The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1870-04-19
Great National Works.

The completion of the Chesapeake
and Ohio Railroad, which is already
commenced, will be the most important
event to the people of West Virginia
that has occurred since the formation of
the State. 1t will be an immense thor
oughfare of trade and travel between the
teeming West and the East, and connect
them together by hooks of steel 1t will
also give to a large and valuable portion
of this State that for which they now so
much suiier-a quick outlet and com
munication with the cities Of the cown-
try. But when that great work has
been completed, an older and much
greater one promises TO claim the attcn-
ton of our people and the Gov
eminent. The reader has already
been informed of the gratifying
fact that the committee of Commerce in
the United States Senate have deter
mined to report in favor of directing the
Secretary OF War to cause survey of
the route for the extension of the James
River and Kanawha Canal to the Ohio.
This step, OF course, according to the
usage of Congress, is a condition prece-
dent to deciding the question of an appro-
priation to the proposed work, and that
such an appropriation will eventually
be made, we have little reason To doubt
The work was planned by GEORGE
WASHINGTON long before the present
century, and has been already
pushed nearly to the base of the ALE
ghany mountains. The State OF Nir-
ginia, to whom that great work be-
longs, is exhausted in means, and can
no longer prosecute the magnificent
enterprise toward the Ohio. But the
Federal Government can do so, and
will do so, if unpassiOncd wisdom, and
the true elements of national greatness
shall govern its legislation.
mother, and we may say, betterdays Of
the Republic, such IN enterprise on the
part of the Federal Government would
have beer considered by some of our
wisest and best statesmen, an in
fringemert upon sacred clauses of the
Constitution, and q trespass upon the
rights of the States But those days
and those views have passed finally
away, with the great statesmen who
maintained them, and new era, and
new set of ideas, have dawned upon
the country. The great expansion
of our territory has made national
roads indispensable to both military
and civil communication between the
sections; and the enormous increase of
revenue which few years have pro-
duced, if not squandered by unscrupu-
lous politicians, can be made amply
sufficient to give us another railroad to
the Pacific and water communication
between the Ohio and the Atlantic. 1t
has been estimated by wise engineers
that the James River and Kanawha
Canal can be completed at a cost of
forty millions of dollars; and as the
commercial advantages which Virginia
will expect to derive from the compile
ton of the enterprise, will doubtless in
duce her willingly to surrender her in
terests to the Federal Government in
consideration of such a donation, Con
gress can well afford to make it great
national investment, as well as a great
national tkoroughfare in peace and in
war. While the public money is going,
let it 20 in the right direction, and
bring back to the people in works of
national and State importance some
portion at least, Of that which they arc
made to pay into the treasury.