Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/531

 of the work? None that I have heard of. It is remarkably singular that the obstacle which is regarded as insuperable, this dreary, sandy desert, this Arabian waste, as it has been termed, in which steam-cars and caravans are to be overwhelmed, is not actually known on that route at all. We have now a regular mail communication between El Paso and the Pacific Ocean. If there were no facilities for a railroad on that route, how is it possible that mail-coachcs could run regularly over without impediment? That fact affords a practical refutation of this assumption, which is unfounded in fact.

Why need this interpose an objection so as to rule out from the general provisions of this bill a section of country that possesses equal, if not greater advantages than any other for this work? By the route which I have suggested you are afforded through the Mississippi River, from the point where the Red River empties into it, egress to the Atlantic and the Gulf, From that point, too, you can communicate with the South when you can not from St. Louis, because the ice-bound condition of the Mississippi at that point precludes navigation, and you are totally dependent on transportation by cars from St. Louis. The mouth of the Red River is never obstructed by ice, nor does it ever offer any obstruction at any point on the Mississippi below the mouth of the Ohio River. From the mouth of the Ohio you can communicate with the North and East; and from Memphis and Vicksburg with the whole South. At the terminus of this route, you have all the facilities of water transportation which, in point of cheapness, very far surpasses railroad transportation. But, sir, if you terminate the road at St. Louis, where the river is ice-bound at this season of the year, and where commerce must of necessity be arrested, how will the people of the Gulf or of the lower part of the Mississippi have communication with it? Must you transport articles to some point south of the Ohio River, and thence radiate through the whole southern country? Is that the way? Sir, you have the opportunity of accommodating all by locating the terminus at the mouth of the Red River, and there the whole commercial world is open to you; all the facilities that arise from railroad and water transportation are afforded to every section of the country north of it; but if you bring the road to St. Louis, you must be solely dependent upon railroad transportation, and you can not have it by water, because the Mississippi is ice-bound as well as the Missouri, and you are arrested there. All the cheapness, all the conveniences, and everything that would result from the other terminus is there converted into a coast and an impediment to transportation.

I think that to restrict the southern limit to the thirty-seventh, or even to the thirty-fourth parallel, is ruling out one of the most important routes, the advantages of which to the South will be incalculably greater than any other. By leaving a margin for including that route, do we cut off the North from any portion of the advantages which it has a right to claim? None at all. The Ohio and the Mississippi are open to Cairo; and at Cairo, at Memphis, and at Vicksburg, the line of which I have spoken will connect with the whole eastern portion of the country. The entire line north will be reached from Cairo; from Memphis this line will communicate with Charleston, with Richmond, and with all the southern portion of the Union. Either from Vicksburg or from Memphis, you can convey to