14 
DIFFERENT SYSTEMS OF RAILROAD CONSTRUCTION. 
transportation is necessarily a good road, and, built by the aid of government, should not be 
accepted if of unstable or insufficient character. It is the choice of route, and nature of surface 
passed over, which reduces its cost and favors its rapid extension, and which is, in reality, the 
chief argument for its use in preference to the wagon-road. 
But I will close this argument by asserting that no road of permanent works and substantial 
class can be built across the continent with only the use of a wagon-road as a vehicle of transport¬ 
ation. The appliances of civilization, and the materials of construction, must be placed con¬ 
tiguous to the works by progression of settlements, or by the prior extension of a pioneer or 
preliminary railroad. But although permanent works may be erected by awaiting the tardy 
progression of settlements through the fertile border country, they cannot thus be raised in 
the far interior. Long sections of all routes are there devoid of wood, stone, and every variety 
of building materials. Broad divisions are not susceptible of development by settlements, and 
can never become provision-producing districts. From the distance to be passed over, and the 
amount and speed of transportation required, labor can neither be supplied nor supported. 
Weighty materials cannot be moved over the hundreds of miles from where, existing in nat¬ 
ural deposits, they must be furnished to sections deficient. Mules, oxen, and horses fail, break 
down, and die by scores, in making passage of those distant, sterile, and arid plains. The use 
of the iron rail and locomotive engine is that means of transit perfected by human ingenuity to 
the best practicable result for the moving of weighty materials at high rates of speed and at low 
cost. In fact, it cannot be denied that it fully transcends all other modes of land locomotion. 
These very routes, where domestic animals can hardly be made of use, and where the supplies 
of human subsistence cannot be procured, can be readily developed by railway, by laying a rough 
superstructure on the natural surface of the earth, and thus the very best means of transport¬ 
ation can be supplied. 
The whole pecuniary question regarding the treatment of this project of a railroad to the 
Pacific resolves itself into the expenditure of the least amount of cash capital without reasonable 
prospect of remunerative return. The engineering question resolves itself into the obtaining of 
some rapid and effective means of transportation along the route of the grand road, that it may. 
be constructed at all. The first relation is, the distance to be passed over before connexion can 
occur with a paying terminus ; and the second, the stupendous nature of the nearly insurmount¬ 
able obstacles and practical difficulties which will serve to postpone the completion of any road 
of first-class character. Both presentations of the subject are wholly subordinate to the great 
and immediate need of the Pacific coast, to the healthy overland military and mail transporta¬ 
tion, which is the single constitutional requirement in the premises. This is a requisition which 
cannot be waived or postponed. A wagon-road will not answer it, and a permanent railroad 
cannot be legislated towards the Pacific by the will of its well-wishers, under incomprehensive 
views of the difficulties attending its extension. 
Therefore, with a full sense of the importance of such an opinion, and a definite knowledge 
of at least two of the great routes across the American continent, I propose the extension of a 
rough American railway, of weighty superstructure, but of medium equipment, from the 
extreme western border of eastern civilization to the Pacific, as the exponent of that practical 
experience of the railroad-builders of America, which, if never officially called to the treatment 
of this public question, has shown such admirable results in the extension of lines through 
thinly populated regions, even when harassed by the unscrupulous management of speculative 
parties. I present it as a simple proportioning of means to the end required ; and as a restric¬ 
tion of the undue expenditure of the money of the people in the solution of a national problem. 
For, (returning to the first point of this argument,) if, by the constitution, Congress is com¬ 
pelled to defend California against aggression, and regarding the settled policy of this govern¬ 
ment, forts and standing armies are not deemed the preferable means of military defence ; if, as 
is stated by the first military talent of the nation, California cannot be practically defended by 
the means at present within the disposal of government; if a wagon-road is unsuited to the rapid 
