“Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That every railroad company in the United States, whose road is operated by steam, its successors and assigns, be, and is hereby, authorized to carry upon and over its road, connections, boats, bridges, and ferries, all freight, property, mails, passengers, troops, and Government supplies, on their way from any State to any other State, and to receive compensation therefor.”
May 12th, Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, from the Committee, reported it without amendment.
Meanwhile the House of Representatives had under consideration a bill to declare certain roads military roads and post-roads, and to regulate commerce, which was much debated, when, on motion of Mr. Wilson, of Iowa, Mr. Sumner’s joint resolution, without the preamble, and with the title, “A Bill to regulate commerce among the several States,” was adopted as a substitute, and the bill thus amended passed the House,—Yeas 63, Nays 58.
In the Senate the bill was elaborately discussed, especially by Mr. Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland; but its friends were never able to press it to a vote, and it expired with the session. In one of these efforts Mr. Sumner said: “There are two ways of killing a measure: one is by voting it down; the other is by postponing it until you lose an opportunity of voting on it; and the latter is the policy of certain Senators now.”
March 3, 1865, failing to obtain a vote on the bill, Mr. Sumner moved it as an amendment to the Post-Route Bill, but without success.
February 14th, while the bill was under consideration, Mr. Sumner spoke.
MR. PRESIDENT,—The question before us concerns the public convenience to a remarkable degree. But it concerns also the unity of this Republic. Look at it in its simplest form, and you will confess its importance. Look at it in its political aspect, and you will recognize how vital it is to the integrity of the Union itself. On one side we encounter a formidable Usurpation with all the pretensions of State Rights, hardly less flagrant and pernicious than those which ripened in bloody rebellion. On the other side are the simple and legitimate claims of the Union under the Constitution of the United States.
Thus stands the question at the outset: public convenience and the Union itself in its beneficent powers on the one side; public inconvenience and all the discord of intolerable State pretensions on the other side.
The proposition on its face is applicable to all the States throughout the Union, and in its vital principle concerns every lover of his country. But it cannot be disguised that the interest it has excited in the other House, and also in the Senate, must be referred to its bearing on the railroads of New Jersey. Out of this circumstance springs the ardor of opposition,—perhaps, also, something of the ardor of support. Therefore pardon me, if I glance one moment at the geographical position of this State, and its Railroad Usurpation in the name of State Rights.
Look on the map, or, better still, consult your own personal experience in the journey from Washington to New York, and you will find that New Jersey lies on the great line of travel between the two capitals of the country, political and commercial. There it is, directly in the path. It cannot be avoided, except by circuitous journey. On this single line commerce, passengers, mails, troops, all must move. In the chain of communication by which capital is bound to capital,—nay, more, by which the Union itself is bound together,—there is no single link of equal importance. Strike it out, and where are you? Your capitals will be separated, and the Union itself loosened. But the evil sure to follow, if this link were struck out, must follow also in proportionate extent from every interference with that perfect freedom of transit through New Jersey which I now ask in behalf of commerce, passengers, mails, and troops.