished reputation for com
mercial and financial integrity, who can doubt her
future triumph, sustained, as she will be, by the fra
ternal sympathy of the entire State ? For whatever
of prejudice may have heretofore existed between the

FESTIVITIES.

95

country and city, I agree with my esteemed friend,
the President of the Committee, that in interests and
feeling, Philadelphia and Pennsylvania are one and
indivisible. Intercourse, the greatest corrective of
error and prejudice, has done its work, and the fruits
of this occasion, I am confident, will be mutual friend
ship and fraternity from one extreme of the State to
the other.
" But, gentlemen, it is not commerce and trade, pop
ulation and wealth alone that must be placed in the
scale when the aggregate merits of a nation or city
are to be ascertained. The social and moral condi
tion of the people is a far mightier and nobler con
sideration. It is not so much the opulence of a city
as the happy condition of the mass of its inhabitants
that reflects its true glory. The largest share of indi
vidual comfort, the greatest measure of intellectual
development, the highest degree of Christian and
moral dignity, should be the standard by which we
test the greatness of a city. And it is in this regard
that Philadelphia stands relatively best and is most
to be admired. From her earliest days her poor have
suffered less than in most of the large cities. They
have, at least, had houses to live in, and not been
stowed away in cellars and garrets as in Paris and
London, and, to some extent, in New York. Hu
manity and benevolence have been her distinguishing
characteristics. Her hospitals for the sick — her spa
cious asylums for the widow, the orphan, and the
insane — her home for friendless children — her hu
mane associations to relieve the animal necessities
of the destitute — her infirmaries for the relief of the

96 CONSOLIDA TION.
helpless — her schools for the blind, the deaf, the
dumb, the imbecile and the idiotic — her House of
Refuge to reclaim vagrant or erring youth, with a
hundred or more charitable associations, rise up as so
many witnesses to testify that she has not been deaf
to the demands of suffering humanity. Her two
hundred and fifty-six churches and her numerous
societies to disseminate the Gospel in heathen lands,
evince that she has not rejected "that righteousness"
which exalteth a nation. Her institutions are beacon
lights to guide her in the path of duty, and show her
the way to true glory. Her two hundred and eighty
public schools, her colleges, her academies, her sem
inaries, her university, her almost countless number
of literary associations and mechanifc institutes, attest
her appreciation of the cause of education, the great
leverage by which mank;ind are elevated in the scale
of civilization and Christianity.
"Such, fellow citizens, are the distinguishing char
acteristics of this new and flourishing city,; and it is
befitting that we should mingle our congratulations
on the consummation of a measure so well designed
to give her a fresh impetus in her growth, and to add
a brighter lustre to her fame. The agency I had in
this work, allow me to say, was a labor of love. I
was prepared for it, and there is something signifi
cant in the circuriistances which surrounded its con
summation, for I signed the bill in the north western
extremity of the State, in the city of Erie, as though
it were to be in future a covenant of mutual confi
dence, and protection between the extremes of our
Commonwealth — or typical of a closer sisterly affec-

FESTIVITIES.

97

tion between the cities of Erie and Philadelphia ; and
>such I trust it may prove to "be.
" I congratulate you, therefore, Philadelphians, on
the auspicious circumstances under which the con
solidated city commences her career — on the brilliant
promises presented for her future. God and nature
have blessed her with abundant means of prosperity,
and it is only necessary that her present inhabitants
use the ordinary means of industry and enterprise to
give her the position she once occupied of the
greatest city on the continent. Although in the
race for commerce and trade she rnay possibly come
out second best, yet in all the higher purposes of
civilization, I confidently predict her triumph. The
principles of benevolence and charity, interwoven, as
they have been, with her whole history like threads of
gold, will never be permitted to lose their lustre. Like
a rainbow of promise to suffering humanity, they will
stand over and above all her other characteristics."
After music the Chairman rose and said :
" If we of Philadelphia have been indebted to the
Governor for the readiness with which he signed our
Consolidation bill, how much more are we indebted
to the Legislature for the readiness and unanimity
with which they passed the bill ? I have risen now
for the purpose of proposing ' The Legislature of
Pennsylvania,' in which you will, I know, heartily
unite. " Gentlemen, as it cannot be expected that the
"Legislature should cheer themselves, we citizens
must perform that ceremony for them ; and let us
show, in reference to them, that out of the abun-
E 9

98 CONSOLIDA TION.
dance of the heart the mouth speaketh, and how hand
somely we can cheer upon such an occasion."
Prolonged and hearty cheers were then given for
" the Legislature of Pennsylvania," after which Mr.
Chase, Speaker of the House of Representatives, rose
and among other things said :
"The constituency of ^ this great commonwealth,
whose representatives we have the honor to be, greet
you all. Hither, in their name, hither we have come
to stand beside ' the cradle of American independ
ence ;' but how changed the scene since that morn
when the bell from yonder dome tolled out its loud-
tongued peal, proclaiming 'liberty to the captive and
freedom to the inhabitants of the earth.' To have
been aptly styled 'the Cradle of Liberty,' to have
been the theatre within which the solemn and mo
mentous acts of '76 were performed, might be the
sufficient glory of this the proud metropolis of Penn
sylvania. If naught else existed here to fix the hearts
of the people of these States to your altars and your
household gods, this, and this alone, should be suffi
cient to embalm the ' City of Brotherly Love' in
the affections of every American patriot for all time
to come, and stamp upon it the name of hallowed
ground. Hither come the warm prayers of millions
as to the Mecca of their earthly devotions. Around
this lovely city cluster the fondest reminiscences of
all that has been great, and good, and pure in Ameri
can republicanism.
" Citizens, you have us your guests to-day, in com-
memoratio'n of an event in which, as Representa
tives of the Commonwealth, we acted a part. A few

FESTIVITIES.

99

weeks since, and your city proper was embraced
within narrow limits, — the space assigned to its birth.
Long, long years had you struggled in vain to burst
the fetters cast upon its infancy. You called aloud,
and we responded to your call, by tearing asunder
its swaddling clothes, and bringing you forth, in a
day, to the gaze of the world, the largest, and one of
the most powerful cities on the globe. Thus you are
to-day, and thus we hail you now, as the jewelled
bride of our Commonwealth, loved, honored and
blest, while we earnestly invoke the favor of the
Ruler of all human events, to rest upon thy walls
and dwell within thy palaces."
The next toast was " The Supreme Court of Penn
sylvania," which was replied to by Judge Lewis. He
spoke of the elective judiciary ; and said, —
" With regard to this question of consolidation, no
man can witness what has here been presented with
out feeling his heart rejoiced at the event; and in
time to come we shall see that all the prejudices
which have been spoken of have in reality passed
away." To the toast ".The Consolidated City of Philadel
phia," George M. Dallas was called upon to reply :
Two paragraphs of his discursive answer must here
suffice : —
" Mr. President — I am not prepared to throw any
new light upon the subject of that toast. Consolida
tion has so long — some eight or ten years — been
upon the anvil of public and private discussion, that
an effort to strike a fresh spark from it by an addi
tional blow, would be labor lost. Its incidents and

1 00 CONSOLIDA TION.
its contemplated results are all understood and fully
appreciated by the distinguished gentlemen under
whose legislative and executive auspices it has been
finally perfected, and by Whose welcome presence we
are now honored.
" In combining fourteen or fifteen distinct, and
sometimes conflicting, municipalities, or public poli
tical agencies, into one, it was impossible not to
anticipate the beneficial consequences which naturally
flow from concord and co-operation. Unity of enter
prise, unity of sentiment, unity of legislation, unity
of action, unity of contribution, unity of force, in all
that relates to the common good, the common fame,
the common safety, and the common order, are in
valuable aims which can scarcely fail to be attained."
After speaking with a fond attachment to the
Philadelphia of the past, he said, —
" But, sir, I withhold. The tone of these reflec
tions is not made appropriate by either the times or
the toast. Ours are an age and a country oi progress ;
and of that, consolidation is the latest, a glorious
and cljaracteristic shoot. We have long since dis
proved and repudiated the lethargic -aphorism of Dr.
Johnson —
" Extended empire, like expanded gold.
Exchanges solid strength for feeble splendor."
"Such a principle is unsound in application to
American institutions. We have never yet been de
bilitated by enlargement, whether of City^ State, or
Nation; and for this plain reason, — that our power,
or ' strength,' is not vested in a fixed few, but is

FESTIVITIES. lOI
found, constitutionally and legitimately, with the
sovereign masses, wherever their localities may be.
It is easy to become inert, sluggish, and immovable :
to shrink and falter at every advance, and to habitu
ate the mind as well as the body to dread, as danger
ous and doubtful, the bold exposure of an onward
march. But the advocates of consolidation have not
felt, and need not feel, any such morbid apprehen
sions." No ! we rather hold it better men should perish one by one,
Than that the earth should stand at gaze, like Joshua's moon on
Ajalon ;
Not in vain the distance beckons ; forward, forward let us range ;
Let the great world spin forever down the ringing groves of change ;
Through the shadow of the globe, we sweep into the younger day;
Better fifty years of our Land than a cycle of Cathay !"
Senator Cooper was next called upon to respond
to the toast, " The Members of Congress from the
State of Pennsylvania." His reply was upon national
subjects and statesmen, after adverting to this as the
place where sat the Continentkl Congress.
" Mr. Cooper said, that his thanks were due to the
assembly for the kind and complimentary terms in
which it adverted to a body of men with whom it
was his pleasure and pride to be associated. To
have remembered them approvingly in the midst of
the gay festivities by which the city was celebrating
an era in her history, from whence her progress in
wealth and greatness was to be accelerated, her influ
ence in the State increased, and new safeguards
thrown around the persons and property of her
citizens, was a compliment deserving of sincere and
hearty acknowledgment. 9*

1 02 CONSOLIDA TION.
" The sentiment, he said, was full of suggestiveness.
It carried the mind not only to the Capitol, where
the present representatives of a great nation were
deliberating how its wealth was to be augmented,
and how far its strong arm was to be stretched forth
to buckler the oppressed of other lands, but back
ward to the period when the fathers of the Republic
first held council, not as to how the wealth of the
colonies was to be augmented, but their liberty won;
not as to how their power was to be increased, but
their just and inalienable rights preserved; not as to
whether their arm was to be stretched forth as the
shield of others, but whether, relying on their own
deep devotion to freedom, and the aid of the God of
battles, they could maintain the cause to which they
pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred
honor." To the toast, " The Commercial Representatives
of Foreign Governments at the Port of Philadelphia,"
the British Consul, Mr. Matthew, was called upon :
After some preliminary remarks he proceeded to
speak in terms accordant with the present restored
good feelings between the two countries :
" Gladly, believe me, have I been present, and with
much satisfaction and enjoyment have I listened to
the admirable expositions and brilliant remarks that
have been made.
" It would be idle in me to resume a subject al
ready so ably discussed. But I am proud to con
gratulate Philadelphia, a city in which I have the
honor to be a resident, upon what has been said by
her Representatives and others who have preceded

FESTIVITIES. 103
me. Their remarks have called to my mind some
lines of one of our oldest and quaintest of poets,
which, evidently, those gentlemen must have been
conscious of, or to which, at all events, their acts
make them, practically, parties —
" No man is born unto himself alone ;
'Who lives unto himself he lives for none;
The State's a body, each man a brother is,
And bound to add his measure to the public peace."
" Individually, I cannot be uninterested in the in
creased commercial prospect that has opened upon
Philadelphia. Indeed, I must hail with the greatest
pleasure this evidence of her holding her proper
position among the cities of the United States.
" I may, I believe, attribute the kindly reception I
have met with on this and other social occasions,
from the people of the United States, to the just appre
ciation I entertain of their present power, and of their
great, their inevitable future. So far from its being
a matter of jealousy, I believe that I speak the feel
ings of every enlightened Englishman when I say
that it is a matter of pride and gratification to us all.
That future, gentlemen, I repeat, is inevitable. It is
inevitable as long as you adhere to the councils of
one, not less revered in my country, in private opinion,
than in his own, as the great, the noble, the_ pure-
minded Washington.
" I like not, sir, to follow a beaten track, but it is
easy for every man who reads, to feel, as I do, the
peculiarities of the history of the world. Empire,
from the earliest period of the world, has travelled
westward ; and one cannot but have observed that

I04

CONSOLIDA TION.

as it has travelled westward, so it has assumed the
form of refinement and civilization. Empire will
travel westward with you, blessed by the fruits of
commerce, and gilded by the halo of peace and good
will to all men."
Frederick Fraley was called upon to answer
"The Industrial resources of Philadelphia." These
he traced, as to printing, from Benjamin Franklin's
beginning as a printer here, to the triumphs of the
steam press; from the first chemical laboratory of the
grandfather of the then John Price Wetherill to the
many that at this time existed over the enlarged City;
and the cotton-spinning and weaving from the hand-
loom up to factories employing a thousand hands;
and the manufacture of Locomotives from, the first
one made in this country, by M. W. Baldwin, to that
time when he was, as the same establishment is now,
the largest supplier of Locomotives in the country,
and to those that Eastwick & Harrison were building
for the Emperor of Russia. He adverted to steam
as applied to navigation by Fitch, and by Robert
Fultonj^ to its employment on the Mississippi and
the other rivers and Lakes of the Country. After
further notice of our industrial progress, Mr. Fraley
proceeded :
"The true sources of commercial prosperity are
found, Mr. President, in the productions of agriculture,
mining and manufacture; the abundant possession
of these productions will bring ships and customers;
and wealth, population and foreign trade all naturally
follow. What a bright destiny and future may we
not, then, cherish for our beloved city ! Most of us

FESTIVITIES.

105

recollect when it was 'first among its peers', and it
needs no very sanguine temperament to predict that
it will soon be first again. Its manufacturing and
mechanical industry now far exceeds that of the
whole of the old thirteen States at the commencement
of the present century, and their march is still onward.
Let us wisely and abundantly foster these potent
elements of our strength, and pointing to the foot of
the giant as it is emerging from the womb of the
future, say out to our contemporaries 'ex pede Her-
culem.' "
Gen. Geo. M. Keim answered to " The great Staples
of Pennsylvania, her coal and iron." Among other
things he said, —
" Philadelphia is now stepping fearlessly forward
to achieve what she can, and what she ought ere this
to have accomplished ; and she will yet rank among
not only the first cities of this Union, but among the
first in the world. She has all the elements of power
within her own grasp, and she will now carry out
the design of the founder of Philadelphia, by whom
this city has been called ' the City of Brotherly Love.'
The iron business must finally become the main
reliance of this Commonwealth."
William D. Lewis spoke upon "The Commerce
of the City." Among other appropriate things he
said, —
" It is well known that the geographical position
of this city gives it advantages, as a distributing point,
over all others. To ensure to us their full enjoyment it
is only necessary that we should imitate, and outstrip,
the good example of our neighbors by securing, as
E*

1 06 CONSOLIDA TION.
we can, such access to the Western States as will
place our means of intercommunication with those
prosperous /communities beyond the reach of rivalry.
Something we have already done in this direction :
witness the daily throngs of travellers who reach us
by our only western avenue, and the condition of our
streets surrounding its depots blocked up with the
merchandise there seeking an outlet. But much
remains to be done. And it is not necessary for me,
in such a company as this, to present arrays of figures
to show how vastly more important is internal than
external commerce."
To " The Bar of Philadelphia," Wm. B. Reed re
sponded. His address had no bearing on consolida
tion. Judge Conrad spake to "Our Railroad Connec
tions," with characteristic fervor and eloquence, as
essential means to build up the greatness of the City
and State.
At a late hour, the Chairman seeing Mr. Ru.sh rise
to depart, recalled him by a toast to " The health of
the Hon. Richard Rush." After a few remarks he
said :
" The occasion has been a joyous one, and joyous
not only to the Philadelphians who have been present,
but joyous, also, to thousands and tens of thousands
who have been absent. Mr. President and gentlemen,
I thought that I had always been a zealous Philadel
phian. Born here, as my forefathers were, from the
time of Penn, I could have no other feelings than
those of pride. But they have been tenfold increased
to-day. Surely we have a right to be proud of our

FES'TIVITIES.

107

city — the leading city of the old thirteen colonies
before the Revolution; the city, the sound of whose
State House bell — as has been beautifully remarked
by Mr. Speaker Chase — summoned the representa
tives of those thirteen old and noble colonies to the
birthplace of Independence, — the city which took a
leading share in that great and glorious struggle ;
not by her numbers alone, but by her various re
sources, and, above all, by her steady and invincible
devotion to the cause of the Revolution — the city
which, by the contribution of her means, her money
and her courage, enabled our great and glorious
Washington, — to whose mighty name and fame our
distinguished foreign guest referred with so much
gratification to us all, — to achieve the first and great
est of his military triumphs, and which finally en
abled him, when our powerful foe thought, and with
reason, that we were prostrate at his feet, to turn
disaster into victory and gloiy.
" I am sure that our distinguished guest will allow
me to say ihat. I assert it, because it is history, and
I assert it, because he has the spirit in him, Briton
as he is, to do us justice, and appreciate the result.
And when we had such great names as Chatham,
Burke, Camden and others with us, he must admit
that we would not have been worthy to be English
men if we had submitted to that galling oppression
which the spirit of no true Briton would ever brook.
"These are some of the glories of Philadelphia.
This is the city in which the Federal Constitution
was formed, the city in which, with the exception of
his native State, Virginia, Washington spent the

I08 CONSOLIDATION.
greater portion of his life, the home of Franklin,
whose ashes sanctify our soil. Surely we have reason
to be proud of such a city. But I do not mean to
forget to say — and it is a main purpose with me to
say it — although it has been already said far better
than I can utter it — that we owe what we are and
what we have been, to the State to which we belong.
They are identical; the pro.sperity of the one is iden
tical with the prosperity of the other. I need not
enlarge upon her resources. With the prosperity of
the Commonwealth we prosper ; and with the pros
perity of our city, I trust that our great and noble
State will derive reciprocal advantage. Let us hope
that this night may consolidate us in our affect'ions
and in our hearts, as we have ever been in our in
terests. " But I cannot conclude the few and hasty words I
have uttered without quoting the sentiment, than
which better could not have fallen, among the many
excellent ones, from the lips of our Chief Magistrate,
that the future of Philadelphia may realize the promises
of the past and go beyond them."
The, following letter was received from Mr. Price:
" Philadelphia, March ii, 1854.
" To Morton McMichael, Esq., Chairman of the Con
solidation Committee : —
" A recent bereavement prevents my being with
my brethren of the Senate on your festive occasion.
Say for me to those assembled that the people of
Philadelphia owe their consolidation into one city to
the unanimity of their own will, and to the liberal

FESTIVITIES.

109

justice of the Senators, Representatives, and Execu
tive of the Commonwealth. By their authority will
be accomplished the most important event in our mu
nicipal history, and from the year of our Lord 1854
will be dated the re-foundation of the city of Philadel
phia. The authors of the generous act will not fail
to regard their work with kindness, and the citizens
will not cease to acknowledge their debt of gratitude.
"To the citizens of Philadelphia I would further
say that the task of reorganizing a government of a
national importance will demand the aid of their moSt
capable men. The separated parts are to be united
into a harmonious whole, the laws reconciled and
enforced, all disorders repressed, commerce and man
ufactures encouraged, the city's credit sustained, her
character elevated. The emergency authorizes you
to appeal to the patriotism of Philadelphia's strongest
and most reliable citizens. Services required by the
public welfare the people may demand in terms that
will admit of no refusal.
" I will but add that the event you celebrate is
founded in the principle that the public good is the
supreme law, which alike guards State rights from a
national centralization and demands that incongruous
municipal divisions should be transformed into one
consolidated city. May it be perpetuated in its integ
rity until Philadelphia, now the largest, shall become
the most populous and wealthy city on the continent,
— the metropolis of a State the richest in resources
and the elements of power of any in the Union.
" I am, with sincere regard,
" Eli K. Price." "

CHAPTER VII.
the mobs that preceded consolidation.
It is sometimes asked, has consolidation upon the
whole been beneficial to Philadelphia? They who'
ask the question are usually so youthful as to have
little or no recollection of the evils and obstructions
that preceded that event; or they are of the few
who at the time were opposed to it, and consistently
will not admit any resulting benefits : persons con
stitutionally opposed to progress, who would have
preferred in the Revolution to remain colonists, and
to live ever since under the common law much as
our ancestors brought it from England. Those who
have no memory of the miry, rugged and hilly road
that preceded the smooth and level turnpike on which
they are traveling, can have little appreciation of the
blessing of the change ; and those who are averse to
enterprise, and have an abhorrence of all change,
cannot be expected to sympathize with the rapid
growth of cities. States, and the nation, as we ad
miringly see them springing up and advancing from
the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
It seems incumbent, therefore, upon some friend
of the re-foundation of the City, to set forth in some
detail the most aggravating of the evils that induced
tli6 change, and to make- some historical comparison
between the condition of things between the less than
(no)

PRIOR HISTORY. HI
twenty years which have passed since the date of
consolidation, and the like period which preceded it.
Three causes have been operative to produce the
great riots which disgraced our City for many years:
the hatred of the negro by vulgar and inhuman white
men; the antagonism of labor to machinery; and the
hostility of Orangeism and Nativeism to the Catholics.
In 1835, because a colored Cuban boy had at
tempted to kill Mr. Stewart, with whom he lived, a
mob of white men collected at Sixth and Seventh
and Lombard and South Streets. They chased and
maimed and mangled the people of color ; broke
open many of their houses ; fired Red Row, and
prevented the firemen from extinguishing the flames.
This mob raged for two nights, and the colored
families fled the neighborhood, not knowing where
to find shelter. (16 Haz. Reg. 36.) This was a
repetition of similar riots that had occurred in the
same sections of the City and Southwa'rk in previous
years. " The Pennsylvania Hall " was built at the south
west corner of Sixth and Haines Street, between
Arch and Race Streets, by those interested in the
Abolition cause, but for the discussion of Abolition
principles, of Temperance, Liberty, and Equality. It
was a commodious and splendid building. It was
opened to the public on the 14th day of May, 1838;
but before the Inaugural proceedings were completed,
it became the occasion of great misrepresentation
and excitement among the citizens. On the 17th the
building was occupied by the Anti-Slavery Conven
tion of American Women, who, though all day sur-

1 1 2 CONSOLIDA TION.
rounded by a threatening mob, conducted themselves
with great composure and dignity. They were, how
ever, invaded in the evening by the ruthless assem
blage, through whom they were compelled to make
their retreat. The Mayor had been fully warned of
the danger, but made no demonstration of defence.
The sworn testimony was that fifty resolute police
men could have saved the building. The Hall was
burnt to the ground. Its destruction cost the County
of Philadelphia ^22,658.27, besides interest and costs.
The rioters continued under excitement, and the
next night, the i8th, a body of entire strangers to
the locality attacked and set fire to the Friends'
charitable institution, called the Shelter for Colored
Children, in Thirteenth Street above Callowhill, and
considerably damaged the building before the fire
was extinguished. And the next evening, the 19th,
Bethel Church, in South Sixth Street, belonging to
colored people, was attacked and sustained injury.
In 1842, when Rev. Stephen Smith, a person of
color, had nearly finished his Hall on Lombard Street,
for public and philanthropic meetings, it was fired
and burnt down by a negro-hating mob; and the
same fire reached Mary Street Presbyterian Church
for colored persons, and also burnt it down ; and in
1849 the same church was burned, with the Califor
nia House, by a mob hostile to the people of cojor.
Of course these losses were paid by the County.
Now, besides the better protection secured them
under the new Charter, the colored citizens are still
further assured of their protection by their enjoy
ment of the elective franchise. They have now, to

PRIOR HISTORY.

113

a certainty, rights which the white man is bound to
respect, and which the law will take care shall be
respected. In the spring of 1843 a riot took place in Kensing
ton. It was a war between labor and machinery,
called the Irish weavers' riot. Our young Sheriff,
William A. Porter, Esquire, went to the scene of dis
turbance with his Posse. It was his first duty by law
to warn the rioters to disperse, by reading a procla
mation, in the nature of a riot act. While thus
occupied, he and his men were stoned and over
powered by vastly greater numbers ; and Mr. Porter
was so maimed that he could reach home only with
great difficulty, pursued by the rioters, from whom,
though, they surrounded him, he was well disguised
by the change wrought in his appearance whilst
trampled under their feet. From exhaustion he was
obliged to take shelter in a private house, whence
he was compelled to make his escape. They had
free scope to destroy the machinery which was the
object of their hostility ; and when a more formid
able force appeared next day, the rioters had vanished.
The great riots which occurred in 1844 arose out
of the hostility of the Native Americans, probably
aided by Orangemen, against the Catholics. The
new party was based mainly in hostility to the Catho
lics ; and they had the imprudence to hold one of
their first public meetings in Kensington, May 3d,
1844, where Irish Catholics abounded, and the latter
had the greater imprudence and rashness to attack
the meeting by an overpowering force. A second
meeting was held there on the 6th, and speeches were
10*

114

CONSOLIDA TION.

made. The Irish renewed the attack with bricks,
stones and fire-arms ; and George Shiffler was shot
and killed and others were wounded. He was re
garded as a martyr in the cause of his party. On the
7th the Natives held a large meeting in Independence
Square, when the officers and speakers exhorted to
peace; but the mass of the meeting adjourned them
selves by a common impulse to Kensington, to renew
the fight. They met at the Market-house, and were
fired upon from the houses, whereupon these were
attacked by the Natives ; many were wounded, seven
killed; many houses and the Market-house were burnt.
The military under General Cadwalader appeared at
dark and restored quiet, and then the firemen operated.
On the Sth, St. Michael's Catholic Church and par
sonage were fired and burnt down, and also the Catho-
lie Female Seminary ; and the battering and firing of
other houses of the Catholics were continued by
persons who eluded the military. At ten at night St.
Augustine's Church, in Fourth below Vine, and the
contiguous houses of the Order of the Brothers of the
Plermits of St. Augustine, were fired and destroyed,
with their valuable library. St. Mary's, St. Joseph's,
Trinity, and St. Philip's Churches, and the Cathedral,
were threatened and guarded. On the loth the
Governor arrived, and many companies of soldiers
from the country followed from day to day. The
damages incurred by the County and City were very
heavy, for property destroyed and for the payment
and support of the troops. The Hermits of St. Au
gustine claimed one hundred thousand dollars, and the
jury gave them a verdict of ^47,433.88. The owner

PRIOR HISTORY.

"5

of the School Plouse occupied by the Sisters of
Charity recovered 1^6468.98 ; and other damages were
recovered, besides a claim by the District of Kensing
ton; the Court excusing the Commissioners from
the imputation of neglect, inasmuch as the mob came
from the City, and, as the Judge said, " burst upon
the District with the syddenness of a thunder cloud."
(i Han 78.)
At this time the city had a night watch, but no
proper police, and such force as it had was confined
to Vine Street on the north, and South Street on the
south, and between the two rivers. The Sheriff had
no police, nor funds to arm or pay a Posse Comitatus ;
and the paltry sum of seventy-five dollars he had
spent for Mace, as the beginning of some protection,
the County Commissioners had refused to refund
him ; and when he found himself powerless to act
without the military, these hesitated to act, because
on former occasions they had not been paid for
services, or refunded expenditures ; and when they
could not refuse the patriotic appeal of Sheriff" Mc
Michael, and they appeared on the scene in adequate
force, great destruction had already been accom
plished. Small matters have been thus referred to
that we may now perceive and remember how trivial
were our civil preparations of defence against sudden
riots ; and how absolute was the necessity of a reor
ganization to concentrate and make effective for self-
protection the great inherent powers of the whole
community of people, lying in one mass of disjointed
corporations. The hostility that raged in May but smouldered

1 1 6 CONSOLIDA TION
to break forth in July. A party of Natives had a
procession on the 4th, and a picnic in Fisher's woods,
north of the City ; and encamped on the ground for
the night. While sleeping they were attacked and
beaten, their property destroyed and flags carried off".
This renewed the excitement. Their former enemies
were suspected to be the authors of the outrage.
The next exciting cause was the discovery, on the
5th, that arms had been taken into the Church of St.
Philip de Neri, in Queen Street, west of Second,
Southwark. The people gathered by thousands
about the Church, and demanded a search ; and a
supply of muskets, pistols, powder and cartridges
was found in it. The military were called out to
protect and took possession of the place. The peo
ple were entreated by Sheriff McMichael and Gen
eral Cadwalader to disperse, and were shown great
forbearance, though the military were treated with
incessant abuse and assailed by missiles. The mob
was persistent ; but no gun was fired until the night
of Sunday the 7th. There were always some friends
of order among the mob, party leaders, who under
took to be responsible for the safety of the Church,
but who could not control their followers, who en
tered and fired the Church ; but the fire was extin
guished. At night the military were disposed of at
points contiguous to the ''Church. The crowd in
Queen and Second Streets refused to retire; attacked
the Captain of the City Guard and attempted to kill
him with his own sword, when the Lieutenant or
dered his men to fire ; many were wounded, several
were killed, and then the mob dispersed. But yet

PRIOR HISTORY.

uy

the more exasperated, they returned with cannons
loaded with iron missiles and bottles, which they
managed with skill, and moving them. secretly in the
darkness with muffled wheels, so that the soldiers
could not know where to direct their fire until guided
by the flash of the enemy's guns. They were also fired
upon from windows, alleys, and covert places ; and the
cavalry were thrown by ropes drawn across the .streets.
To avert this danger of fire as directed by the flash, the
mob discharged their cannons by slow matches, and
then, by long ropes attached, suddenly snatched them
away for reloading. At one time three cannons werg
thus simultaneously discharged upon the soldiery, so
as to rake the streets from different points. Before
daylight these guns were captured, and all was again
quiet. During the day, July 8th, a committee came
from the Commissioners of Southwark to the Head-
Quarters of Governor Porter and General Patterson,
at the building of the Girard Bank, with assurances
that if the military were withdrawn, the peace could
be maintained by the civil authority; and after due
consultation they were withdrawn. As in May, the
military had been called here from contiguous parts
of the State, and application had been made to the
United States authorities for aid, which would have
been forthcoming. Five thousand of the military were
under arms, including several cavalry companies, with
the City Troop of cavalry. About fifty persons were
wounded, and fourteen were killed, two of them
soldiers. The distressing doubt and uncertainty that existed,
paralyzing timely action until riot and arson had done

1 1 8 CONSOLIDA TION.
their destructive work, was, whether it was the Sheriff"
or Mayor, who had authority to call out the military,
or whether either could, and whether the military
would not be committing murder. Hence it was the
Governor was required to be here, and at that time
no telegram could call him here, and time' was lost
in sending for him. This source of trouble and its
dangers are removed by the express authority now
conferred upon the Mayor by the City Charter.
Since the date of Consolidation no mob of any
magnitude has gained head within the bounds of the
enlarged City ; though some years elapsed before
the Firemen's battles were put down, under the
authority conferred by the City Charter. This was
delayed by their continuing influence over the elec-
?tions and Councils.
Though ample authority was conferred by the
Consolidation Act, the Volunteer Fire Department
has only been fully dealt with within a few years ;
when the Paid Fire Department was established,
accompanied by a Fire Brigade for the protection of
goods from theft, and destruction by water, aided by
an efficient Police. Most persons of lawful age can
remember that it was of very frequent occurrence for
hostile companies of firemen to fight their battles
along our streets, with paving-stones and fire-arms ;
and that fires were often kindled that they might
have opportunities of fighting out their feuds, or of
showing Firemen-visitors from other cities how we
put out fires. Sunday was the favorite day for such
heroic amusements. And even when fires were seri
ous the exhibitions of the firemen were neither in-

PRIOR HISTORY. ng
structive to visitors nor "safe to the citizens, when
companies fought for the possession of fire-plugs
while the fire gained head ; and they rivaled each
other in deluging places with water and destroying
goods, after the necessity had ceased. They also
permitted thieves under Firemen's uniforms to plun
der property they should have saved. Nay, in some
in.stances they refused to extinguish fires, when fires
were lighted by mobs with whom the Firemen sym
pathized, as in the case of the Pennsylvania Hall,
and Catholic and African Churches and Schools ; or
until promised money for their company, as in the
case of M. W. Baldwin's Locomotive Factory, while
he was a member of the Legislature. Their votes
at elections were also, in some instances, said to be
influenced by the contributions by candidates to
their companies. , They were frequent beggars for
contributions from the City, the Insurance Com
panies, and individuals, when politicians unduly
yielded, because they feared the loss of their votes,
and others feared the refusal of the firemen to ex
tinguish fires, when their property should be burn
ing. It required great independence in the Press
and Councils to effect the final disbandment ; but
they were at last independent, and irrespective of
party, good men regarded the true public sentiment,
and did the work bravely. Mayor Fox especially
deserved credit for his part in this work, for he
acted against the general voice of his party. While
the writer has been compelled thus to write about
the firemen of this City, he is also bound to say, that
he remembers a period, more than half a century

1 20 CONSOLIDA TION.
ago, when he was also a fireman, and when the fire
men were among the most orderly, as surely they
were some of the most public-spirited and self-sacri
ficing citizens ; and they continued to be such until
after the expiration of the first quarter of this cen
tury, and individuals continued to be such at all
times; but these did not constitute the body, or
characterize that department of service, for many
years before and several after the middle of this cen
tury. Such a triumph gives encouragement to the
people to be ever hopeful for the right, and strengthens
our faith in the maxim, " Never to despair of the
Republic." Yet we are warned by the recent great
fires of Chicago and Boston that our fire-engines
should be at once doubled, and the working force be
steadily increased, by every proper consideration of
safety and economy.

CHAPTER VIII.
other advantages of consolidation.
Though the limits of the City expanded at a
bound, the minds of the citizens could not be so
suddenly enlarged. For generations they had been
cramped within narrow sectional limits, and the public
functionaries could not at once realize, nor have they
yet fully comprehended, the situation. As our water-
pipes and sewers have not yet been conformed to the
wants of the enlarged City, so have the public servants
been slow to follow out the purposes of consolidation.
It was not until 1867 that we began, to enlarge Fair-
mount Park, which twelve years ago would have cost
some millions less ; not until later could we supply
the much-needed House of Correction, now built, but
not yet in use; we have, since consolidation, built
but one bridge over the Schuylkill, and have another
unfinished ; have done little towards repaving Broad
and other Streets ; have hardly finished Belmont
Water-works, and but begun the East Park basin, so
that our present supply of water is not half that
which safety requires; and we have but just begun
the Public Buildings, and ten years must elapse before
they will be ready for occupation. Though there is
safety in deliberation, to delay necessary work is
seldom true economy. We had, however, the war
r II ( X2I )

1 2 2 CONSOLIDA TION.
of the rebellion to divert our attention and resources,
and there was in that large excuse for omitting
municipal works.
Water and Gas were formerly furnished in the City
and Districts at rates fixed by the local corporate
authority, and the Taxes in all were different. The
system of Sewage was limited to each, and greatly
inadequate in all ; as were mostly the supply and dis
tribution of water and gas ; while none had a relia
ble ability to meet the growing wants of all. Nay,
not only did they not act with the concert and
strength of all, but by jealousy and opposition each
was the cause of obstruction and weakness to all others.
It was a necessity that the City must have her water
and gas supplies from places beyond her area of two
square miles ; and it will be a necessity that her cul
verts shall go beyond such limits, when they shall be
built, as in time they must be constructed commen-
surately with the wants of the large City, when more
experience abroad and fuller consideration shall
demonstrate what shall be the best plan for the entire
Sewage system for the enlarged municipality.
The City has, however, begun to construct her
great systems of improvement. She has nearly
finished the second bridge over the Schuylkill. Many
will be required as the City shall extend her buildings
and improve her Park. The Water-works have been
greatly improved at Fairmount, the dam is being
solidly rebuilt ; the Belmont Water-works and basins
are nearly finished, and are in use; and the East
Park basin, of an area of one hundred and six acres,
is in course of construction. These are works done

ADVANTAGES. 1 23
or in hand, to which any one old municipality would
have been inadequate. How totally incompetent,
then, would either have been to control the purity
of the waters of the Schuylkill and secure the re
quisite supply, when our population shall be two,
three, or more millions, with manufactories to be
supplied in numbers and magnitude not now to be
imagined! The time will come when the vacant
stretches of the Schuylkill river, as well as the valleys
in the mountains, must be made retaining reservoirs
of water, to be drawn upon to meet the deficiencies
of the dry seasons ; and it may ultimately be that the
City must own and control the whole river for an
adequate supply of pure water. A due protection
from fire will require tha,t all our basins shall be kept
full at the dry season.
The true system for the drainage of the City has
never yet been fully considered and thought out ;
and we wait the results of the trials of European
Cities. So far we have but enlarged and built cul
verts upon the old plans, all terminating in the two
rivers, polluting their waters, making them an offence,
and deleterious to health. They should centre on a
low public place, where their fertilizing properties
would be received and utilized, and not be lost by
evaporation ; but be manufactured into manure, and
returned to the soil, to restore the loss of perpetual
grazing and cropping. The City owes so much to
the Country, and has her interest in such economy.
These Sewers should not only receive all the excre
tory matter of the City, but all the drainages of the
slaughter-houses and factories ; except it be the great

124

CONSOLIDA TION.

slaughter-houses that should be along the present old
Wilmington Railroad, in the meadows of the Twenty-
seventh Ward, to which the cattle should be trans
ported in the cars, instead of being driven through
the City and the Park ; and there the animals, fevered
and impoverished by their long Railroad transporta
tion, should be refreshed and restored to good con
dition by pasturing for a time before being slaugh
tered. And here also the offal should be utilized.
¦ As a necessary means to protect the supply of
water, the Fairmount Park has been purchased and
laid out, of a magnitude of nearly three thousand
acres. This comprehends parts of four former Dis
tricts, and of three Townships. Without the con
centrated power and wealth of all the municipalities
and townships, united in one City, this great acquisi
tion could not have been made when it was made,
on both sides of the river from the Fairmount bridge,
and thence some ten miles northward, along the
Schuylkill and Wissahickon; and if delayed, it would
have soon become impracticable to command the
same space it now covers. How much the whole
population will be compensated in all future time, in
the comfort, health, and enjoyment of pure water,
fresh air, and beautiful scenery, transcends all esti
mate; but certainly, compared with its advantages,
its cost will be insignificant. The old Cfty, and the
remote Districts and Sections, with their natural
selfish jealousies, could never have been brought to
a concert of action for such an achievement. And
now soon, in 1876, that Park will afford, the site for
the Centennial Celebration, justly expected to be such

ADVANTAGES. 125
as will not be again seen until the lapse of another
century shall call for a second like exhibition. Next
to the Hall of Independence the Fairmount Park
will be the cause of attracting the greatest Industrial
Exhibitions this Continent will ever behold. The
Park, too, will have its own future history, written
with ample materials. It will teach its own sciences
and other refining culture; and constantly refine and
improve the whole population. It will cultivate the
taste of all in the beauty of its landscapes ; make
the people more happy and healthy ; cause them to
live longer and love each other better ; for happiness
thus consciously derived from the contributions of
all is ever sympathetic and kind. It will teach land
scape gardening, the fine arts, botany, and zoology ;
it will be a beneficence not only to our citizens, but to
those of the State and Country, and to visitors from
all parts of the world, and, as nothing else, will elicit
the gratitude and praise of mankind towards our
City. In respect to the water supply protected by the
Park, a kind Providence also seems to intervene with
' His beneficence for the descendants of the colonists
of Penn. The sulphurous and acid mine water of
Schuylkill County is not permitted to reach us with
its poisonous ingredients ; but these are neutralized
by the lime-water of Berks, with just enough of
foreign elements left at the City to coat our lead
pipes, and keep us secure from lead-poison. The
treasures of coal laid up for our fuel in the remote
geological ages we may freely mine, and yet find our
water purified by the chemistry of nature by the
II*

1 26 CONSOLIDA TION.
wide-spread lime-strata interposed for our protection,
and all the better for the counteracting treatment it
has undergone, and the action of mineral upon or
ganic matter. Truly, Philadelphia was a happily
chosen site, much more favored than the good Founder
knew ; and her remoteness from the sea will be her
future security, while steam-power will readily over
come the distance, — the City, in this power, also
enjoying an advantage unseen by the Proprietary.
He, judging wisely, as to all he saw, was yet better
guided than in his day he could possibly foreknow.
As little could he foresee the railways we see radi
ating from this centre to all points of the compass,
reaching to the remotest points of the Continent, and
pouring into his Port the products of coal, oil, iron,
grain of the interior, and even the teas, spices, and
silks of the far East by the golden gate of the
farthest West. Neither could William Penn imagine
the possibility that man could draw from the great
reservoir of nature the lightning of the clouds, and
make it bear his messages instantly over the world,
to quicken commerce, to counteract social disorders,
and to maintain the peace at home and over the
world. With such elements of power and growth,
concentrating in our City, the idea seems to us now
quite preposterous to limit our City to an area of two
square miles.
Now, taking our retrospect from the date of the
Charter for the enlarged City with its enlarged
powers, its history has had to chronicle no mob of
any serious magnitude; there has been a constant
improvement in the Fire Department ; the larger city

ADVANTAGES.

127

has had fewer fights and fewer fires, and recently
there has been greatly diminished destruction of
property by fire and water. There have been better
municipal and sanitary measures adopted. Measures
for the increase of trade ; for the extension of our
shipping facilities from the railroads along both
rivers towards, and even to, the mouth of the Schuyl
kill ; for the greater supply of water and gas ; for the
increase of drainage ; for greater facilities of educa
tion, and provisions of humanity for the poor and
sick, and a large Park for health and enjoyment, are
the works achieved, and to be accomplished, because
no longer thwarted by local jealousies, nor prevented
by deficiency of power. We are now but one muni
cipality, and wherever work shall be done, or money
be expended, or trade be led and increased, or manu
factories be promoted, all will be done for the single
City and for the benefit of all. The claims of all sec
tions must be considered in the distribution of the
Municipal works and expenditures ; and every im
provement and success will gratify the feeling of
every citizen who has the public spirit to love his
City, or the religion that teaches us to love our fellow
beings and rejoice in their success ; and all will add
to the wealth, and greatness of our own Philadelphia.
The establishment of the Survey Department was
a favorite measure with the writer of this narrative.
The surveyors of the City and Districts claimed many
of their plans and records of surveys as their private
property, and they were subjects of sale to their suc
cessors, or might remain in private hands. The pub
lic suffered loss in this way, and individuals were

"l 2 8 CONSOLIDA TION.
often left without certain proof of the lines of their
property. Owners of rural lands laid out plots and
improved, in certain sections, or influenced the sur
veys of plots, with a view to the most profitable sales
of their grounds. Now all City plans must come
before the Board of .Surveys, composed of the Chief
Engineer and Surveyor, and all the District Sur
veyors, which commands the knowledge and skill of
all, to insure the best systems of streets, grades, sur
face drainage, and underground sewers ; while all
these must be the special study of the Engineer-in-
Chief These systems will secure harmony and fit
ness of work, and prevent much future loss in the
destruction of work done without regard to an ulti
mate plan for the whole. Mr. Kneass has done much
to establish this Department. Surveys of lots are
now preserved in the central office, and every owner's
property will, when the work is completed, be found
plotted there in books, easily referred to by indexes,
and this record will in all the future establish the
lines of ownership, as well as constitute a certain
basis for the ascertainment of property and ownership
for the assessment and the collection of taxes. This
work is always to be kept up to the latest moment,
for every deed of conveyance is required by law to
be registered and plotted in the Survey Department,
before it can be recorded. None can now, as many
formerly did, escape a ratable share of the public
taxes. The valuations of real estate within the City re
turned by the Board of Revision at the close of 1872,
will indicate the growth of the City in wealth com-

ADVANTAGES. 1 29
pared with the aggregate of the whole City and
County in 1854, though the difference be partly
owing to the more full and faithful valuations now
made. In 1853 the aggregate valuation was ,^128,-
218,658; in 1872 it is ,^518,234,568., This Board for
the revision of the Taxes is an outgrowth of Con
solidation, created by a Law prepared by a Commis
sion appointed by Mayor Henry, under an Ordinance
of City Councils, consisting of Eli K. Price, Joseph
A. Clay, Andrew D. Cash, James C. Hand, and Wil
liam Bucknell. It was created by act of 14th March,
1865. The Board can control the work of the asses
sors ; can equalize the valuations of the Wards with
each other, and every several property in comparison
with others ; can see that none are omitted, and that
no favor shall be shown to one owner above another.
The appointment of the members being in the Court
of Common Pleas, there are no political changes in
it, and the incumbents become and continue to be
well acquainted with their duties. Thus far they
have been intelligent, honest, independent, and wise.
The character and stability of this Board make it a
valuable source of information to the public, and of
increase of the City's revenue. Yet they have ob
served the wise policy of not valuing manufacturing
apparatus and machinery, whereby large encourage
ment is given to the establishment of manufactories
within our' City limits ; where fuel, water, iron, etc.
are, abundant at low prices. The above valuations
do not include properties exempted from taxation ;
exempted because belonging to the public, or held
for charitable or religious uses. Their valuation is
F*

I3G CONSOLIDATION.
;^54,488,329. It would be v/orse than idle to tax
Public property, as the same Treasury would then
both pay and receive ; it would be an obstruction to
the progress of civilization and the preservation of
good order and humanity to tax Schools, Churches,
Ho.spitals. No taxes collected can be made to do
more good than these do; and it is due to those deep
sentiments which most secure human well-being,
that the youth should be educated ; that those of all
ages should be preserved religious; that the sick,
wounded, aged, and dying should have shelter, sup
port, medical treatment, and comfort; and that all
the dead should rest securely in their graves. If any
property that ministers to any of these objects could
be taxed, it could be sold by the sheriff, and its sacred
use be utterly destroyed.
Though our system of public schools had been a
good one, partly because not limited in its scope
to any local municipality, more and better school
houses have been built by the combined power act
ing as one City ; and lately a more elevated liberality
has been displayed by the Councils than ever before.
The Alms House had long been a place of useful
study and experience to the medical and surgical
students ; but within the present year the City has
vested a square of contiguous ground in the Univer
sity of Pennsylvania, to be used as a Hospital, the con
sideration being the reception and treatment there of
a certain number of poor patients, who would other
wise be a charge to the City; and there the medical
students will hear the Clinical lectures of the Profes
sors. Philadelphia is about to be reassured of her

ADVANTAGES. 131
pre-eminence as a great centre of medical and surgi
cal instruction, in competition with the enterprise
of other large cities. She yet wants, but in time will
have, a Hotel for strangers, where patients of ability
to pay, shall have the comforts of home, with home
quietude, and fresh air, as well as medical and surgical
treatment, by physicians and surgeons of their own
choice. The University has enlarged, and is contin
uing to enlarge, her sphere of Scientific instruction,
with eminent Professors ; her citizens and the State
have made large contributions towards her objects,
and we may confidently look forward to the period
when we shall cherish a just pride in our highest
school of science and learning.
Another Municipal Board followed Consolidation,
of great public utility, the Inspectors of Buildings.
The Act creating it, and which exacts of the In
spectors the duty of enforcing its provisions, defines
the thickness of the walls ; requires them to be sub
stantial ; to be just in the construction of walls be
tween adjoining owners ; requires the division wall
to be carried at least ten inches above the roof, and
such parapet elevation to be covered by stone or
metal; so as effectually to prevent any connection of
the roofing or wooden cornice of any two or more
houses ; nor shall it be lawful for any person to build
any wooden joist, rafter, beam or girder in any chim
ney or flue whatever. And the storage of gunpoTv-
der, saltpetre, and petroleum has been placed under
stringent regulations. The late experiences as to fires
indicate the necessity of yet greater precautions for
safety from the spread of fires, and especially in the

132 CONSOLIDATION.
avoidance of all Mansard and other foofs of wood.
Bricks, by these severest tests, are restored to favor
as the most fire-proof material for buildings, since
marble, sand-stone, and granite crumble, and the
metals are melted, beneath the force and fury of such
fires as those of Chicago and Boston.

CHAPTER IX.

conclusion.

The writer would further here express his opinion
that the preservation of the history of Philadelphia has
been quite too much neglected by her citizens. News
papers to which few have access are the chief resource
of information to any one who would attempt the
task of chronicling civic events ; and these are widely
scattered and traceable by no index. There are
many decades of our City's history of which we know
next to nothing, and we never shall know more.
We know little of generations of good and wise men,-
whom we know to have here lived, and who faith
fully performed their duties in their age, but whose
many good deeds have been buried with them. And
of the last decade, the most eventful of the nation's
history, in which our City acted the most patriotic
and distinguished part, to maintain our common
Government, and as consequence now bears the
burden of eleven millions eight hundred thousand
dollars of debt incurred to fill the Armies of the
Country with soldiers, and support their wives,
widows and children, who will write its History? who
will do justice to those memorable years ? The ma
terials are abundant, and we have many citizens among
us who acted a distinguished part in those events,
12 (133)

134 CONSOLIDATION.
some of whom have the ability to narrate them as
they should be written. The City will expect one
or more of them to perform this duty to our age and
to posterity. This period is only here further to be
referred to, in its relation to the purpose of the pres
ent narrative, with the congratulation that at a time
when citizens were at deadly enmity according to
their sympathies with the respective belligerents,
there was in our. streets no bloody strife, or incen
diarism ; and the whole power of the community was
exerted as a unit in the service of the nation, with
few individual exceptions. No city or citizens can
deserve from the pen of the historian higher appro
bation and honor, than he will justly bestow upon
Philadelphia and her people, for their deeds during
the war of the slaveholders' rebellion. Of this war
we can with approximate accuracy count the fearful
cost in life and treasure ; but who can count the
widows and orphans bereft of husband, father and
protector ? and who again can estimate the benefits
to all of the secured stability of the national Govern
ment and the prestige of its power over the civilized
world ? who can calculate the blessings to humanity
and the acquisitions to liberty, secured by the
amendments to the national Constitution, with their
guarantied permanence by the repeated expressions
of the voice of the nation? Out of great evils the
Almighty has brought great good, transcending all
previous human expectation.
This narrative must here close. The history of
the City's Consolidation should have an abiding in
terest for citizens of Philadelphia, on many accounts.

CONCLUSION.

135

The grounds of its achievement should be the reasons
of its perpetuation. The objects of the City's re
foundation should be kept in view for their yet more
perfect fulfilment. The evils intended to be sup
pressed are not to be forgotten; and if any of the
suppressed or other evils should reappear they should
be met promptly and efificiently in their first presenta
tion. Our thousand or more policemen under one
head, with the quick warnings of the electric tele
graph, will suffice to meet riotous proceedings before
they reach to a dangerous head ; and as the City
grows the number of the police will be increased. If
these need to be supported by the military, a single
Executive can instantly command their service.
Under the existing system firemen's riots cannot
occur. With the use of Steam Engines, a few men
can perform the required service ; and under com
mand of efficient officers their discipline is assured.
Besides, their compensated service and the necessity
they are under of preserving order and obedience to
procure livelihood, will always secure good character
and orderly conduct. With one jurisdiction the
criminal can no longer cross a near invisible line,
and then turn to defy and deride his ofificial pursuer.
Still great, very great, evils may, and will, and do
assail us. The machinery of government may be the
best that can be framed by man ; yet if the public
servants lack ability and vigilance it will not work
well. If the life of the living body become cor
rupt the canker is deadly, and must be utterly ex
scinded to save the life. That duty of excision rests
with the people, and their vigilance is of ceaseless

1 3 6 CONSOLIDA TION.
necessity; a duty to be executed fearlessly and as
unsparingly as we deal with criminals who commit
theft, burglary, or arson.
This delinquency is the most dreadful depravity
that a Republic can have to deal with ; for it is trea
son to the fundamental principle of free government,
that of trust in the public servants. When the' sense
of honesty in these is lost, those elected to protect
the public become its deadly enemies ; and besides the
instincts of the thief these incur the odium of the
meanness of treachery, falsehood, and deception. The
official who steals the public money commits the crime
of theft and also betrays a public trust ; is guilty of
treason to his own manhood, for he loses all sense of
honor. If infamy can^have its grades, his must be
the lowest. He also commits treason to the Re
public, imperils law and liberty, and makes way for
despotism. Such an one should find no forgiveness;
and his crime should be accounted an unpardonable
sin. No political party can permit its public repre
sentatives to become corrupt, and live long in the
confidence of the people; and they are the best
friends of any party who will insist upon its being
thoroughly purged of all corruption. Let all parties
take a lesson of greatest value from the triumph of
Consolidation. Because the existing political parties,
in their party organizations, would not obey the re
peated voice of the people, the people took the
measure into their own hands, and cut out their solid
majority from the disciplined ranks of all parties.
What was then done can and will be done, again
and again, rather than that chronic corruption shall

CONCLUSION.

137

exist in public places, or in the ballot. Were these
the last sentiments I had to leave with my fellow-
citizens, I would utter them as my most solemn
warnings, and pray that they may never be forgotten.
I pray Almighty God to protect our beloved City
of Philadelphia ; to preserve her from every calamity;
to confer upon her every blessing; and to preserve
the virtues of her people. I especially pray that, as
in the beginning she was founded and built and
governed by good men in the great interests, of civili
zation and justice, of liberty, religion, and humanity,
so may our city be preserved to be the home of those
sacred blessings, and to secure the greatest sum of
human welfare and happiness through the ceaseless
centuries of Time !

12"

INDEX.

Advantages, 27, 58, 90.
Argument, 49, etc.
Baldwin, M. W., 22, 32, 33.
Bigler, Gov., 47, 94.
Bill, preparation, 28, 32.
signed, 47.
Binney's, Hor., Letter, 18.
Junior, 21.
Board of Revision, 127.
Borough, 9.
Building Inspectors, 130.
Celebration, 89.
Centennial Celebration, 122.
Centre of City, 57.
Charitable properties, i28'-9.
Charters, 1st and 2d, 9.
Check of Parties, 77.
City, Charters of, 11, 82.
lots, first purchasers, 9.
situation, 10.
the largest, 80.
Committee on Bill, 32, etc., 38.
Confederation, 63.
amendments, 88.
provisions, 65, 66, etc.
Consolidation, requisite, 12, 18, 26.
committee, 28, 32, 38, etc.
history, 133.
reformers, 14.
Constitutional recognition, 11.
Controller, 84.
Corporations, many, 53, 54, 55.
Corruption, 18, 23, 87, 134.
Councils' opposition, 38.
Departments, 84.
Depravity, 135.
Disparity of growth between City
and County, 12, 58, 59.
Districts, incorporations, 14, 52.
Elections, 23, 65, etc.
Evils, 18.

Executive Committee, 15, 17.
duties, 84.
Exempt properties, 128-9.
Fairmount Park, 123.
Festivities, 89.
Fire Brigade, 117.
Fire Companies, volunteer, 17, J17.
meeting against, 17.
department, 85, 117, 119.
Firemen, 18, 117, 118.
security from, '130.
Frauds, 18, 23, 87, 134.
Gas supply, 120.
Government, 63.
Groggery system, 18, 25.
Grounds for Consolidation, 49.
Growth of Philadelphia, 12, 57, etc.,
7S, 127, etc.
Health, Board of, 53.
History of City, 132.
Holmes, Thomas, 9, 10.
Hospital, 129.
Hotel, medical, 130.
Identity of City, 72, 82,
Improvements, 52, 120, etc., 125.
Increase, rate, 57.
Inspectors of buildings, 131.
Intemperance, 25.
Legislative obligation, 56.
power, 62.
Liberty Lost, 9.
Loans, 88.
Local Corporations, 53, 54, 55.
London, 13, 60.
Mayor; 83, 117.
McMichael, Morton, Pres't of
Committee, 32, 38, 90.
Medical Schools, 129-30.
Members of Legislature, 33, 89.
( 'sf)

I40

INDEX.

Memorial, i6, 36.
Military (see Mobs), 134.
Mobs, 16, 52, 83, 109 to 116.
Newspapers for Consolidation, 31.
Nominating Convention, 23, 29.
Official depravity, 135.
Paid Fire Department, 17, 117.
Paris, 60.
Park, 123.
Passing of Bill, 36, 38, 47.
Patterson, Wm. C, 22, 33, 47.
Penn, Wm., 9, 10.
Pennsylvania Hall, no.
Philadelphia founded, 9.
Charters, 11, 82.
Police, 61, 134.
Political parties, 77.
Poor, Guardians of, 53.
Population of City, 12, 52, 57.
Powers, 83.
Price's, Eli K., letters, 22, 107.
conditions, 21, 26, 28.
Progress, slow, 120.
Provisions of Charter, 82.
Public Schools, 129.
Rebelhon, 132,
Receiver, 84.
Report to Senate, 49.
Representation, 64, etc., 66, etc.
Resolutions of Committee, 38.
Revision of Taxes, 127.
Riots, 52.
Rush's, Richard, Letter, 30.
Speech, 106.
Schools, S4, 129, 130.
Security from fire, 130.
Self-government, 61.
Single elective districts, 66, etc.
Sinking fund, 88.

Site, favorable, 10, 125.
Speeches of, M. McMichael,46,go ;
F. Fraley, 40, 103 ; H. Bin
ney, Jr., 42; John M. Ken
nedy, 43 ; Col. Jas. Page, 43 ;
Hy. M. Watts, 44 ; Wm. L.
Hirst, 45 ; And'w. Miller, 45 ;
Governor Bigler, 94 ; Mr.
Chase, 98 ; Judge Lewis, 99 ;
George M. Dallas, 99 ; Sen
ator Cooper, loi ; Consul
Matthew, 102; George M.
Keim, 105 ; Wm. D. Lewis,
105 ; Richard Rush, 106.
State Rights, 62.
Steam Fire Engines, 134.
Survey Department, 126.
Tavern Licenses, 25.
Taxables, 59, 66.
Taxation, base of, 76.
Tax Collectors, 24.
collection, 76.
Taxes, revision of, 127.
Exempt, 128-9.
Town Meeting, 14.
Town Plot, 9, 10.
Treasurer, 84. -
Trusts, s.
Unity of Philadelphia, 64,
University, 130.
Hospital, 129.
Valuations, 127.
Vigilance of people, 134,
Visit to Harrisburg, 17.
Volunteer Fire Companies, 17,
Voting, 64, etc.
War of Rebellion, 132.
Wards, 83.
Water supply, 120, 124.

THE END.

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