sure, heard with pain, from the distinguished gentleman from Springfield, (Mr Calhoun,) the feeling of State pride, which ought, of all feelings that end in temporal affairs, to be among the dearest and deepest in the bosom of a Massachusetts man, was daily growing weaker among the people of one of the most intelligent and substantial portions of the state.

This commercial alienation has gone to a length which I suspect the citizens of Boston are not generally aware of. The entire region west of the hills of Berkshire communicates with New York through the Hudson, and the whole valley of the Connecticut, in and out of Massachusetts, communicates with Long Island Sound. I am afraid to say in how large a part of Massachusetts I think a complete nonintercourse reigns with the capital; but I will state to you a fact that lately fell beneath my personal observation. Having occasion, last week, to go to Deerfield, I took the north road from Worcester, through Templeton, Athol, and the country watered by Miller's River. If there is a spot in Massachusetts where one would feel himself intrenched, shut up, land-locked, in the very bosom of the commonwealth, Athol Green, surrounded with its rising grounds, is that spot. And what, Mr President, do you think I saw? We had scarce driven out of the village, and were making our way along through South Orange and Erving's Grant, when I saw two wagons straining up a hill, the horses' heads to the east, the wagons laden with crates, casks, and bales of foreign merchandise, which had come from Liverpool, by the way of Hartford, from New York! I hold that, sir, a little too much for a Massachusetts man to contemplate without pain.

Now, Mr President, this is the matter which we wish to put to rights. We do not wish to deprive New York of any portion of her legitimate trade; but to regain our own. Such is the object of this meeting: to open a great route of communication between the East and the West, by means of a railroad from Boston to Albany, which, with lateral routes, afterwards to be constructed, shall replace Boston in its natural position towards the trade of the interior.

And here, perhaps, we shall be met by the general vague objection, that it is impossible, by artificial works, to divert commerce from its great natural channels. Abstractions prove nothing. There are two kinds of natural channelsone sort made directly by the hand which made the world; the other, constructed by man, in the intelligent exercise of the powers which his Creator has given him. It is as natural for a civilized man to make a railway or canal, as for a savage to descend a river in a bark canoe, or to cross from one fishing place to another, by a path through the woods.

The city of New York, no doubt, owes much to the noble river that unites her to Albany; but she owes vastly more to her great artificial works of internal communication. The Hudson and the Mohawk, of themselves, unaided by art, so far from gathering in the commerce of the far west, would not monopolize that of one half the region west of Albany, within the state of New York. How far is it from the head waters of the eastern branch of the Susquehanna, in Otsego Lake, to the Mohawk? From fifteen to twenty miles! I have stood on the high grounds, that overlook Harrisburg in Pennsylvania, at a season of the year before the Hudson was open, and seen the rafts, the flatboats, the canoes, the bateaux, the craft of undescribed shapes and unutterable names, following each other, on the broad bosom of the Susquehanna, from morning to night, bearing the produce of the interior of New York to a market in Chesapeake Bay! The same holds of the south-western corner of New York, which naturally is drained by the tributaries of the Ohio. I recollect that at New Orleans I saw a flatbottomed boat, loaded with shingles. I asked its steersman whence he came. He answered, from Olean. Perhaps I ought to be ashamed to confess that, at that time, I did not know where Olean was. I found, to my astonishment, it was a settlement in Cattaraugus county, New York, on the Alleghany River, a hundred and seventy or eighty miles north-east of Pittsburg! But, sir, to bring this wandering commerce back to herself, New York has constructed her great artificial works. In this respect, Massachusetts is natu

rally little, if any, worse off than New York. If New York has a great navigable river, Massachusetts has, what New York wants, a vast sea-coast. What both wanted was a great line of artificial communication, running inward to the West. New York has constructed hers, and has other mighty works of the same character in progress; and all that Massachusetts needs is, by a work of very moderate extent, not merely to recover the trade of her own territory, but to acquire a fair share, a large, a growing share, of the commerce of the boundless west.

This, sir, is the object; to take our share, at some seasons of the year the first share, at all seasons a proportionate share, of the whole business, not merely of the interior of the state of New York, but of that almost interminable region farther west, which now derives its supplies from the city of New York. A great object surely; to a commercial eye in this community, the greatest that can be proposed. This, I repeat, is the object; and now what are the means which must be employed to effect it? What are the means? What are we to do? Are we to construct a canal from Albany to Buffalo? No, it is made, and with it the Champlain Canal to the north, and the numerous lateral works, on either side of the Erie Canal; as those which communicate with the Oneida and Ontario Lakes on the north of the line; with the Seneca, the Cayuga, and the Crooked Lakes on the south; the Chemung and the Chenango Canals, also on the south, and designed to rescue the commerce of that region from the grasp of the eastern branch of the Susquehanna, and the extensive artificial works, with which Pennsylvania has strengthened it. Are we, perhaps, for the more rapid transportation of passengers, obliged to construct a railroad, parallel to the canal, from Albany to Buffalo? No, it is done in part, and the rest is doing.* Are we, by great and expensive works, to open the far and mighty west beyond Buffalo?

It is scarcely necessary to observe, that since this speech was delivered, the Albany and Erie Railroad has been completed, and many lateral and subsidiary works constructed in the state of New York.

Nature and man have

Not a mile of it, by land or water. done, or are doing it all. The great lakes stretch westward, the grand base line of operations. Then comes in, first, the Ohio Canal from the mouth of the Scioto to Cleveland, wholly across the state. A parallel line of communication. in Ohio, by canal and railroad, through the Miami and Mad River country to Sandusky Bay, comes next; the canal, to Dayton, or beyond, is finished, the railroad begun. Indiana, in the noble tier of the North-western States, comes next, with her projected canal to connect the Wabash with Lake Erie; and Illinois follows, with a similar communication, undertaken with the patronage of Congress and the state, to unite the Illinois River, and through it the Mississippi, with the southern extremity of Lake Michigan. All, all is done or doing. The country, by nature or art, is traversed, crossed, reticulated, (pardon me, sir, this long word; the old ones are too short to describe these prodigious works,) with canals and railroads, rivers and lakes. The entire west is moving to meet us; by water, land, and steam, they ride, they sail, they drive, they paddle, they whiz, - they do all but fly down towards us. They are even now gathering at Albany, a mighty host, with all their goods, looking over into good old Massachusetts, desirous, eager to come. They have sent these most respectable gentlemen, as a deputation, to ask if we will take them. They have dug their own canals, built their own railroads, come at their own charges; and there they are, an overshadowing army, waiting to hear if we are willing they should make a peaceful crusade, a profitable inroad into our domain, bringing the fruits of their industry, and taking ours in return. I, for one, sir, am prepared to go and meet them, and I am sure my fellow-citizens are of the same mind.

But is there nothing left for us to do? Next to nothing, sir. I am almost ashamed to state how little, when I consider how long the work has remained undone. It is not to open a railroad from our western frontier to Albany. That is doing by the citizens of New York. Charters of incorporation have been obtained from Albany and from Hudson to West

Stockbridge, and the work is, I believe, commenced; and another charter is solicited from Troy to the same point. That piece, therefore, is provided for; it is about forty miles. On the other end of the line, from Boston to Worcester, fortytwo miles, the railroad is in full operation. All that remains for us now to do is to complete this little part which lies between Worcester and Stockbridge. This is the question: Shall we make this little piece of road for the sake of giving to Massachusetts, to Berkshire, to Old Hampshire, to Worcester, to Middlesex, to Boston, to our whole manufacturing, commercial, fishing interest, the benefit of a direct connection with the illimitable west? Shall we make these few miles of railroad for the sake of setting down every western trader, from Lake Erie to the head waters of the Missouri, who wants a bale of domestic goods in Commercial Street, Kilby Street, or Liberty Square? Don't talk of reaching to Buffalo, sir; talk of the Falls of St Anthony and the Council Bluffs. Sir, if we had been told that we must construct the line of artificial communication the whole way, we should have thought that (could we possibly command the capital) the benefits which would flow from the expenditure would well warrant the outlay. New York has practically shown that she thinks so; and the western country, which is looking to us to take up and complete our small part of the work, may well apply to us the words of the servant of the Syrian captain, "If the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it?"

Suppose these hundred and eighteen miles (for that is all which remains) completed, - how shall we stand? Albany, and every point of the United States west of it, and communicating through it with the Atlantic, are equidistant from New York city and Boston. Remember that, Mr Chairman : when we are discouraged by the comparison of natural and artificial means of communication, let us bear in mind that, by nature, it is no farther from Boston to all this field of business, this world of population and trade, than from New York. Secondly, let us reflect that, the distance being equal, it will be travelled in one case by a river, navigated by

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