92 INTRODUCTION. 
tainly would do nothing which would afford immediate aid to the enterprise ; 
that Tennessee had instructed her representatives in congress to support any 
laudable application for aid in relation to the canal navigation between Hudson’s 
river and the great lakes; that New-Jersey had declined to render assistance, 
because she had not sufficient means to complete her own plans of improvement 
already projected ; that Connecticut, for the reasons that she could not supply 
money, and that she reposed full confidence in the wisdom of her representatives 
in congress, deemed it inexpedient to take any measures on the subject; that 
Massachusetts, in language characteristic of the impartial and dignified wisdom 
of conscious greatness, had instructed her representatives to use their influence 
in favor of the application of New-York; that Ohio fully approved the plan, 
while the youthful territory of Michigan (looking probably down the St. Law- 
rence, as well as across to the Hudson) was of the opinion that the proposed 
communication was not so desirable as a canal around the cataracts of Niagara, 
and another passing the falls of Oswego. 
The commissioners then submitted that, having offered the canal to the national 
government, and that offer having virtually been declined, the state was now at 
liberty. to consult and pursue the maxims of policy, and these seemed to demand 
imperatively that the canal should be made by herself, and for her own account, 
as soon as the circumstances would permit; and that, whether the subject was 
considered with a view to commerce and finance, or on the more extensive scale 
of policy, there would be a want of wisdom, and almost of piety, in neglecting to 
employ for public advantage, those means which Divine Providence had placed 
so completely within her power. They estimated the ultimate income of the 
canal at one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars; a revenue adequate 
to defray the cost of the enterprise. With the earnestness so characteristic of 
Mr. Morris, the report proceeds: “Things which twenty years ago a man would 
have been laughed at for believing, we now see. At that time the most ardent 
mind, proceeding on established facts by the unerring rules of arithmetic, was 
obliged to drop the pen at results which imagination could not embrace. Under 
