_MARCH 29, 1837_.
The joint select committee who had under consideration the order
relating to the expediency of calling the attention of Congress to the
subject of fortifying our maritime and interior frontier have attended
to that duty, and ask leave to present the following report:
One object of the federal compact is "to provide for the common defense
and general welfare."
In accordance with these objects of the compact, the General Government
has from time to time made liberal appropriations for fortifying and
defending the several States along our extended maritime frontier west
and south of the western boundary line of this State. East of that line
a mere trifle has as yet been appropriated for these objects.
Maine has a maritime frontier of about 500 miles in extent, following
the indentations of her shores, and our interior frontier, bounding on
New Brunswick on the east and the Canadas on the north, is about 600
miles in extent.
Considering this great extent of seacoast, her numerous excellent
harbors, her noble rivers and great advantages for shipbuilding, and
her proximity to the fishing grounds, probably no State in the Union
possesses the natural advantages for carrying on this branch of industry
that Maine does.
It is a fact worthy of consideration that all maritime nations have
looked to their fisheries as the nursery of hardy seamen for the
merchant service in time of peace and for the navy in time of war, and
as a great question of national policy (aside from the inducement to
encourage this branch of business as an unfailing source of natural
wealth) it is deemed worthy of the fostering care of all commercial
nations.
Already the navigation of Maine is estimated at more than 300,000 tons,
and exceeded by only two States in the Union, and her increase annually
of tonnage is greater than that of any other State.
The abundance of building materials, believed to be inexhaustible, her
great conveniences for shipbuilding along her extended seacoast, her
numerous bays, rivers, and harbors, render it highly probable that the
day is not far distant when the maritime interests of Maine will exceed
that of any of her sister States; and if reliance can be placed upon the
statements of a scientific engineer of high respectability and standing,
who has during the past year, under the direction of the government of
this State and our parent Commonwealth, made a geological survey of
a portion of our State, it may be doubted whether the same extent of
territory on the continent contains more real value viewed in all its
bearings (the facilities of quarrying, manufacturing, exporting, and
its influence upon the great interests of the State and nation) than is
contained in our inexhaustible quarries of granite, lime, marble, slate,
etc., mines and minerals in which large and profitable investments are
already made. Some of these branches of business have been carried on
for many years, and others to a large extent are commencing under the
most favorable auspices.
These, together with our agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing
interests, our immense forests of invaluable timber, with a water power
of vast extent and value, giving us the means of laying the seaports
of the Union under a contribution for ages to come, and warranting the
belief that our present shipping interest will be sustained and employed
and a great increase required.
About one-third of the most valuable portion of our territory is claimed
by Great Britain, and the history of this protracted controversy from
its commencement to the present time is such as to awaken general
anxiety. We are admonished by recent events that we have not yet reached
the termination of our toils and embarrassments, and they have awakened
the painful apprehension that our just rights may not be secured by
honorable negotiation or patient submission to unprovoked injuries.
These considerations, in the opinion of your committee, call loudly for
the interposition of the General Government, and require at their hands
all needful preparation for possible contingencies. The late Governor
Lincoln nearly ten years since called the attention of the Government
to the importance of erecting a strong fortification in some eligible
position on the confines of that portion of our territory to which
an adverse claim is set up by Great Britain. In the opinion of your
committee, the subject has lost none of its interest since that
period, but, on the contrary, the events to which we have alluded
give to it vastly augmented importance; and to our view, irrespective
of any conditions growing out of the present controversy, a strong
fortification upon the northeastern boundary of the United States,
situated far in the interior and upon the confines of a foreign country,
and surrounded by millions of acres of fertile land, destined soon to
be peopled with a numerous population of hardy yeomanry, is of high
importance.
Our isolated situation, being the northeastern boundary of the
nation, with an interior frontier upward of 600 miles upon a foreign
country and a large proportion of our territory lying between two
Provinces of Great Britain and so situated as to render it greatly to
the advantage of that nation to possess it; the inflexible determination
which she manifests to pursue the course which interest dictates should
not be forgotten; the extent of our seacoast; the exposed situation of
our seaport towns, lying within a few hours' sail of the British naval
depot in the neighborhood of Maine; the disastrous consequences of our
defenseless situation during the last war; the great and increasing
maritime interests which we have at stake without one single point where
a ship, if dependent upon the United States fortifications, would be
safe from the attacks of a frigate--these and the consideration that
little, comparatively, has yet been done for Maine seem to our view to
constitute irresistible reasons why Maine should no longer be forgotten
or neglected in the common defense of the country.
Through all the long-protracted struggles, difficulties, and
embarrassments of our infant Republic this portion of our Union has
never been urgent or importunate in pressing its claims, but has
submitted patiently to the force of circumstances which rendered it
necessary to defer them.
But in the present altered condition of the country--the national debt
paid off at a season of universal peace and unexampled prosperity, with
an overburthened Treasury, and when it is deemed necessary to dispose
of it to resort to measures which many eminent statesmen consider
unwarranted by the Constitution and which a great portion of the people
of the Union consider of doubtful policy--at such a period and under
such circumstances it is difficult to perceive the justice of longer
withholding suitable appropriations for the defense of Maine, and to
our view it can only be withheld by doing violence to the principles
of equal rights and by neglecting a plain constitutional duty.
Your committee therefore submit the following resolutions.