The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1859-02-10

Republic The Senator from Georgia, and every
other Senator here, knows that there is not in
this body, that there has never sat in the Senate
of the United States, a Senator who has a record
more clear and explicit in favor of broad, COM
prehensive, and national policy, than the Senator
from New York. And if that Senator should be
elected President, any of those Senators around
me who agree in the doctrines which he has
avowed concerning Slavery, it will be, according
to the idea of the Senator from Georgia, a sufi-
cient cause for the dissolution of the Union The
Senator said, further:
1t is because believe that separation is not
far distant; because the signs of the times point
too plainly to the early triumph of the Abolition
ists and their complete possession and control of
every department of the Federal Government
and because l firmly believe that when such an
event occurs the Union will be dissolved that
am unwilling to vote so much land and so much
money as this bill proposes, to build railroad
to the Pacific, which, in my judgment, will be
created outside of Southern Confederacy, and
will belong exclusively to the North"
Now, sir, | see no occasion to arraign the peo-
pie of the North as the Senator from Georgia has
done. Five years ago you repealed the prohibit
ton of Slavery over FIVE hundred thousand
square miles where it had bean prohibited. The
people of the North denounced your act. You
opened that territory, and proclaimed the doc
trine of squatter sovereignty. You won under
it, no matter whether you believed in it or not.
You invited the people to go there and settle the
question of Slavery for themselves. The people
went there, and they settled it. The people went
for Freedom. A few of the managers undertook
to cheat them out of their rights. They manu-
featured a Constitution. Your own agents,
Walker and Stanton denounced it as the crea-
ture of fraud and violence. The President knew
it was a fraud, for his own agents told him so !;
the country knew it was fraud and yet we
Ill Al 1--k RI ~
gress in resisting the consummation of that
great crime against the people of Kansas You
sent that Constitution back to Kansas with
splendid bride, and that poor people nobly
spurned your bride. Not one-sixth of them voted
for your Constitution; more than fve- sixths voted
it down. We of the North have this year simply
been Furnishing the men who undertook TO sus-
tain that fraud, and we have succeeded to our
hearts content. Here we are to-day, represent
atves ready to attend to the public business; we
have not thrust this question upon you. The
people of the North stand COOL calm, and dis
passionate and while they have no disposition
to infringe upon the rights of anybody, they are
determined to maintain their own. Sir, since /
have been a member of this body IIhave trav-
elled in a majority of the States, more than forty
thousand miles, and addressed tens of thousands
of people, and never yet heard a member of the
Republican party propose to exercise power that
with the rights of any section of the country or
class of its population.
But the Senator from Georgia wants this road
to go south, that they may have it when they
divide the Union and he has magnanimously
offered US a northern road, by which we may get
to the Pacific when they have left us. We should
like to have a northern road but we are willing
to give it up, so far as construction by this Gov
eminent is concerned, and we are willing to build
al hat 1Iata h. NJ.
and the South alike for if any Senator will ex-
anime the map, he will see that such road can
easily be reached from New Orleans, or any part
of the Southern country.
But as to the southern route, a route over bar
rem deserts a route now proposed to be selected
for Disunion road, | am against it now, and
against it forever l will not vote dollar for it.
But will make a proposition to the Senator
from Georgia, the Senators from Texas, and the
Senator frsm California. will give them every
foot of this Gadsden purchase-all that we bought
for $lO,O00,O00; will even give them all be-
tween the thirty and thirty fourth parallels,
from the frontiers of Texas to the Pacific ocean.
will make no reservation of alternate sections
for we should be poorer if we had the alternate
sections than we should be without them. Twill
give them the whole rich gold and silver mines"
| will give all this to construct a local railroad
from Ell Paso to San Diego. That is fair prop
my vote to it at any other time. Take that
country. We say it is worthless, unless there be
gold and silver mines in it; that for agricultural
purposes it is utterly worthless. Take it; take
mines and all construct your local tempo
rary southern railroad to San Diego, or down to
Guaymas, if you can. Perhaps this proposition
may be accepted. 1t is we'll known that we have,
south of us, class of uneasy gentlemen, who are
exceedingly anxious to get into the Senate of the
Init int ha 9th
ambitious gentlemen, who are organizing South
ern leagues to open the African slave trade and
to conquer Mexico and Central America. They
want road to the Pacific ocean, they want TO
carry Slavery to the Pacific, and have base line
from which they can operate for the conquest of
the continent south. Now, let these gentlemen
put their hands into their pockets, raise the
money, take that beautiful country down there,
and build their local road to the Pacific ocean.
Perhaps the grants made by Texas will enable
the company to reach FL Paso some time during
the present century.
Mr.. IVERSON Will the Senator allow me to
ask him question: Will he, as Northern rep
resentatve, take the northern route and build
their road, and not take our money out of the
Treasury to help it2
Mr.. WILSON. l will tell the Senator what
will do.
Mr. HOUSTON. l rise, not to interrupt the
proposition, on behalf of the State he has men
toned, so far as l am concerned to take that
country, the mines included, and construct the
railroad.
Mr.. HALE. 1t ought to be reduced to writing.
Mr.. WILSON. We will put it in print; and
tell the Senator from Texas, and l tell his col
league, who will remain here after he has left
US, that he shall have my vote for that PROPOSE
ton at any and all times while occupy seat in
this body.
The Senator from Georgia wants to know if
we will take the northern line | will tell him
just what we will do, and what propose to do.
am in favor of building a railway ia the Pacific
ocean with the money of the Government. be-
lieve it is the only way we shall get railroad
built there for many years to come. am in
favor of starting it where this bill starts it, and
running it to San Francisco. would build the
road on a central route, great national high
way, with the money of this Government. | will
give the Senator the whole of the land on the
southern line south Of the thirty fourth parallel,
and will make grant of land from Lake Su-
perior to Puget Sound-a distance of one thou
sand eight hundred miles-and give fifty alter
nate sections to the mile, limiting the sale of the
land to actual settlers alone, which will yield
$4,000 to the mile, to carry a railroad across
that section of the country also We will re-
serve the alternate sections on that route, be-
cause they are worth saving.
But another reason given by the Senator from
Georgia was, that if this road was built its ben
ehts would accrue to the Northern States it
would pass under the control of the great North
ern railroad lines, the great mammoth corpora
tons that have constructed railways across the
continent to the Mississippi and the Missouri
He told us that the South would only get some
times stray passenger or a stray bale of goods;
but before the close of his speech, he said that,
in the South they paid from eight to ten per cent