However, it is plain the opposition to the road was sectional only in the sense that it came from the States not to be directly benefited. Though two or more New England votes could be depended upon in the Senate to be thrown against a Cumberland Road bill, yet such a man as Edward Everett said in an address at Lexington, Kentucky, in 1829: "The State of which I am a citizen [Massachusetts] has already paid between one and two thousand dollars toward the construction and repair of that road; and I doubt not she is prepared to contribute her proportion toward its extension to the place of its destination." But, it must be remembered, Everett was one who caught as few others did the spirit of our genius for expansion, the man who in 1835 uttered the marvellous words: "Intercourse between the mighty interior West and the seacoast is the great principle of our commercial prosperity." If there is one practical lesson in all the peculiar history of the one national road that America built (for the others proposed were never constructed), it is with reference to the repairing of the road. At first it seemed that the great question was merely to obtain funds for the first cost of making the road. But it soon appeared that the far greater question was to operate and repair the road; it was well enough that the Government build the road, seemingly, but it was early realized that a local power must control the road and see to its repairs, or an enormous waste of public money would result. The experience of those years brought home the lesson that the problem of maintenance and operation is far more serious than the problem of original cost. The objection raised to the Government's erecting toll-gates and collecting tolls, as implying sovereignty over the land occupied by the road, was at last silenced by allowing each State through which the road passed to accept it from the Government as fast as it was completed, and to take charge of its operation and control. Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Ohio accepted completed portions between 1831 and 1834. Toll-gates were immediately erected by State authorities, and tolls collected. From her twelve toll-gates Pennsylvania received over $37,000 in the twenty months following May 1, 1843. In the most prosperous year in Ohio, 1839, the treasurer of that State received $62,496.10 from the National Road tolls. What per cent received by toll-gate keepers was actually turned in cannot be discussed, as those were the "good old days." Each toll-gate keeper, it must be observed, retained two hundred dollars per annum as salary, and five per cent of all receipts above one thousand dollars at this time. This fast and loose system was the means of discovering some great rascals. Between 1831 and 1877 Ohio received $1,139,795.30 from the Cumberland Road in tolls.