that great river, and, while he was willing that the public money should
be wisely expended for the improvement of the 'Father of Waters,' he did
not wish that Congress should be committed to any special plan which
might prove to be part of a great job, until an official investigation
could be had. The interest with which this first speech was listened to,
and the endless questions with which the Southern men who favored
absolutely the levee system plied him, showed that they understood that
great weight would be given to Mr. Robinson's opinion, and that they did
not wish him to declare, unconditionally, against their cause. The
speech was a broad and liberal one, but extremely just. It had been
intimated in the course of the debate that Eastern members, who did not
favor the improvement of the river, refused to do so on account of a
narrow provincialism. Mr. Robinson showed them that New England is both
just and generous, and that the country is so united that a substantial
benefit to any portion of it cannot be an injury to another. He made
some keen thrusts at the Southern State rights advocates, who were so
eager for the old flag and an appropriation, and he reminded them that
whatever might be thought of the dogma of State sovereignty, "the great
old river is regardless of State lines, of the existence of Louisiana,
and, whenever there is a defective levee in Arkansas, over it goes into
Louisiana, spreading devastation in its course." Mr. Robinson insisted
that "Congress has no right to spend $4,000,000 out of the public
treasury immediately without investigating a theory and a plan which
proposes to render such an expenditure wholly unnecessary," and he
maintained that the greatest possible safe-guards should be provided
against any extravagant expenditure on the part of the Government. The
relations of New England to such an undertaking he thus broadly stated:

"I am not deterred by any considerations that when the great river is
open to commerce to an enlarged extent more freight will go down its