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REVIEW OF THE PACIFIC RAILROAD PROJECT. 9 
bonus to capitalists, led to the creation of a mammoth company, and influenced the voice of the 
press, this idea of a Grand Trunk road was strenuously urged by eloquent advocates. It appeared 
in the glorious arguments of Benton, It still lies like an incubus on every effort made by pro- 
fessional parties to divest this national project of those objectionable features which have so long 
placed it in the light of a chimera and an experiment. 
While the whole question has changed in its character, and that feature* which for nearly 
ten years barely elicited public notice, and failed of gaining the attention of congressional legis- 
lation, is no longer the leading, but has become the subordinate requisition of the problem, it 
is still allowed to weigh upon and embarrass the action of government. 
The claim of the Pacific coast to better means of overland communication, unexpectedly made 
prominent by the discovery of the gold-fields of California, and the corresponding development 
of the Territories of Utah, Oregon, and Washington, was at once thought a necessity of suc 
character that its solution could not be waived or postponed without vital injury to the best 
interests of the nation and to those important and isolated communities. 
For this reason, in the very first discussion of this new and striking feature of the question, 
many patriotic individuals proposed the extension of a wagon-road. Others, in ignorance of the 
various classes of railways, advocated the immediate adoption of the grand plan of Whitney. 
It was urged by the latter that the great plains of the interior were already whitened by the 
bones of American emigration in the passage of a wagon-road. 
The railroad of the isthmus of Panama, extending through an unhealthy climate and over 
foreign soil, had been projected and carried to its completion by the impulse of American energy. 
With the aid of government, this project might readily be completed by the enterprise of 
private individuals over our own territory, and by a route avoiding the fatal fevers of the south. 
Mails, troops, and munitions of war could be safely and rapidly transported; and the great 
travelling population of the east and west no longer be exposed to the dangers and inconveniences 
of the isthmus transit. 
But grave questions now came up for consideration. It was open for argument, how far Con- 
gress might aid the speculative operations of private parties, save as the most direct step towards 
the legitimate consummation of a single object in view. 
The united sovereignties which jointly possessed the broad domain extending from the east 
to the Pacific would necessarily act with caution in entering the debatable ground of constitu- 
tional rights, 
The nation was then laboring under the results of a disastrous depression and derangement 
of the business relations of the country. This state of things had been produced by an unhealthy 
mania in railroad speculation, not only unrestricted, but in a measure urged forward by the 
indiscriminate patronage of local legislation. 
The unwieldy operations of companies under the management of interested private parties 
had not always been guided by the true spirit of patriotism. No argument of mere expediency 
should affect the action of government. In treating this question, Congress, acting under con- 
stitutional limitations, could only continue to insure a perfect union, domestic tranquillity, and 
common defence; further the general welfare; regulate the land forces; provide for calling 
forth the militia to repel invasion; promote the progress of science and art; defend California 
against invasion, and perhaps, by the extension of a post-road, give to her citizens the privileges 
enjoyed by other sovereign States. 
No preference could be given, even by the establishment of a regulation of commerce, to one 
State over another; and it would require a power of discrimination very difficult of application 
to decide to which portion of the Union should accrue these supposed wonderful advantages, in 
the development of a project claiming the aid of a government strictly bound to render exact and 
equal justice to all. 
9 The idea of procuring the influx of western commerce to the United States of North America by building a Grand 
Trunk railroad across the rum 
