Archer Butler Hulbert

“ I am of the opinion that Congress does not possess this power—that the states individually cannot grant it; for, although they may assent to the appropriation of money within their limits for such purposes, they can grant no power of jurisdiction of sovereignty, by special compacts with the United States. This power can be granted only by an amendment to the constitution, and in the mode prescribed by it. If the power exist, it must be either because it has been specially granted to the United States, or that it is incidental to some power, which has been specifically granted. ”

“ The Island rang, as yet, with the tooting horns and rattling teams of mail-coaches; [Pg 122] a gay sight was the road in merry England in those days, before steam-engines arose and flung its hostelry and chivalry over. To travel in coaches, to drive coaches, to know coachmen and guards, to be familiar with inns along the road, to laugh with the jolly hostess in the bar, to chuck the pretty chambermaid under the chin, were the delight of men who were young not very long ago. The Road was an institution, the Ring was an institution. Men rallied around them ”

“ This old route, chosen first by the buffalo and followed by red men and white men, will ever be the course of travel across the mountains. From this rugged path made by the once famous Cumberland Road, the tide of life cannot ebb. ”

“ The bicycle and automobile presage an era of good roads, and of an unparalleled countryward movement of society. With this era is coming the revival of inn and tavern life, the rejuvenation of a thousand ancient highways and all the happy life that was ever known along their dusty stretches. By its position with reference to the national capital, and the military and commercial key of the Central West, Pittsburg, and both of the great cities of Ohio, the Cumberland Road will become, perhaps, the foremost of the great roadways of America. ”

“ It is difficult to sufficiently emphasize the aristocracy which existed among the old "pike boys," as those most intimately connected with the road were called. This was particularly true of the drivers of the mail and passenger stages, men who were as often noted for their quick wit and large acquaintance with men as for their dexterous handling of two hands full of reins. Their social and business position was the envy of the youth of a nation, whose ambition to emulate them was begotten of the best sort of hero-worship. ”

“ The greater the gulf grows between the rich and poor, the more ignorant do both become, particularly the rich. There was undoubtedly a monotony in stagecoach journeying, but the continual views of the landscape, the ever-fresh air, the constantly passing throngs of various description, made such traveling an experience unknown to us “arrivers” of today. How fast it has been forgotten that travel means seeing people rather than things. The age of sight-seeing has superseded that of traveling. ”

“ The sum required for the road in contemplation will depend on the style and manner of making it; as a common road cannot remove the difficulties which always exist on deep grounds, and particularly in wet seasons, and as nothing short of a firm, substantial, well-formed, stone-capped road can remove the causes which led to the measure of improvement, or render the institution as commodious as a great and growing intercourse appears to require, the expense of such a road next becomes the subject of inquiry. ”

“ The slow-moving presidential pageant through Ohio and Pennsylvania was an educational and patriotic ceremony, of not infrequent occurrence in the old coaching days—a worthy exhibition which hardly has its counterpart in these days of steam. Jackson, Van Buren, Monroe, Harrison, Polk, and Tyler passed in triumph over portions of the great road. The taverns at which they were fêted are remembered by the fact. Drivers who were chosen for the task of driving their coach were ever after noted men. ”

“ A person cannot live in the American Central West and be acquainted with the generation which greets the new century with feeble hand and dimmed eye, without realizing that there has been a time which, compared with today, seems as the Middle Ages did to the England for which Ruskin wrote—when “life was intermingled with white and purple.” ”

“ To give and take a black eye was not unusual nor derogatory in a gentleman; to drive a stage-coach the enjoyment, the emulation of generous youth. Is there any young fellow of the present time who aspires to take the place of a stoker? You see occasionally in Hyde Park one dismal old drag with a lonely driver. ”

“ It is probably impossible for us to realize fully what it meant to this West when that vanguard of surveyors came down the western slopes of the Alleghenies, hewing a thoroughfare which should, in one generation, bind distant and half-acquainted states together in bonds of common interest, sympathy, and ambition. ”

“ A power to establish turnpikes, with gates and tolls and to enforce the collection of the tolls by penalties, implies a power to adopt and execute a complete system of internal improvements. A right to impose duties to be paid by all persons passing a certain road, and on horses and carriages, as is done by this bill, involves the right to take the land from the proprietor on a valuation, and to pass laws for the protection of the road from injuries; and if it exist, as to one road, it exists as to any other, and to as many roads as Congress may think proper to establish. ”

“ No one was more proud of the fine horses which did the work of the great road than the better class of drivers. As Thackeray said was true in England, the passing of the era of good roads and the mailstage has sounded the knell of the rugged race of horses which once did service in the Central West. ”

“ The answer is that it is inexpedient to put a vast and increasing patronage into the hands of the general Government; that only a very superficial knowledge can be looked for in members of Congress as to the necessity or value of works proposed to be instituted in any parts of the states, from the impossibility or undesirableness of equalizing the amount of appropriation made to each; that useless works would be proposed from the spirit of competition or individual interest ”

“ A right to legislate for the others is a complete right of jurisdiction and sovereignty for all the purposes of internal improvement, and not merely the right of applying money under the power vested in Congress to make appropriations (under which power, with the consent of the states through which the road passes, the work was originally commenced, and has been so far executed) . ”

“ The great work of building and keeping in repair the Cumberland Road, and of operating it, developed a race of men as unknown before its era as afterward. For the real life of the road, however, one will look to the days of its prime—to those who passed over its stately stretches and dusty coils as stage- and mail-coach drivers, express carriers and “wagoners,” and the tens of thousands of passengers and immigrants who composed the public which patronized the great highway. ”

“ To an impartial observer it appears that Congress has no constitutional right to devote the public funds to internal improvements, at its own unrestricted will and pleasure; that the permitted usurpation of the power for so long a time indicates that some degree of such power in the hands of the general Government is desirable and necessary; that such power should be granted through an amendment of the constitution, by the methods therein provided ”

“ That an object so essential ought not to be left at the mercy of such an accident as the cordial agreement of the requisite number of states, to carry such works forward to their completion; that the surplus funds accruing from the whole nation cannot be as well employed as in promoting works in which the whole nation will be benefited; and that as the interests of the majority have hitherto upheld Congress in the use of this power, it may be assumed to be the will of the majority that Congress should continue to exercise it. ”

“ He says: “It is estimated that two-fifths of the trade and travel of the road were diverted at Brownsville, and fell into the channel furnished at that point by the slackwater navigation of the Monongahela River, and a similar proportion descended the Ohio from Wheeling, and the remaining fifth continued on the road to Columbus, Ohio, and points further west. The travel west of Wheeling was chiefly local, and the road presented scarcely a tithe of the thrift, push, whirl and excitement which characterized it east of that point.” ”

“ The philosophy of the toll system is patent. Rates of toll were determined by the wear on the road. Tolls were charged in order to keep the road in repair, and, consequently, each animal or vehicle was taxed in proportion as it damaged the roadbed. Cattle were taxed twice as heavily as sheep or hogs, and, according to the tariff of 1845, hogs were taxed twice as much as sheep. The tariff on vehicles was determined by the width of the tires used, for the narrower the tire the more the roadbed was cut up. ”

“ The change has been so great it is a wonder that men deign to count their gain by the same numerical system. As Macaulay has said, we do not travel today, we merely "arrive." You are hardly a traveler now unless you cross a continent. Travel was once an education. This is growing less and less true with the passing years. Fancy a journey from St. Louis to New York in the old coaching days, over the Cumberland and the old York Roads. How many persons the traveler met! How many interesting and instructive conversations were held with fellow travelers through the long hours ”

“ Youths, whose lives began simultaneously with that of the great road, worked upon its curved bed in their teens, became teamsters and contractors in middle life, and spent the autumn of their lives as landlords of its taverns, purchased with the money earned in working upon it. ”

“ The commissioners having engaged in a service in which their zeal did not permit them to calculate the difference between their pay and the expense to which the service subjected them, cannot suppose it the wish or intention of the government to accept of their services for a mere indemnification of their expense of subsistence, which will be very much the case under the present allowance; they, therefore, allow themselves to hope and expect that measures will be taken to provide such further compensation as may, under all circumstances, be thought neither profuse nor parsimonious. ”

“ During the early years of this century, the subject of internal improvements relative to the building of roads and canals was one of the foremost political questions of the day. No sooner were the debts of the Revolutionary War paid, and a surplus accumulated, than a systematic improvement of the country was undertaken. ”