The mountain sentinel. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1844-1853, 1850-08-01
RAILROAD TO THE PACIFIC.

The Report OF the Congressional Com
mittee, TO whose province it has fallen TO
examine the separate plans proposed for
linking more closely the Atlantic 10 the
Pacific ocean, will, no doubt, be perused
with interest by our readers. 1t will be
seen that WHITNEy's plan, previo usly
stamped by public appreciation, and ac-
quiesced in by State Legislatures, is, from
the very outset of this Report, accorded
an unqualified preference. WHIrNEY's
plan is here affirmed 10 be the only plan
completely matured, the only plan that
runs free from constitutional objections
and sectional difficulties, that escapes the
liability Of compelling hereafter enormous
fiscal eXactions, and that affords in lis reg
ulations and control no special advantages
10 any political party or stock corporation.
When we add to this, that by one of the
provisions of the bill accompanying this
project. Mr.. WHITNEY and his successors
are placed under sufficient guarantees 10
complete the work-thus supplying the
main additional requirement, we may con-
slider Its triumphant passage as almost
certain; and, so, without charge of undue
anticipation, or useless enthusiasm, dwell
on certain advantages that must accrue,
when the railroad, now no more than
project, becomes an actual verify. We
confess that in realizing TO ourselves the
completed plan, we are most taken up
with the Asiatic connection 1t will estab
lish for u.s. We omit not indeed, III our
prospective calculations, the cities, the
villages, the tracts of cultured land-ever
lengthening and widening,-that are TO
spring along that gigantic line of railroad;
neither the effect of this new chain of So
clai interest, IN cementlng everlastlngly
the bond of national union. But as what
ever in these United States is TO be
achieved, can, III the abstract only be an
extension of present prosperity and pres
ent power-as on no one spot along the
projected line will the history of civiliza-
ton have TO begin anew, we may be par
doned for dwelling in language more ar
dent than other results can command, on
the Asiatic connection it will bring about.
From the moment this great artery Of
commerce reaches to the Pacific, Asia will
have to date her grandest era. The con-
tact this ready means of intercommunica-
ton will afford, must excite in her people,
strange and diverse as they are, new and
Unsuitable desires that by their require
ments on unremttlng energy anu acuVlty'
must effectually break up their present
slumbrous state. A period comparatively
short will effect this. The estimate of
future progress has little or nothing 10 do
with the lazy gait Of the past. The dis
tance in time and space hitherto separa-
ting Asia from Europe-the experienced
imbecility of the European Colonies that
have held precarious tenure of her best
maratimc portions and finest inland re-
gions-the few vessels that have visited
her ports and pursued the windings of her
nayigabIc rvers-as compared with the
countless merchant fleets destined 10 set
forth from our Pacific boundary: all this,
added 10 the incomplete knowledge now
existing of her resources, her people, and
her languages, has not tended 20 1nspirit
her with commercial enterprise, or 10 re-
move from her those Ieslousies and snspi-
cipns, which, even had this spirit been