The Southern Pacific Railroad [pp. 247-268]

THE SOUTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD.
form witnesses, at home and abroad, the Times gathers the drift
of opinion, and by identifying itself with it, shapes it into particular results. On the whole, then, it probably does not so
much originate as discipline and characterize opinion.
There are other topics of interest which petition for an audience here, but which the great length of this article warns me
to reserve for future discussion.
Contemplating the splendid and growing material resources
of this wonderful island, and the rich life which circulates
in every vein of its wonderful people, the current talk of English decay, which furnishes so favorite a staple for Fourth of
July orations, sounds like the dreariest nonsense. Its political
power was never more solidly founded; its commercial supremacy was never more widely extended; its intellectual activity
was never more fruitfully exerted; and its territorial grandeur
was never more imperially dimensioned. Not a streak of decreptitude saps its brawny vigor, not a shadow of age clouds the
aspect of its crescent manhood; and thus the hypothetical antiquarian whom Lord Macaulay posted so dramatically on London
Bridge to con the lesson of an extinct civilization, seems by the
light of present indications as utterly mythical as the Wandering Jew.
CARTE BLANCHE.
ART. III.-THE SOUTHIERN PACIFIC RAILROAD.
FIFTEEN or sixteen years ago the Editor of the REVIEW, as chairman of a
Committee of the Memphis Convention, prepared an address to the people of
the United States in advocacy of a railroad connection with the Pacific
ocean, by what is known as the Southern route, in contradistinction to the
other routes which were then before Congress and the country.
The renewed interest which is awakened on the subject of a Southern Pa cific Railroad, by the movements in Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee, and
more than either by the grant of a liberal charter by Congress to General
Fremont and associates, fully justifies uLs in bringing the report now before
our readers.
The subject is one of great interest to the American people, North and
South, and two or three roads across the continent will be found, before an other generation has come upon the stage, to be a necessity. There can be
no doubt that Congress, as a great land proprietor, should encourage all of
these lines; not only by a cession of lands, but by an actual loan of bonds, to
be secured by mortgage on the roads. This policy has worked well where ever it has been adopted in the States, and it has been carried out on the
largest scale by Congress in regard to the Northern Pacific Road. Reason
and propriety are in favor of a like policy in regard to the Southern route,
which possesses the most eminent merits.-EDITOR.
THE settlement of the Oregon question, and the treaty of peace
with the Republic of Mexico, fix and quiet us in the possession of
territories between the lines of our western settlements and the
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