State Ledger clipping

Hon. Gilbert Horton's Speech.

While the supervision bill was pending in the House, the Hon. Gilbert Horton, the able, eloquent, grand and distinguished Representative from Washington county, delivered the following speech against the passage of the bill:

MR. SPEAKER: I cannot, do justice to myself or my constituency, of whom I have the honor in part to represent on this floor were I to sit still and remain quiet on this question, now under consideration. The people in my section of the country do not want to be taxed to pay commissioners to supervise railroads before we get the roads; and to sit down here at Jackson to do a thing, and it unjust, for the Legislature to pass a law to tax the people for something they have not got, I came here to his Legislature as a citizen and a tax-payer, and I ask the Legislature not to pass a law voting a tax on my people. They do not want it. Therefore my duty demands me to vote against the passage, first, last and all the time. We want more railroads and less supervision, because the railroad capital has increased our tax all over the country, where they have been built.