120 Transactions of the 



in force. It was necessary to make a ])oint — tliat was all. What was 

 to be (lone with, or for the originM owner of the land, who still 

 retained the title, and had only parted with the rij^ht of way over it; 

 what was to be done with the creditors, the bondholders, and mort- 

 gagees, whose debts, rei)resenting the iron, the rcjad-bed, stations, the 

 labor of construction, these gentlemen have not as yet informed us. 

 And as to what the 8tate is expected to do with these roads when it 

 gets them, they leave us equally ignorant. And how the idea that 

 subsidies being wrongful diversions of money, raised for govern- 

 mental purposes alone, to the prosecution of a private business, can 

 be made consistent with the notion or i>roject of the State itself run- 

 ning railroads, we are yet to be told. 



According to these theories, every stage coach, its horses, and the 

 stables attached; every steaml)oat, with all its incidents, would 

 belong to the public, for they were intended and dedicated by the 

 original owner to the public use. Of necessity or convenience I put 

 down some planks for a street cros.sing and sidewalk, merely lying 

 upon the ground. Now this was incontestably establishing in the 

 public a right to use those planks as long as I chose to leave them 

 there, but what sense is there in asserting that they were no longer 

 mine? Whatever might have been the legal cqnclusion, tiic ])lanks 

 came to that "swift ending" which usually ensues when niglits are 

 dark and tire-wood and morals are scarce. 



These fantastic notions lead the people to indulge in delusions, to 

 a great waste of feeling upon mere phantoms, and weary them of 

 investigation. Most of all they destroy conlidence, and throw the 

 honest but unimformed mind into the control of the worst elements 

 of society. That these evil elements are now at work, that they have 

 collected and gained to their side (for a time only we may hoj^e) 

 many good men, we all know. While those good men here are 

 resolved to strike, will they first hearken? 



I assume that in the ettbrt now being made to remodel the world 

 that you have felt an inclination and attraction toward, and sym- 

 pathy with, wdiat are called the new ideas. You are .seeking new 

 friends. I hoi)e they will be found worthy, and such as you ought 

 to desire. To make this new connection a safe one, you will of 

 course exercise all the sense and ]n"udence with which your ])revious 

 experience has endowed you. What has that common sense induced 

 us hitherto to do, in relation to our social and business life? We 

 have always sought that companionship and aid most agreeable and 

 useful to us. 



In the larger interests of this life, or the life to come, if we have 

 leaned ui)on any one it has been one whose loftiness of character has 

 forbid deceits, whose learning has made them a safe guide. As evi- 

 dences of the possession of such a character, we have scanned his 

 countenance, his attitude, his conduct, and his words. We have 

 demanded of him that .justice that reproved, as well as justilietl us; 

 and that great whole-souled justice and generosity, that while it kept 

 its home looked with love and sympathy upon all mankind. We 

 have often voted for little trashy fellows, but it has always been with 

 the protest that honor belonged only to the great. 



I am about to specify some of those dangers with which we are 

 threatened, both in the State and nation. I am conscious that I sub- 

 ject myself to criticism, for the reason that the source of these threat- 



