as any other portion of the country, according to population and means.  We have stretched out lines of railroad from the seaboard to the mountains; dug down the hills, and filled up the valleys, at a cost of $25,000,000. * * * No State was in greater need of such facilities than Georgia, but we did not ask that these works should be made by appropriations out of the common treasury.  The cost of the grading, the superstructure, and the equipment of our roads was borne by those who had entered into the enterprise.  Nay, more, not only the cost of the iron—­no small item in the general cost—­was borne in the same way, but we were compelled to pay into the common treasury several millions of dollars for the privilege of importing the iron, after the price was paid for it abroad.  What justice was there in taking this money, which our people paid into the common treasury on the importation of our iron, and applying it to the improvement of rivers and harbors elsewhere?  The true principle is to subject the commerce of every locality to whatever burdens may be necessary to facilitate it.  If Charleston harbor needs improvement, let the commerce of Charleston bear the burden. * * * This, again, is the broad principle of perfect equality and justice; and it is especially set forth and established in our new constitution.

Another feature to which I will allude is that the new constitution provides that cabinet ministers and heads of departments may have the privilege of seats upon the floor of the Senate and House of Representatives, may have the right to participate in the debates and discussions upon the various subjects of administration.  I should have preferred that this provision should have gone further, and required the President to select his constitutional advisers from the Senate and House of Representatives.  That would have conformed entirely to the practice in the British Parliament, which, in my judgment, is one of the wisest provisions in the British constitution.  It is the only feature that saves that government.  It is that which gives it stability in its facility to change its administration.  Ours, as it is, is a great approximation to the right principle. * * *

Another change in the Constitution relates to the length of the tenure of the Presidential office.  In the new constitution it is six years instead of four, and the President is rendered ineligible for a re-election.  This is certainly a decidedly conservative change.  It will remove from the incumbent all temptation to use his office or exert the powers confided to him for any objects of personal ambition.  The only incentive to that higher ambition which should move and actuate one holding such high trusts in his hands will be the good of the people, the advancement, happiness, safety, honor, and true glory of the Confederacy.