Speech of General James Tallmadge.

IN ASSEMBLY, November 8, 1824.

Mr. Tallmadge called for the reading of the letter of Joseph Anderson, comptroller of the United States treasury, and the notice from the United States collector at Rochester, as published in the Albany Daily Advertiser of November 3.

Mr. Tallmadge then offered the following preamble and resolution:

Whereas, this legislature has had under consideration a letter dated April 6^th, 1824, from Joseph Anderson, comptroller of the treasury of the United States, in relation to the exaction of tonnage duties upon boats navigating the canals of this state, and requiring such boats to be enrolled and licensed under the United States. And whereas, it appears that the subject was submitted in April last, to the house of representatives, with a view to have canal boats exempted from such claim or exaction, and that "Mr. Newton, from the committee, made a report against amending the law so as to admit vessels to navigate canals without enrolment or license, or payment of tonnage duties, and in which report the house concurred." And whereas, it appears to this legislature, after due consideration, that the claim on the part of the United States to require boats which navigate our canals, to be enrolled or licensed, and to pay tonnage duties, is a claim not founded on any legal right, and in regard to the circumstances under which it is made, such claim is so evidently unjust and oppressive, that the interference of this state is called for the defence of its citizens. Therefore,

Resolved, (if the senate concur,) That the senators of this state, in the senate of the United States, be directed, and the representatives of this state, in the house of representatives of the United States, be requested to use their utmost endeavours to prevent any such unjust and oppressive exaction for tonnage duties on boats navigating the canals, from being carried into effect.

Resolved, That his excellency the Governor, be requested to transmit a copy of the foregoing recital and resolution to the senators and representatives from this state – and also to the president of the United States, and to the speaker of the house of representatives of the United States.

In support of his resolution, Mr. Tallmadge made the following remarks.

Mr. Tallmadge said it was some time since he heard that a claim had been set up on the part of the United States for tonnage duties on our canal boats. He had not regarded the rumours, because he considered them wholly unfounded, and without credit. He had classed those rumours among the many unfounded reports which had been so lately and so widely circulated, perhaps for political objects. He had continued under the entire disbelief until Saturday, when the letter of Joseph Anderson, comptroller of the treasury, appeared in the public newspapers, and had come under his own observation. The subject commanded his immediate attention, and he availed himself of the earliest opportunity to call the attention of this legislature to the subject, and to submit the matter to its consideration. In his opinion, it was a subject of such deep importance to the character of this state, and to the interests of its citizens, that it could admit of no delay, nor yield to any compromise. The claim for payment of tonnage duties on our own canals, was a claim so evidently wrong and unjust, it must not be submitted to for a single day. It called for the marked and decided disapprobation of this house. The legislature of this state were bound not only to speak to the congress of the United States in defence of her own and her citizen’s rights, but it was bound to speak in language not to be misunderstood. Let the claim be declared to be unsupported in point of law, and unfounded in a spirit of equal justice, and wholly inadmissible.

The proposition which I maintain is, that whatever may be the language, or however extensive the terms and expressions of the act of 1793, yet, that it cannot be construed to extend to, or include within its operations the canals of this state, and cannot justify the exaction of a tonnage duty upon boats within those canals.

We can never suffer the United States to take away the income, under the name of tonnage duties, while we are borne down and left under the heavy debts incurred in making those canals. It is to extort from us our private property. Whatever are the words and terms of the act of 1793, regulating the navigation and coasting trade of the United States, it is a perversion of its meaning, and a misapplication of its object, to extend its construction so as to include boats upon our canals. When that act was passed, our canals were not in existence, nor even in contemplation. Canals were at that time unknown in this country. It never could have been the object of the act to have reached canal navigation. The act was avowedly passed with reference to the natural waters of the United States, and intended to include the bays, inlets, and deep streams formed by nature, and necessarily used in commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states. The term navigation, used in the act, had reference to the natural waters then open to general commerce, and could not have intended to embrace artificial streams, long since created by the hand of man, and now preserved at his individual expense. If these distinctions are correct, as applied to natural bays and inlets, that act cannot be extended to boats on the canals, although above five tons burthen, and otherwise within the words of the act. This construction and restriction of the words of the act of 1793, derives great force from the recollection, that so far from the words of the act being intended to apply to canal navigation, our canals have been made long since the date of the act, and under the scoff and hiss of that general government, which laughed at the folly of our undertaking; but which now comes to search into our internal concerns, and demand of us tribute for our successful enterprise. Massachusetts has her Middlesex Canal, but we have not heard of a tonnage duty there. Virginia has long had her James River Canal, and yet the letter of the comptroller, nor the report of Mr. Newton, do not tell us that tonnage duty has been for years past been collected there. Carolina has a canal through the Dismal Swamp, yet it does not appear any requisition has been made upon it for tonnage duty, – while New-York has not even yet completed her great work, the justice and policy of a tonnage duty is already discovered, and the act of 1793 is found to be intended for our canals to be made in 1824, and under the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states, collectors are now in the interior chasing after boats for forfeiture and confiscation. Under such a state of facts, the report of Mr. Newton is made and adopted by congress.

It is not my province to censure our thirty-four representatives in congress for having so tamely submitted to the adoption of such a report; but it is our duty, as the legislature of this state, without an hour’s delay, to enter our protest, and to announce to all whom it may concern, that such a determination cannot and must not be tolerated.

I insist that no judicial tribunal would ever sanction the opinion of the comptroller of the treasury, and construe the act of ’93 to include canal navigation. If this case was before a court of justice, it would regard the well known rules for the construction of statutes, and arrive at the conclusion, "that where some collateral matter arises out of the several words, and happens to be unreasonable, the judges are in decency to conclude that the consequence was not foreseen by the legislature, and therefore they are at liberty to expound the statute according to its intent, and so far disregard its general words." The example adduced under this rule is thus – if an act of parliament gives a man power to try all causes that arise in a certain district, yet if a cause should arise in which he himself is a party, the act is construed not to extend to that, because it is unreasonable that any man should determine his own quarrel. It is also a rule that the words of the act shall be understood according to their usual and most known signification, and as having regard to the subject matter. Thus the act of ’93 was passed to regulate the coasting trade and foreign commerce, and under a power limited to regulate commerce among the states: canals were then unknown in this country, and the term navigation, in its most usual and known acceptation, had reference to the natural waters, the ocean and the bays, inlets and harbours of the country. Another rule in the construction of statutes, directs us to regard the reason and spirit of the law, or the cause which moved the legislature to enact it. We are also commanded to consider the effects and consequence, and that when words bear either none or a very absurd signification, if literally understood, we must even deviate from the received sense of them. Thus we are told of a law which enacted, that whoever drew blood in the streets, should be punished with the utmost severity, was held, after a long debate, not to extend to the surgeon who opened a vein of a person that fell down in the streets with a fit.

The conclusion of the act of ’93 cannot be extended to include canals not then in existence, and long since enacted, is too evident to admit of further argument. I therefore insist that we do not require from congress any further legislation to exempt our canal boats from tonnage duties; and that our remedy is to be found in a firm and proper and legal resistance to the extended and improper application of the act of ’93.

But if we are wrong in all these premises, and incorrect in all these conclusions, it then remains for us to consider the spirit of justice in which this claim for tonnage duties is made, and the circumstances under which it is pressed upon us – whose mind is not instantly filled with recollections of the past? We are not only one of the states, but an elder sister of this happy union. To consummate that union, we bore our full share in all the toils and perils of the era which gave it birth. To supply it with resources, we surrendered our right to collect "imposts" in our own harbour; we gave up our custom-house and our duties, and transferred over to this union, resources which even at this day produce from our own state, more than one-fifth part of the whole revenue of the United States. When the circumstances of the age and the spirit of this people, produced and adopted our system of internal improvement, who does not remember, that fearing the extent of our own resources, compared with the required amount of expenditure, we asked of this union co-operation and assistance. But we asked in vain!

We sent special agents to solicit from the general government a grant of new lands, or even a loan of money. The favour was withheld, because the very boldness of our project, examined by the narrow visions which could not comprehend its gigantic magnitude, was condemned as the wildness of delusion, and served but to impeach our credit. While that constitution, with its elastic properties, which can expand to the granting of millions for a Cumberland road, or thousands for clearing out the Ohio and the Mississippi, contracts itself into a blunt refusal when a pittance is asked for internal improvements in the state of New-York. But the pang of unkind refusal had scarcely ceased to vibrate on our hearts, when the collectors of revenue are hovering about the locks built with our labour, and at expenses sustained by our rejected credit, and under the name of tonnage duties, provided by the law of ’93, are exacting their sixpences from the boats navigating in our artificial streams; whose payment of tolls are under the sanction and protection of our state.

The late case of Gibbons v. Ogden, before the Supreme Court of the United States, commonly known as the steam-boat cause, has determined that the power given by the constitution to regulate commerce, includes navigation, and that the enrolment and license of vessels, and payment of tonnage duties under the act of ’93, not only established the character and nationality of the vessel, but confers upon it the right to navigate our waters. It is upon this principle the court decided, perhaps correctly, that steam-boats enrolled and licensed under the United States, had a right to navigate the waters of this state, and declared the laws of this state, giving exclusive privileges to the Fulton company, to be ineffectual and void.

If you for one moment submit to the principle of this claim for enrolment and license, and the payment of tonnage duties upon boats in our canals; if you yield to any other construction of the act of ’93 than is now given; if you sanction the term navigation, in its commercial meaning, to be applied to any other than the natural waters, the bays, inlets, harbours and deep streams of your country – then the vessels enrolled and licensed under the United States, have established not only their national character, but their right to navigate. If such vessel shall present herself before your locks and demand to pass, I ask, with what right, and upon what reason, your state can refuse them admission into your canals?

I ask, under what pretence you can maintain your right to demand tolls? The collectors of tonnage duties for the United States, will then take place of your toll gatherers, and your citizens must turn "hewers of wood and drawers of water," to pay the interest on your canal debt. It is painful to have conflicts arise between the state and general government. But this claim upon our canals is so evidently illegal, and under the circumstances so unreasonable, it can not be submitted to. It is another Boston tea tax, upon which it has become the duty of this state to take its stand – even though in its consequences the cradle of liberty should again be rocked.

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After this speech, it may be added, the resolution was passed unanimously.

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Transcribed from the original text and html prepared by Bill Carr, last updated 5/23/99.