Of course, as in all appropriations of money, the question of expense had to be considered, and here there were not wanting some to cry out against the extravagance of paying seventy thousand dollars a year! We had not then got used to the colossal expenditures of war, when we grew familiar with paying three millions a day! Seventy thousand dollars seemed a great sum; but Mr. Bayard in reply reminded them that England then paid nine hundred thousand dollars a year for the transportation of the mails between the United States and England; and argued that it was a very small amount for the great service rendered. He said:
"We have sent out ships to make explorations and observations in the Red Sea and in South America; we sent one or two expensive expeditions to Japan, and published at great cost some elegant books narrating their exploits. The expense even in ships alone, in that instance, was at the rate of twenty to one here, but no cry of economy was then raised." "I look upon this proposition solely as a business measure; in that point of view I believe the Government will obtain more service for the amount of money, than by any other contract that we have ever made, or now can make, for the transmission of intelligence."
As to the expense of furnishing a ship of war to assist in laying the cable, Mr. Douglas asked:
"Will it cost anything to furnish the use of one of our steamships? They are idle. We have no practical use for them at present. They are in commission. They have their coal on board, and their full armament. They will be rendering no service to us if they are not engaged in this work. If there was nothing more than a question of national pride involved, I would gladly furnish the use of an American ship for that purpose. England tenders one of her national vessels, and why should we not tender one also? It costs England nothing, and it costs us nothing."
Mr. Rusk made the same point, in arguing that ships might be sent to assist in laying the cable, giving this homely but sufficient reason: "I think that is better than to keep them rotting at the navy-yards, with the officers frollicking on shore."
Mr. Douglas urged still further:
"American citizens have commenced this enterprise. The honor and the glory of the achievement, if successful, will be due to American genius and American daring. Why should the American Government be so penurious—I do not know that that is the proper word, for it costs nothing—why should we be actuated by so illiberal a spirit as to refuse the use of one of our steamships to convey the wire when it does not cost one farthing to the Treasury of the United States?"
But behind all these objections of expense and of want of constitutional power, was one greater than all, and that was England! The real animus of the opposition was a fear of giving some advantage to Great Britain. This has always been sufficient to excite the hostility of a certain class of politicians. No matter what the subject of the proposed coöperation, if it were purely a scientific expedition, they were sure England was going to profit by it to our injury. So now there were those who felt that in this submarine cable England was literally crawling under the sea to get some advantage of the United States!
This jealousy and hostility spoke loudest from the mouths of Southerners. It is noteworthy that men who, in less than five years after, were figuring abroad, courting foreign influence against their own country, were then fiercest in denunciation of England. Mason and Slidell voted together against the bill. Butler, of South Carolina, was very bitter in his opposition—saying, with a sneer, that "this was simply a mail service under the surveillance of Great Britain"—and so was Hunter, of Virginia; while Jones, of Tennessee, bursting with patriotism, found a sufficient reason for his opposition, in that "he did not want anything to do with England or Englishmen!"
But it should be said in justice, that to this general hostility of the South there were some exceptions. Benjamin, of Louisiana, gave the bill an earnest support; so did Mallory, of Florida, Chairman of the Naval Committee; and especially that noble Southerner, Rusk, of Texas, "with whose aid," as Mr. Seward said, "it seemed that there was no good thing which he could not do in Congress." Mr. Rusk declared that he regarded it as "the great enterprise of the age," and expressed his surprise at the very moderate subsidy asked for, only seventy thousand dollars a year, saying that, "with a reasonable prospect of success in an enterprise, calculated to produce such beneficial results, he should be willing to vote two hundred thousand dollars."