Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/769

Rh agitation and up to 1861 there was no real chance for a Pacific-railway bill to pass Congress. All parties agreed that such a road should be built, but where? The South wanted a southern route and the North a northern route, and these greater interests were split in turn into minor interests. There were at different periods a New York-Chicago interest endorsed by Seward, a St. Louis interest championed by Benton, a Memphis interest backed by Arkansas and Tennessee, a Charleston interest urged by Gadsden, and a naminal Texas interest upheld by Sam Houston.

The struggle over the eastern terminus or termini of the road—for compromise measures at times proposed no less than three lines, with six termini—might have gone on for another twenty years had not the guns at Sumter relieved the situation of its most serious complications.

The Republican party had in its first national platform committed itself to Pacific-railway legislation, and the Democratic platforms of 1856 and 1860 echoed pledges of friendliness to the project. But when Congress assembled in July, 1861, there were many vacant seats. The small but alert Southern element that had opposed Pacific legislation in every form was absent, as well as those larger Southern interests that had fought for a Pacific road south of the 35th parallel.

The shock and stress of the civil war had incalculably strengthened the chances for Federal action, and the discussion in the war Congress lost at once the wordy aspect of earlier years. That form of legislative inactivity known as side-stepping was plainly at an end. There were left but two strong Pacific-railway interests, and of these the more powerful was backed by New York, New England, and Chicago interests, which stood for a line

on the 41st parallel. Seward, indeed, had said in debate, ten years before, "Make a route across the continent wherever you please; there will be but two terminals to that road, one at New York, the other at San Francisco." Moreover, Chicago was already pushing west with its roads to the Missouri River, and William B. Ogden, founder of the Chicago and Northwestern system, stood with the New York interests against a Northern Pacific route. He was already pushing the Northwestern westward from Chicago, and. when the Pacific-railroad bill of 1862 passed Congress