Mr. HOWE. Mr. President, I am some times made to feel that there is nothing so timid and so abject as the Government of the U.S. Sometimes, thank God, I am made to seethat the reis nothing grander or more heroic. The power of this Government and its authority is so often and so obstinately disputed that really get to feeling at times as if it was made to look at and not to act. I have scarcely heard a proposition introduced into this body since I have ad the honor of a sent here that has not found some one to deny the authority of congress to enact it. This little proposition now before the Senate I think we have been straining at for something like 2 years tryin to swallow it. The Senfrom Maryland, [Mr. Jonssos ] in the very morning of its a pear ance, told us it was unconstitutional; an when he pronounces upon the Constitution, if he does not create convictions or change convictions, he is apt to influence them very much. I have seen a mesmeric exerimenter lay his cane down on the floor he ore his victim, and make the victim think it was a serpent and travel all about the room to dodge it and to avoid it. Here is a bill as harmless, as ine ffensive as any manswalking stick; and et, because the Senfrom Maryland told a Senate some time ago that it really was a violation of the Constitution, we have been hesitating all this time as to whether we should adopt it or not. What is this little thing that we dare not enact into a law? It says that every railroad company in the U.S. using steam, may carry over its road the Government supplies, passengers, troops, mails, freight. the , on their way from one State to another. A railroad is a highway, I suppose. These passengers, troops, supplies, mai s, and freights are commerce; they are the incident of commerce; they make up commerce; they are included within the term “commerce.” What is this bill, then? A simple declaration that commerce may move over all the highways in an of the States. That is all there is of it. An yet we are told we cannot make that declaration. Why can we not make that declaration? lt is said that one of the States, shoved in accidentally between 2 of the great metro olitan cities of the U.S. NewYorkand Philadel phia has declared that of the highways sun nin through its borders, only one of them sha l carry these mails, troops, passengers, and freight; in other words. a State lying between NewYork and Philadelphia has declared that commerce between one State and another shall move only upon one of its highways: and that enactment lies in the way of our making this. If that be so I ask. Who controls the commerce between NewYork and Philadelphia? Who regulates it? The U.S or the State of NewJersey? The Stute of NewJersey says it shall go over one particular way, and having said so we are told that the U.S. cannot say to the contrary. Why, sir, the State of NewJersey regulates commerce between those 2 cities if that be the case, and the Congress of the U.S. does not reulate it. That is as patent to me as the light a ove us. But the Constitution says that Congress may regulate commerce between the States, and not anyone of the States and Mr. President, I want to remark here that this Co gress was created, this Government was formed as much for the purpose of taking this very control from the States as for any other one purpose. One of the leading objects. one of the moving inducements to aggregate the original States into one supreme Government was the fact that independent of any such General control the several States did impose just such restrictions, limitations, and disabilities upon the movement of commerce between the different States. If we disclaim this power, therefore, now, we ignore one of the ighest and most beneficent purposes had in view in the organization of this Government. The argument urged against the exercise of this authority is very brief. it is said that congress cannot authorize the building of a rail way in one of the States; that that is a power to be exercised exclusively by the State; and the State having the exclusive right to authorizethe construction of a road within its limits, it must have the right to impose just such terms upon the construction of the road as it sees fit. In the 1st place, I deny the premises. [deny that the Congress of the U.S. cannot authorize the building of a highway within one of the States. But conceding that proposition to be correct. the deductions which are drawn from it I deny altogether. Admitting the law to be that only the Legislature of NewJersey can authorize the construction of a railway within her limits, I do not concede in that state of the law that she is authorized to impose just such terms upon the use of the rail way after it is constructed as she sees fit: for it is impossible that her right or the right of any State, to build a railway, or to authorize the building of a railway, can be more absolute and unlimited than is the right of the U.S. to regulate commerce. Here is the fact that different railways, different high ways operated by steam, are existing in a particular State; here is the fact that each one of them is authorized by the law of that State; but here is the other fact that the right to reg ulate commerce on those highways is in the Congress of the U.S. I conclude that this power of the several States to impose terms upon the companies constructing rail ways must be exercised in subordination to our authority to regulate commerce, or the reverse of this must be true, and our authority to reg ulate commerce must be held in subordination to the power of the States to construct railways.