Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
489 
they exercise their powers and privileges. It is true they partici¬ 
pate in the carrying trade of the whole country, and the whole 
country is to some extent interested in how it is done. But we are 
a family of states, with a common interest and a common destiny, 
each having certain distinct and independent powers—certain dis¬ 
tinct and independent rights, and conspicuous among these is the 
right to regulate our own domestic institutions. Upon a strict ob¬ 
servance of this right depends our perpetuity as a nation, and our 
prosperity and happiness as a people. We do not send representa¬ 
tives away to Congress to regulate our local and domestic affairs, 
but we send them there to join the representatives from other states, 
to aid in regulating the affairs of the nation. We have instituted 
a legislative body of our own, at home, to regulate our domestic 
affairs, and our own representatives, coming from every section of 
the state, ought to be, and they are better qualified to attend to our 
local and home interests than those we send away, and more espec¬ 
ially are they better qualified for this duty than representatives 
sent to Congress from other states, who know nothing, and who 
can know nothing about our people and their peculiar needs. 
We have said that the Government of the United Stntes has 
never built a railroad. A great national turnpike, however, was 
built years ago from the city of Washington to the city of St. 
Louis, by authority of Congress. The road was intended to be the 
means of communication between the East and the West; and so it 
was, for many long } r ears before the railroad system of the United 
States came into use. We are told that “from 1837 to 1850, thous¬ 
ands of emigrants from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, New 
York, New Jersey and New England, with their wagons, their 
horses, their cattle, and their household goods, struck this road 
about Cumberland or Wheeling, and moved over it slowly but se¬ 
curely and comfortably to their new homes in Indiana, Illinois, 
Wisconsin and Missouri; 11 that the mails were carried over this route 
in handsome coaches, each drawn by four horses, and at the rate of 
sixty miles a day. It was a magnificent turnpike, built in the very 
best style of McAdamized roads; and it was in fact for many years 
the greatest thoroughfare between the East and the West. 
The first railroad constructed in America for the conveyance of 
passengers, was the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad; the first division 
of the road was opened and put in operation in 1830, the same 
