For and in consideration of the expenses the said stockholders will be at, not only in cutting the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, erecting locks and dams, providing aqueducts, feeders, and other works, and in improving and keeping the same in repair, the said Canal and all other works aforesaid, or required to improve the navigation thereof, at any time hereafter, with all their profits, subject to the limitations herein provided, and to none other, shall be, and the same are hereby, vested in the said stockholders, their heirs and assigns, forever, as tenants in common, in proportion to their respective shares, and be forever exempt from the payment of any tax, imposition, or assessment whatsoever.
D.C. Code § 47-1014