Mr. HOWARD. The honorable Senfrom Maine, I think, differs a little in opinion as to the intention of this charter and the cognate acts of legislation from the persons who are in the actual exercise of the franchise. I read from a NewJersey document, emanatin from the executive committee of the coalese e railroads represented by the Camden and Amboy Railroad Company, the following: “ It seems plain. from the acts incorporating these companies, and the testimony of those best conversant with the history of their incorporations, that it. was the policy of the State. taking advantage of the geographical position of NewJersey. between the argest States and cities of the Union. to create a revenue by imposingtax or transit duty upon every person who should pass on the railroad across the State betweenthosecities from the Delaware river to the Raritan bay: but that it was not their design to imposeany tax upon citizens of their own State for travelin between intermediate places. "I cro, again, the policy and intention of the State is mostclearly indicated. in exempting her own citizens from the operation of this systemof taxation." I am indebted to the honorable Senfrom Massachusetts [Mr. SIMNBR] for the extract which I have now read to the Senate. Again 2 “The company believe thatacaroful consideration of the whole matter, as well from the provisions of the charter as from a recurrenceto the period when it was granted, Wlll produce the conviction that the transit duty was intended to be levied only on citizens of other States passing through NewJersey." I will not ransack all the charters and acts of legislation connected with the charter for the purpose of eliciting the meaning of the charter. I take it for granted that these Gentlemen who had the documents all before them were as competent as I should be after having read the same documents to state to the worl what the nrpose of this charter actually was and is. New sir, I understand it to be true in point of llact that for 14 or 15 years past the people of NewJerse y have been entirely relieved from all State taxes by means of the money which has been accumu lated in their treasury in the form of this spe cific assenger tax and freight tax between NewYork and Philadelphia. They have not paid adollar, as I have been credibly informed, of State tax for that period of time, and all the eXpenses of the government of that State have been defrayed out of the proceeds of this imposition which the State of NewJersey has made upon passengers and freivht assing through between NewYork and Hiila clphia. Iask, sir, if Congress have the exclusive power of legislation over the subject, is it not time that the citizens of other States should be relieved from so gross an imposition upon their good nature? Is it entire y fair that the citizens of Michigau, of NewYork, of NewHampshire, of Maine, of Connecticut, of all the States assing over this railrbad, should be made tributary to the selfish policy of NewJersey? Ought they to be compelled in this form to pay the expense of carrying on her State government? An what is commerce, Mr. President? It includes not only an exchange of commodities in specie, not only the sale and delivery of personal chattels and the conveyance of lands for money or other consideration, but it includes navigation and travel; it includes, in the language of the Supreme Court, “intercourse” fitween the eitiZens of one State and those of another, whether that intercourse be for the purpose of trade and traflic or for anything else; whether it have profit in view or mere pleasure and friendship. The Supreme Court have held reeatedly the principle has never been denied) since the case O Gibbons cs. Ogden that commerce, as spoken of in the Constitution, includes intercourse between the people of One State and the people of another, whatever may be the object of that intercourse. It includes, therefore, the right of free and untrammcled transit from one State to another. It includes the right of a man who walks on foot from an eastern State to visit his friends in the west, and it prohibits the State through which he may be compelled to pass from enacting any laws to obstruct his passage from his home to his family or his friends in the West or wherever he may see fit to 0. He cannot be taxed as a citizen of another State assing through anyone particular State; an his progress cannot be O structed, or impeded, or embarrassed in any way whatever for the reason that he does not happen to be a citizen of the State wherein the burden is sought to be imposed upon him. f I, in assing from NewYork to Philadel phia, can e directly or indirectly by the legislative power of NewJersey rmbjecte to the payment of a tax of ten cent J, I may be subjected to the payment of a tax of ten dollars or 100 dollars. Nay, Mr. President, such is the character of the taxing power that if it can be exercised upon commerce and intercourse in this way, it can be carried so far as actually to exclude and keep out of the limits of one State citizens of another State. This monopolizin claim has no limits. There is no point at which it can be restrained. If the State Legislature has the power to impose a tax upon me, a citizen of Michigan, for going through the State of NewJersey, simply because I am a citizen of Michigan and not of NewJersey, they can prohibit me from going through the State of NewJersey at all; they can by legislation surround the State by a Chinese wall more difficult to scale than that famous wall which was erected to protect the Celestial empire against the incursion of the Tartars. Theze is no boundary, no limit to this inhospitable claim of power. Gentlemen declare that if we pass a bill recognizing simply the omnipotent power of Congress over the subject of commerce the Government is dissolved, a requiem is to be sung over its dead body, and the whole structure is to pass into one universal wreck and ruin. Sir, I do not read the Constitution of my country in this way. I discover in it an intention on the part of the fathers of the Republic to treat the citizens of the various States as equals, to allow the citizen of one State the same privilege in another State that he has in his own. I0not see any danger of eneroachment upon the power of the States. The history of the Government from its initiation down to this moment contains the most lamentable and continuous lesson to us, admenishin us that its tendency has been and is to dissolution and separation rather than to a more strict and perfect union. Why, sir, one of the 1st attempts that was seriously made by a State against this great power of the Government to regulate commerce was made by the State of NewYork, which undertook by her Legislature to create a monopoly of the navigation of the navigable rivers of that State in the bands of the representatives of Robert Fulton. I, Suppose the Supreme Court had decided otherwise than it did in that famous case of Gibbons vs. Ogden; the waters of the State of NewYork would today have been closed to other States under the authority of the State of NewY0rk, against all the foreign as well as domestic commerce, except upon onerous and intolerable conditions, by virtue of the same monopoly. Not many years ago a similar attempt was made by Maryland to obstruct foreign commerce by requiring that every importer of foreign goods who should land his cargo in that State should be at the trouble of going to the State authorities, taking out a license, and paying for it the sum of 50 dollars. The Supreme Court promptly and decisively laid its heavy hand on this pretension. I need not enumerate instances, Mr. President, of the attempts of States to eneroach upon the just powers of Congress touching commerce. The absolute necessity of such a iower in the cen tral Government was, as we all know, the great procuring cause of the formation of the constitution and the establishment of the Union. Mr. President, the honorable Senfrom Maryland tells us that the bill assumes to authorize a State railroad company to carry persons and property beyond the terminus of its road, to authorize a company to make connection and even to make a road. In the warmth of the honorable Senators opposition to this bill, it seems to me he has made on this subject assertions which he will see occasion to review, ifuot to recall. Does the bill before us assume to authorize a company in NewJersey to carry persons and property beyond the terminus of its road? Does it assume to impart a new and additional faculty to those corporations, by which they can construct new roads, or parts of new roads and thus extend their franchise by means of this bill? No, sir; the bill properly interpreted means no such thing.