New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1857-01-13

Railroad to the Pac fc through our own ter
rtory practicable and is it National necessity
The negative of both these questions has been re-
Gently and vigorously presented through these
columns by able correspondents. We ask a candid
hearing for the affirmative.
1.-The slothful man saith, There is lion IN the
way" 1t is an old trick of the tribe, and there
are several other tribes which, for various reasons,
Join in the cry The disunionists of all shades
"frcm snowy white TO sooty,' hate the Pacific
Road because they think it tends to keep the Union
together ard can conure up all manner of ingenious
reasons for opposing it, Affiliated with these are
the Strict Constructionists of the Virginia school,
ofwbOm W. P. Harris, late NJ. c. from Mississippi,
tersely and happily said; /" Those Virginia gentle
"men carry the Constitution like revolver, and
they draw it on you on the slightest prevOcatOn.
After these train the open, honest antagonists of
Pacific Railroad. We propose to deal with these
gentlemen in order:
Some fifty year, ago, De Witt Clinton wrote
TO Thomas Jefferson developing bis idea of uniting
the nayigable waters Of The Hudson with those of
tie Great Lakes by a Canal Mr.. Jefferson re-
sponded in substance: g. Your canal project is
grand one, but it will not do to think of realizing
it for half a century yet" Clinton thought other
wise. lie urged the canal prcject-not future,
MllIennal canal, bat a canal fOrthwth-in def
snce of ignorant yituperatiOn and shortsighted
clamor. Visionary" demagogue, Office seek
err" "madman," instrument of spectators,
trader in popular credulity and State bank
ruptcy"-such were part OF the comPh'
ments sbowered upon him for bis advocacy
of the Erie Canal This city, which that canal has
since made the Emporium of America and placed
on the high road to become the emporium OF the
globe, was foremost in villifyag and resistsg
"Clinton and his ditch" Delegations were chosen
hence to the Legislature, instructed to vote for
filing up said ditch. Thousands of honest, toler
ably intelligent Democrats honestly believed that
the Canal was a swinding humbug-that it never
would or could be built-and that, so as Gin
ton should cease to need it as fulcrum for his self
ISL ambition, il would be universally abandoned. But
Clinton, unmoved by this tempest Of calumny, per-
severed; and, about twenty years from his former
communication, wrote Jefferson that the Canal was
finished. Mr. Jefferson confessed his former error
with the frankDess natural to great mind. 81
Thought he now wrote Clinton, "that you were
"half century ahead of the times; but l find
"thst it was who was half a century behind
VIII any man seriously contend that Railroad
to the Pacific is now enterprise one half so for
mid able for this Nation as Canal to Lake Erie
was fifty years ago (when hardly Canal of any
length existed out of China) for the State of New
hut of
population and not one.tent- Of its present amour.
ofprOperty
l. Let us consider, for a moment, the probable
cost of the Pacific Road:
Leaving al questions of route out Of sight we
will assume what no one, we think, will contradict,
that if the thousand miles lees of the proposed
Road, stretching from the eastern base Of the Rocky
Mountains to the western foot of the Sierra Nevada
were this day constructed, the residue would make
itself without help from Government, in the course
of very few years Practically, therefore, there
Is but a stretch Of thousand miles or less with
which the Government need concern itself.
What ought this thousand miles or less TO cost
We will admit that il traverses what in the av
erage, is difficult country. Yet the passage of
the Rocky Mountains is VIGOROUSLY easy; and
road down the Columbia River, whether from
Minnesota by its north or from Missouri by its
south branch, would encounter no serious obsta-
Gle until IT reached the Cascade Range. In either
case, il could not be difficult to follow down the
course of the Columbia TO its mouth: but to leave
that river on the left and follow up the Yakima
into the Cascades and down the opposite slope 70
Puget's Sound, would probably prove more e1-
pensive. We are confident, however that the i'm
Iediments encountered even on this route need
not exceed those surmounted by either Pennsylvania
or Maryland in running railroads across the Ale
ghanie. or by Austria in trsversiDg the Eastern
Alps between Trieste and the Danube. The south
ern route is pronounced by its friends at least
| equally practicable, and We believe truly.
Ought this Road 70 cost more than one OF equal
length through settled aid civilized country Of
| similar topography
The ,ffimaiJe Of this question is constantly