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extent, that it is, nevertheless, an interest of the whole Union, ! 

 only claim that other interests, alike local in their exercise, should 

 be entitled to the same benefit. If the gain by the war, of a right 

 to interdict British subjects from descending the Mississippi river, 

 had been to the people of the West an object of profit as great afe 

 the privation of the fishing liberties by the same war would have 

 been to the people of the East an object of /oss, the interests, as 

 concerned the whole, would have been equally balanced ; but in 

 asmuch as the duty of preserving possessions already and before 

 enjoyed, is paramount to that of making new acquisitions, the prin 

 ciple of equity, as well as the spirit of union, would have dictated 

 as the true policy, that of maintaining both interests in the state in 

 which they had been before the war, rather than that of sacrificing 

 one part of the Union for the profit of another. 



If the comparative value of the two interests had been as dis 

 proportionate as they have been represented by Mr. Russell, and 

 the balance of value had been on the side to which he assigns it, 

 still the question of right, remaining the same, the small interest of 

 the East could not with justice have been sacrificed to the greater 

 interest of the West, without compensation. For although the 

 whole Union may possess the power of preferring the interests of 

 the many to those of the few, they have no power of arbitrary dis 

 posal over the liberties of the smallest portion of the communitjs, 

 if, by a solemn article of the Constitution, it is provided that the 

 private property of the humblest individual shall not be taken for 

 public use, without just compensation, how much more imperious 

 is the prohibition of taking away the scanty and hard-earned live 

 lihood of a few fishermen, even were they annually decreasing in 

 number, to bestow new and exclusive benefits upon a distant portion 

 of population, without compensation to the indigent, without conso 

 lation to the bereaved sufferer. 



