The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States, Seventeenth Congress, Second Session Page: 89
This book is part of the collection entitled: Annals of Congress and was provided to UNT Digital Library by the UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
89
HISTORY OF CONGRESS.
90
January, 1823.
Cumberland Road Bill.
Senate.
to make a few remarks on the next ground urged
by the gentleman agaiDst the adoption of this
measure, that is, the inexpediency of passing the
bill on your table. And on this point, whatever
may be the opinions of honorable gentlemen, here,
of the Constitutional powers of Congress to open
or establish roads for commerce, for transportation
of the mails, or otherwise, I flatter myself that the
small appropriation required by this bill for the
immediate repair of a road established and com-
pleted, now dilapidated,and going rapidly to decay
and ruin, will receive the assent of all, or at least
of a large majority of this honorable body. For,
the question presented for decision now is, not
whether the power by which this road was laid
out, and by successive acts of appropriations made
and completed, during a period of some fifteen or
twenty years, with the approbation of so many and
such enlightened legislators, under such diversity
of circumstances, and under the influences of such
infinite variety of political feelings and principles,
and sanctioned by such a succession of enlightened
and patriotic Presidents, who have filled the Chair
of State during the progress of this work—a road
which, in its progress and completion, has cost
the Government the enormous sum of $1,800,000
was constitutionally established ; but, whether
that destruction of this beautiful and costly road,
which is now progressing with such rapid pace,
shall be arrested, and the road placed for once in
complete repair, by the appropriation of the sum
contemplated in the bill—this is the true, and now
the only question. The road is made. The money
of the nation has been expended with the appro-
bation and solemn sanction of the nation, expressed
through its proper organ, the Representatives of
the people in Congress assembled. And shall the
appropriation of a small sum of money for its
repair and superintendence be now refused, at a
crisis when its application is so essential for its
preservation from total ruin, and under the full
conviction that there is no other power to which
an appeal, with the slightest hope of success, ex-
cept that which is now called upon to act, can or
will be made ? The States llirough which it
passes, and who, before the adoption of this mea-
sure by the General Government, had given their
assent, and, with their consent transferred com-
plete jurisdiction and ample authority to the gov-
ernment of the nation to execute the work as one
of national concern, and for the nation's good,
disclaim all duty or obligation on their part to
preserve the road in repair; and it devolves, at
least for the present, on the nation, who have ex-
ecuted a work so truly national, to preserve their
work from threatened ruin.
The rapid and constantly accelerated progress
of the decay which this noble work exhibits to the
traveller is as much calculated to surprise as to
mortify us, and is to be attributed, in a great de-
gree, to the inaccessible and rugged character of
the country over which it affords a safe and easy
passage across the entire range of the Alleghany
mountains, which is traversed by it for some eighty
or one hundred miles, winding for much of this
distance around heights and precipices of steep and
rugged aspect, and almost impassable before the
execution of this noble work. From these heights
above, the fragments of overhanging rock are often
precipitated. The superincumbent earth is often
sliding down under the influence of Summer rains
and Winter storms, as well as frost, by which the
road is filled and obstructed from above, and its
artificial bed shoved and propelled on its lower
side; by which its final ruin would, in a few
years, be effected, without the aid of timely and
suitable repairs.
But, the proper time for these repairs has, in the
present instance, been suffered to elapse without
their application ; and to this unfortunate omis-
sion in not appropriating the sum required for this
purpose at the last session—an omission certainly
Dot ascribable to the hody I now address, by which,
bills, having this subject in view, passed some two
or three different times—it is to be ascribed, that,
instead of the sum of $9,000, the sum then deem-
ed and still believed fully adequate to the attain-
ment of an object so desirable, now requires the
increased sum of $25,000, which is deemed at
present, with the most economical and faithful
application, barely adequate to place this road in
a state of complete repair. Such has been the
fatal influence of delay in the application of a sum
so indispensable to an object of such deep and
vital interest to several portions of the Union, and
one deserving to be cherished by all!
On the great value and importance of this road,
Mr. President, it would be superfluous for me to
descant. There is surely none so dull or so blind
to the true interests of this nation, and to its Gov-
ernment, to the perpetuation of its prosperity and
its liberties, as not to see, and, perceiving, not to
appreciate.
In a commercial point of view, this noble high-
way, for the transportation of the goods and mer-
chandise from the mercantile cities, on the Atlan-
tic border, to the West, with the. corresponding
transfer of the agricultural and other productions
of the vast regions beyond the Allegany moun-
tains to the market of the East—markets which
those inhabiting this portion of the Union have so
deep an interest to retain—the facility and conse-
quent cheapness of transportation which this road
has introduced is almost incredible, and affords
the most decisive and conclusive evidence, if any
were wanting, of the immense advantages to be
derived to internal commerce from the construc-
tion of artificial roads. The effect of which, in
its practical consequences, is to level and reduce,
for all purposes of travelling and transportation,
the most rugged, impassable, and inaccessible
mountains.
But, if the advantages of such a highway to
commerce, to all classes, and in every region al-
most of our extended empire, and to the poor emi-
grant, with his one-horse cart, or his Yankee
wagon, in transporting himself from the Eastern
to the more fertile regions of the West, are so vast,
and deserve to be so highly appreciated, of how
much more extended and exalted character, in the
eye of the patriot and the statesman, whose first
wish is the perpetuation to all future times of our
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This book can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Book.
Gales and Seaton. The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States, Seventeenth Congress, Second Session, book, 1855; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc30367/m1/43/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.