made. Some of these I should prefer
not to have seen made; but other important changes do meet my cordial
approbation. They form great improvements upon the old Constitution. So,
taking the whole new constitution, I have no hesitancy in giving it as
my judgment that it is decidedly better than the old.

Allow me briefly to allude to some of these improvements. The question
of building up class interests, or fostering one branch of industry to
the prejudice of another under the exercise of the revenue power, which
gave us so much trouble under the old Constitution, is put at rest
forever under the new. We allow the imposition of no duty with a view of
giving advantage to one class of persons, in any trade or business,
over those of another. All, under our system, stand upon the same broad
principles of perfect equality. Honest labor and enterprise are left
free and unrestricted in whatever pursuit they may be engaged. This old
thorn of the tariff, which was the cause of so much irritation in the
old body politic, is removed forever from the new.

Again, the subject of internal improvements, under the power of Congress
to regulate commerce, is put at rest under our system. The power,
claimed by construction under the old Constitution, was at least a
doubtful one; it rested solely upon construction. We of the South,
generally apart from considerations of constitutional principles,
opposed its exercise upon grounds of its inexpediency and injustice. *
* * Our opposition sprang from no hostility to commerce, or to all
necessary aids for facilitating it. With us it was simply a question
upon whom the burden should fall. In Georgia, for instance, we have done
as much for the cause of internal improvements as any other portion of
the country, according to population and means. We have stretched out
lines of railroad from the seaboard to the mountains; dug down the
hills, and filled up the valleys, at a cost of $25,000,000. * * * No
State was in greater need of such facilities than Georgia, but we did
not ask that these works should be made by appropriations out of the
common treasury. The cost of the grading, the superstructure, and the
equipment of our roads was borne by those who had entered into the
enterprise. Nay, more, not only the cost of the iron--no small item in
the general cost--was borne in the same way, but we were compelled
to pay into the common treasury several millions of dollars for the
privilege of importing