canal was completed, was passed—passed on the last day of the session, March 10, by the limitation of the constitution, and received a majority of one vote in each house of the assembly! And, even then, it had been so modified that its most prominent advocates pronounced it valueless and felt disposed to abandon its support!
In the charter of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, prior to the year 1844, there was no express power to borrow money for the completion of the canal, and its right to do so had been much questioned. Even the force and validity of the mortgages which it had given the state to secure the payment of the two million loan were called in question. Also, the time limited by the charter for the completion of the canal to Cumberland expired in 1840, and since that time the corporation had existed merely by the suffrance of the power which had created it. No steps had been taken to procure amendments in either of these points. In the belief that the measure suggested by the company for the completion of the canal must prevail,
