se to town; another cannot bear that the county should be got in debt
for these same roads and bridges; while not a few struggle hard to have
roads located over their lands, and then stoutly refuse to let them be
opened until they are first paid the damages. Even between the different
wards and streets of towns and cities we find this same wrangling and
difficulty. Now these are no other than the very difficulties against
which, and out of which, the President constructs his objections of
"inequality," "speculation," and "crushing the treasury." There is but a
single alternative about them: they are sufficient, or they are not. If
sufficient, they are sufficient out of Congress as well as in it, and
there is the end. We must reject them as insufficient, or lie down and do
nothing by any authority. Then, difficulty though there be, let us meet
and encounter it. "Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt; nothing so
hard, but search will find it out." Determine that the thing can and shall
be done, and then we shall find the way. The tendency to undue expansion
is unquestionably the chief difficulty.

How to do something, and still not do too much, is the desideratum. Let
each contribute his mite in the way of suggestion. The late Silas Wright,
in a letter to the Chicago convention, contributed his, which was worth
something; and I now contribute mine, which may be worth nothing. At all
events, it will mislead nobody, and therefore will do no harm. I would not
borrow money. I am against an overwhelming, crushing system. Suppose that,
at each session, Congress shall first determine how much money can, for
that year, be spared for improvements; then apportion that sum to the most
important objects. So far all is easy; but how shall we determine which
are the most important? On this question comes the collision of interests.
I shall be slow to acknowledge that your harbor or your river is more
important than mine, and vice versa. To clear this difficulty, let us
have that same statistical information which the gentleman from Ohio [Mr.
Vinton] suggested at the beginning of this session. In that information we
shall have a stern, unbending basis of facts--a basis in no wise subject
to whim, caprice, or local interest. The prelimited amount of means will
save us from doing too much, and the statistics will save us from doing
what we do in wrong places. Adopt and adhere to this course, and, it seems
to me, the difficulty is cleare