Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I have not looked at the charter of this company granted by Maryland. I do not know that I ever saw it; if I did I certainly have not refreshed my recollection of its character lately; but I have been advised by some members of the Legislature that that charter was not intended to authorize the company incorporated under it to come into the DistCol at all. The purpose of the charter, as stated to me, was to give the company merely the power to make a road through the peninsula of Maryland, so as to connect with the southern route through Virginia, at Aquia creek or some adjoining place. The subject is now, I am told, under deliberation in the Legislature of Maryland. Personally I have certainly no objection to grant every facility to enterprises of this description, particularly such as may benefit the regions oft. of my own State through which the particular road will pass; but under the circumstances I submit to the honorable member from Ohio whether it will not be advisable to let the bill upon the table remain unacted upon until Maryland shall have acted upon the question of the charter which she has heretofore granted; for this bill, if we shall pass it, will be ine perative entirely, provided it shall turn out that the company which it authorizes to come into the DistCol, after s trikin.g the line which divides the District of from Maryland, has no authority to come up to that line. The bill does not propose, and I suppose the Senate would not authorize such a step if it was projected, to make the road throughout any portion of the Maryland territory. Now, I repeat in the hearing of my friendfrom Ohio that I have not seen the charter of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Company, and in what I have said therefore I am.upon the information which I have received from some members of the Legislature. Whether that information is well founded, I of course am not prepared to say. I should prefer, if the honorable member has no objection to it, that the matter should be postponed until Maryland shall have had an opportunity of being heard through her Legislature, or at any rate until I shall have an opportunity of looking at the charter. Maryland has an interest which may in her judgment render it improper to authorize this particular improvement. . a very large interest as a stockholder in the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, the main road: she has I believe an interest as a stockholder in the Washington Branch; but she has a deeper interest in road, the branch because she is entitled to a certain proportion of the passage money which that road may earn. If she refuses to authorize this company to come to the line of the DistCol, she may be governed by the opinion that it would very much interfere with the interest which she has in the 2 roads which I havementioned. The receipts into the Maryland treasury from the main stem of the Baltimore and Ohio road as a stockholder and from the branch amount to some 250 or 300,000 dollars, I forget the exact amount, but it is very considerable; and in the present state of her finances it is a matter of moment to. her that she should not lose any of that revenue; and it may be that, owever valuable this improvement shall turn out to be to the section through which it passes or to the country generally, she may not think this the time to authorize it if it has not been already authorized. If it has been authorized by the charter which she has passed, as the or.has organized itself under that char.ter I believe, there will be then as between Maryland and the company a contract which no legislation upon her part could in any way affect; but whether that be the case or not is, as I am told, a subject under consideration in the Legislature now in session. And in closing I merely repeat what I have said, that upon every ground of former associpation as well as of present association, speaking now only as a citizen of Maryland, Ij rejoice in seeing the people of that part of the State who are to be benefited by this road receive that benefit if it can be done consist ently with the interests of the entire State. I am not prepared to say whether that can be accomplished or not.. If therefore my friend will permit the bill to lie on the table for a day or two, I shall offer no opposition to it unless I receive something ine nature of instruction, which in a case like this perhaps might govern me, although perhaps as instructions merely I should never be governed by the opinion of the Legislature. Except upon that contingency I shall offer no objection to the passage of this bill. I have often thought that the more those improvements are multi plied to any reasonable extent the better it is for the whole country.