Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 14).djvu/54

 great national objects of opening canals and making turnpike roads. And whereas the state of New York, holding the first commercial rank in the United States, possesses within herself the best route of communication between the Atlantic and western waters, by means of a canal, between the tide waters of the Hudson river and Lake Erie,—through which the wealth and trade of that large portion of the United States, bordering on the upper lakes, would for ever flow to our great commercial emporium. And whereas the legislatures of several of our sister states, have made great exertions to secure to their own states the trade of that wide extended country, west of the Alleganies, under natural advantages vastly inferior to those of this state. And whereas it is highly important that these advantages should as speedily as possible be improved, both to preserve and increase the commerce and national importance of this state:—Resolved, (if the honourable the senate concur herein) that a joint committee be appointed to take into consideration the propriety of exploring, and causing an