dered this important subject
as a matter of great national concern and independently of the
very secondary motive of individual interest. The question
presented to their minds has not been whether A, B, or C should
have a privilege extended to him, but whether the commerce,
manufactures, and agriculture of the country would be benefited by
the performance of a public service through the instrumentality of
individual enterprise, under proper conditions and restrictions.
As matters stood at the period when the system was adopted, Great
Britain was exerting herself, successfully, to make the United
States, in common with the rest of the world, tributary to her
maritime supremacy. She possessed the monopoly of steam connection
between the United States and Europe, the West-Indies and
South-America. There was not a letter sent by ocean steam
conveyance, in these quarters, which did not pay its tribute to
the British crown, and not a passenger nor parcel of merchandise
transported, by the agency of steam, upon the ocean, which did not
furnish profit to the British capitalist. Great Britain asserted
her right to be the 'queen of the ocean,' and, as such, she levied
her imposts upon the industry and intelligence of all of the
nations that frequented that highway of the world.

"In this condition of affairs, the law instituting the system of
American ocean mail steam transportation in its present form was
enacted, as the best, if not the only means of correcting a great
evil, and, at the same time, building up a naval force which
should be available for national defense in the event of a war.
The system so instituted was deemed to be not only calculated to
draw forth and reward the enterprise of American citizens, but it
avoided the difficulty of keeping upon hand, in time of peace, a
large and, for the moment at least, useless military marine, which
could only be preserved in a condition for effective service by a
vast annual outlay of the public money.

"_It was right and proper, then, in the opinion of your
Committee, that these ocean steam facilities should exist, through
the intervention of the Government, more especially as they were,
in all probability, beyond the reach of private means._

"The transportation of the ocean mails, with the greatest possible
advantage to the i