Sir, if the gentleman calls himself a democrat now, he must think that democracy is a very different thing from what it was in 1801. But I thank the Giver of all good that there is a little of the old fashioned democracy left in the land, however widely that gentleman may have wandered from it. Sir, suppose in 1801, when that gentleman was a democrat, and was in favor of rotation in office, and other democratic principles, a prophet had appeared to him and said, in a few years you will find yourself side by side and shoulder to shoulder with the editor of the most consistent paper in the United States, from whom you are now wide as the poles asunder, he, that veteran editor, still continuing one of the most consistent politicians in the Union, and having never swerved, no, not one jot or tittle, by the breadth of a hair from his original principles. What would he have thought of such a prophecy? Yet such has been the wonderful reality. Some years ago it was announced in the columns of the Centinel. "Redeunt Satania regna," that the kingdom of Satan had returned, and ever since that day, the two veterans have been fellow-workers in that same kingdom of Satan.

Mr. Rantoul's opinions of corporations were also freely declared in his speech on the Tavern Bill brought before the house in the same session. A majority of one hundred and twentyseven had refused to pass a bill for the incorporation of a hotel in Worcester. Its friends moved a reconsideration of that vote.

Mr. Rantoul hoped the bill would not be reconsidered after the solemn manner in which the house had decided, not to grant an incorporation to He hoped the principle was settled. The indication of public sentiment from the country could not be mistaken. * The bill was still pressed against the clear and manifest sense of the house. The pretence now was that if a certain amendment, preventing the sale of ardent spirits, were made in the bill, it would then become acceptable to the house, when in fact the house had first rejected that amendment, and then rejected the bill. Gentlemen, too, had placed it on the ground of its being an enterprise in which men of moderate means were to invest funds, while at the same time, they admitted that it presented so little prospect of profit no capitalist would engage in it. He contended that it was not doing any kindness to the middling classes, to furnish a place of fashionable dissipation in Worcester or Boston. The legislature could not prevent the increase of luxury, but they could withhold their sanction to incorporating establishments of this kind. The town of Worcester was growing and he rejoiced at it, and when a hotel should

be wanted there in addition to those already established, it would be provided by private enterprise, without granting an act of incorporation to induce men to risk their means in what was admitted on all hands to be a hazardous experiment. **** *It had been said, it was now established that the house would not grant incorporations indiscriminately. He was glad to hear that, - he was rejoiced to learn that the house had got so far. Heretofore they had granted all that were asked for. But was the rule now to be, that they would incorporate all hazardous enterprises which no prudent individuals would undertake? It was admitted that individuals would not undertake this project, and that it would be made up by funds derived from men of moderate property, who were to put in a few hundred dollars. * The encouragement of hazard

Massachu

ous experiments was not the part of a prudent legislature. setts had encouraged rash experiments by her system of indiscriminate acts of incorporation, which led to the ruinous disasters of 1828 and 1829. Massachusetts and the general government might share the fault between them. Indiscriminate legislation of both led to the ruin

which followed.

In the course of the same session of 1835, the Warren Bridge question came before the legislature. This was plainly a question of popular rights on one side, and the selfishness of corporations on the other.

The citizens of Charlestown and vicinity a few years since, finding that the amount of tolls they were obliged to pay, in passing and repassing Charles River, was a great and oppressive burden, determined to have a free communication with the city of Boston. To this end Warren Bridge was built, which after a certain number of years was to be given up to the State, and made free. The time arrived when the bridge was to be given up, but still there were tolls collected under various pretexts. This had been done by the influence of the stockholders in the other bridges, who had probably been paid ten times over the original cost of the stock. An animated debate occurred in the house on this subject, which was commenced by Mr. Robinson of Marblehead, who spoke ably and at some length in favor of making the bridge free. This, it was contended on the other side, would be an unjustifiable interference with vested rights, etc.

Mr. Rantoul said, he perceived that gentlemen already snuffed, in the gale, the plunder of the counties of Essex and Middlesex. They proposed to draw a great revenue from one part of the Commonwealth, and then divide the spoils among the whole. This was contrary to the Constitution. The tenth article of the Bill of Rights said that each citizen should bear his share of the burdens of the Commonwealth. If they compelled, then, a citizen to bear more than his share, they were guilty of a violation of the Constitution, and an act of tyranny and oppression. This sort of taxation had been the cause of most of the troubles in Europe, of the outrages which took place in the early part of the French revolution. Mr. R. said he knew the state of feeling existing among the people in relation to this matter; and the legislature might depend upon it, that if they passed a law to maintain the existing state of things, (the tolls for the benefit of the State,) that law would be nullified, — he would not say how, but it would be nullified.

The house voted by a large majority to appropriate the tolls to the repair of the bridge; but in this measure the senate refused to concur, and the lieutenant-governor and council adopted the opinion of the attorney-general, that it would be lawful to continue in force the provision for taking tolls to the end of that session of the general court. The house, which is based on population, voted to sustain the interests of population. The senate, which was then based on property, voted to sustain the interests of property.

In the house of representatives, Thursday, September 8, 1835, the bill from the senate continuing in force the act of 1833, relating to the Warren Bridge, being taken up in the house, was amended on its passage to a third reading, by the proviso that the tolls already collected, and that those that may be hereafter collected, shall be exclusively appropriated to the repairs and maintenance of said bridge, and other purposes relating thereto. Messrs. Blake and Simmons opposed the amendment; Messrs. Keyes and Rantoul supported it. The following is a copy from the Morning Post of Mr. Rantoul's remarks:

The gentleman from Boston had told us, and told us truly, that neither the former proprietors, nor the Commonwealth, had paid a dollar for the Warren Bridge. Those who have used that bridge have paid for it, and

for that very reason should not be called upon to pay for it again. But still that gentleman contended that the Commonwealth had a perfect right to the tolls of that bridge. The gentleman from Boston had forgotten his early political notions; thirty-five years ago he would have stood up in his place, and refuted, much more clearly and effectually than I can now do, the principle that one portion of the community should be taxed for the whole. The gentleman asks, where is the prohibition in the Constitution against raising a revenue from such a bridge? But that is not the proper question. The question should be, Where in the Constitution do we find the power to tax such a bridge? It is for the other side to show the power, and not for us to show the prohibition. If a power be not granted, it is prohibited. We ought not to be called upon to prove a negative; but still, difficult as it often is to prove a negative, Mr Rantoul thought it could be done in this case, by the strict letter of the Constitution. He was aware that gentleman had said that the objection to the tax on passengers over the Warren Bridge, upon constitutional grounds, was not entitled to much weight, and unworthy of any particular examination; and this indifference to the constitutionality of measures he had always found to be a characteristic of a certain class of politicians, whenever it became necessary to sustain any species of monopoly. All arguments or inferences drawn from the Constitution, by the closest and soundest logic, were sneered down as unworthy of a reply. No attempts were made to prove the arguments or inferences unsound, by logic equally clear and exact. A sneer was a more certain way of silencing an opponent, who professed to derive his arguments from the Constitution. An argument against a constitutional objection might not succeed, but a sneer was rarely known to fail with the party. The Constitution has therefore become, for all practical purposes, a dead letter. Yet at the same time that all deductions, however legitimate, and resulting by the clearest implication from the Constitution, are thus disregarded by gentlemen, they still profess to worship the Constitution. Yes, worship the Constitution; but all consequences of the Constitution they deny and deride. Mr. Rantoul did not know that he had ever referred to the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, in argument, without being rebuked; he would still, however, go back to the Constitution, in the present case, and see if he could not find there the prohibition, which the gentleman from Boston supposes it does not contain. The words of the Constitution are, that the legislature shall have power "to impose and levy proportional taxes." Is it proportional to raise $45,000 a year out of the profits of the people east of the bridge, and none from the other parts of the Commonwealth? The gentleman from Boston had compared the tax on the Warren Bridge to the bank tax, or auction tax, or

license tax; and there might have been some color in the comparison, if it were proposed to tax all the bridges. But to raise a tax on Warren Bridge only, is precisely the same thing as if only one bank was taxed, and all the rest exempted; or as if the auction tax was levied on one auctioneer; or the license tax on one inn-holder.

Mr. Rantoul continued. The Bill of Rights declares that the property of the citizen shall not be taken for the public use, without rendering an equivalent. Now what equivalent do the people receive from the Warren Bridge? The very people who now use, and have used it, have themselves paid for it. It never cost the State a dollar. What equivalent does the State render? The State surely cannot give to them what is already their own, what they have bought and paid for. It is not pretended that they have not paid for it, and in the fullest manner. Let the history of the bridge be traced and stated. The State has the regulation of Charles River, the navigation of which will be obstructed by erecting another bridge over it; but it is believed that the convenience to the public of another bridge will more than counterbalance the inconvenience of additional obstruction of the navigation, and the legislature therefore permit another bridge to be erected. Individuals, then, immediately interested build the bridge, and offer to surrender their right to take toll, as soon as the bridge is paid for by those who use it. That has been accomplished, and the bridge is made over to the State as a public highway, and what right has the Commonwealth since the legislature has declared that the public necessity requires a bridge-to put a toll-gate on that bridge, any more than it has to place a toll-gate on the highway to Roxbury?

Mr. Rantoul next adverted to the Charles River Bridge, — that bridge had set up an exclusive claim to all the travel over the river, when West Boston Bridge was petitioned for; but the legislature would not listen to their pretensions, though it allowed the proprietors an extension of their charter for thirty years, on account of the risk they had incurred of being reimbursed for building the bridge for public convenience, but since that time other bridges have been erected, and the legislature has not granted any further extension of the Warren Bridge charter. They considered the question of exclusive right disposed of; and the building of the Cambridge Bridge ought to have settled the question forever. It is plain the legislature never intended to admit their claim to indemnity beyond an actual reimbursement, both of principal and interest, and which, by the by, at the expiration of the first term of the charter, they had more than received. The Commonwealth did say to the old bridge, it is true, that every man who passed over it should pay toll; but the Commonwealth never did say, that every man who had occasion to pass