Mr. JOHNSON. I am about to speak of that. Instead of exactinga sumingress to be rpatd by these companies to the State as a compensation for the franchise, Maryland has provided that a certain proportion of the fare upon the asseners should inure to the benefit of the State; think it is one 5th. They might, if they had thought proper, have exacted a sum in gross, which would have been equivalent, if the company had been able to pay it, to an annuity such as they receive by the tax of one 5th of the fares. But the company at that time had no means whatever to meet such a bonus; and it is to be recollected, too, that the State at that period was very much involved. Her credit had been very much impaired about that time, and it was incumbent on her to provide all the means that she could to meet her embarrassments and to place her credit in the condition in which it has almost ever since been. She resorted to a stamp act, being, I believe, the 1st if not the only State in the Union that has resorted to that tax, with a view to meet her engagements, and it answered the purpose. h ow, as she might have authorized nobody, I suppose, will doubt that the company to charge any amount of toll that they mightt ink proper to charge, why is it that she has not a right, without subjecting herself to the supposition of interfering unnecessarily with the rights of the citizens of other States, to provide that she should, cut of the tolls, be entitled to a certain%age of those tolls in the way of compensation for the franchise? The franchise, it was supposed at the time these charters were granted. would be very val uable. I think the charter to the Baltimore and Ohio railroad was granted in 1836. The provision was that 2 dollars should be paid It has been done in nearly up on each share on subscribing, running it up to some 6 or 7 or ten dollars; but it turned out to be a very unfortunate investment to the original stockholders. Every man of them who was not able to bear the loss, and who had any number of shares, lost almost everything he was worth, and it has not been until a comparatively recent period that the work has been a prosperous one. During the whole administration which preceded the existing administration of the road the stock was very low, and no dividends were declared. The State now is receivhi, as a stockholder, her share of the dividen s upon the amount of stock she holds; I think it is about halfa million of dollars I am not sure that I am right as to the amount and she receives upon the passenger travel on the road from here to Hal timore one 5th of the amount which she authorized the company to charge. But she might have authorized the company to charge the entire sum which they now charge without exacting anything, and that would not have operated more preyudicially to the people of the other States than the provision y which she secures to herselfa portion of those charges. I concur with the honorable member from Maine in thinking that, looking to the relative condition in which the States stand toward each other, and, more especially, lookin to Hhe relation in which we individually stan to each other as citizens of a common country, so far from throwing in the way any impediment to intercourse, the best thing the States can do, if they are able to maintain themselves and at the same time do it, is to open all the avenues at once; but if they cannot do that, without securing some compensation for themselves, then it would seem to be better that we should have even that mode of intercourse than have no mode of intercourse. I l I merely rose because I was apprehensive that what fell from the honorable member from Mainegmight be considered as justifying the inference that Maryland had done something that she ought to be ashamed of; and I think the honorable member used the word “ashamed.” She is not in the habit of being ashamed of anything she has done. Her people me do wrong, and they may, in this instance, have acted, perhaps, erroneously; but thatI doubt. I do not think she did, in the beginning; but, acting from a conviction that what she did she had a right to do, and, perhaps, continuing in that impression up to the present time, even the authority of my friendfrom Maine will not be sufficient to make her ashamed of the condition in which she stands now in relation to her sister States, and of the relative condition in which her citizens stand to all the citizens of the country, and, among others, to the citizens of the State of Maine. I think the citizens of that State, perhaps, do not pay a greater rate in traveling over the route from here to Baltimore than they pay at home. I do not know what is the limitation upon their charges. They have a limitation, of course. The charge here is 3 or 4 cents a mile, I believe I for get the exact amount.