“The inquiry of some will be, how is the money to be raised to dig this ‘mighty ditch?’ Raise it in the same way New York does--borrow it on the credit of the state. Many there are, I have no doubt, who will _doubt_ whether money can be borrowed on the credit of the state. To such I would say, go and try. If we stand at the base of a hill and look up, without making an effort to ascend, we will never reach its summit.... “Although it cost $2,400,000 (to make 200 miles), it might not be necessary to borrow any thing like that sum. The distribution of the sum required would go to the people of the state, and give more relief from their present pecuniary embarrassments than can be had from any laws enacted for that purpose. As the lands in the vicinity of the canal belonging to the general government would be greatly enhanced in value, I think it not improbable that Congress will make a donation to the state of a body of land in the vicinity, so far as it passes through their territory; if so, it would aid very much in making it. “A member of the House of Commons once asked an eminent engineer for what purpose he apprehended ‘rivers were made.’ His answer was ‘to feed navigable canals.’ Such was the opinion of a great man, and such indeed must have been the opinion of many others, for we find canals in Great Britain in many places running parallel with navigable rivers. Persons unacquainted with the cheapness at which goods are transported on canals, are surprised when they learn that a ton weight can be transported at the rate of one cent a mile. The illustrious Fulton, but a short time previous to his death, gave it as his opinion that goods could be transported on the New York canal, when completed, at the rate of one cent a ton per mile. We find him supported in this by Col. C. G. Haines, corresponding secretary to the New York association for the promotion of internal improvement. “Mr. Phillips, in the preface of his history of ‘Inland Navigation,’ says: ‘All canals may be considered as so many roads of a certain kind on which one horse will draw as much as thirty horses do on ordinary turnpike roads, and the public would be great gainers were they to lay out upon making every mile of canal twenty times as much as they expend upon making a mile of turnpike road.’ And Sutcliff, in his treatise on canals, says: ‘That within the last twenty-five years there has been expended on canals in England more than one hundred and thirty million dollars.’ A country is never made poor by making internal improvements, even if the people are taxed to make them. If money be taken from the people, it is again paid out among them, and kept in circulation.