hubert howe bancroft - Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History ...

606 INCEPTION OF RAILWAY ROUTES.
in another upon the hirelings of aspirants to office,
becoming fifty times more potent and obnoxious than
a United States bank, or any other question that had
ever excited the people. The business of a thoroughfare
so immense would absorb and control the entire
legislation of the country. This, and more, said Mr
Whitney against a national road, and he clinched his
arguments with estimates of cost and comparison of
routes which were to the majority of northern readers
conclusive. 1 ' He was sustained, too, by such authority
as Captain Charles Wilkes, whose opinion had
weight from the knowledge possessed by him of west
coast topography, although that had little to do with
the political view of the subject.** Another naval
officer, Lieutenant M. F. Maury, took a different
view. While conceding that an interoceanic railroad
was of the highest importance, he took the position
that geographically Monterey was the point in California
most central to the commerce of the world, and
therefore the proper point for the eastern terminus
was at Memphis. 11
The people of St Louis held a preliminary meeting
in the spring of 1849, at which it was resolved that
a national convention, consisting of delegates from
every state in the union, should be invited to assemble
in that city on the 16th of October, to give expression
to the will of the American people. Only fourteen
states accepted the invitation, the only southern
delegates present being from Louisiana, unless Virginia,
Kentucky, and Tennessee be classed as southern.
It will be noticed that in none of the public
discussions of Pacific railroad matters did the Carolinas
take any part, and seldom the New England
states. This was partly from sectional apathy, and
partly, also, from political prejudices. The 835 delegates
present at St Louis in October were chiefly
*» A Project for a Railroad to the Parific, by Asa Whitney, New York, 1849;
Hunt's MercJtants' Magazine, xxi. 72-9.
* Western Amertai, by Charles Wilkea, Phil., 1849.
^Hunt's Merdu Mag., xviii. 592-601.