imparted to
the project," At the same time, it offered substantial advantages to
the two landless States which would be traversed by the railroad, as
well as to all the Gulf States. As thus devised, the bill seemed
reasonably sure to win votes.

Yet it must not be inferred that the bill passed smoothly to a third
reading. There was still much shaking of heads among senators of the
strict construction school. Many were conquered by expediency and
threw logic to the winds; some preferred to be consistent and spoil a
good cause. The bill did not sail on untroubled seas, even after it
had been steered clear of constitutional shoals. It narrowly ran foul
of that obstinate Western conviction, that the public lands belonged
of right to the home-seeker, to whose interests all such grants were
inimical, by reason of the increased price of adjoining sections of
land.[337]

The real battleground, however, was not the Senate, but the House. As
before, the bill passed the upper chamber by an ample margin of
votes.[338] In the lower house, there was no prolonged debate upon the
bill. Constitutional scruples do not seem to have been ruffled. The
main difficulty was to rivet the attention of the members. Several
times the bill was pushed aside and submerged by the volume of other
business. Finally, on the same day that it passed the last of the
compromise measures, on the 17th of September, 1850, the House passed
the Illinois Central Railroad bill by a vote of 101 to 75.[339]

A comparison of this vote with that on the earlier bill shows a change
of three votes in the Middle States, one in the South, ten in the Gulf
States, and five in Tennessee and Kentucky.[340] This was a triumphant
vindication of Douglas's sagacity, for whatever may have been the
services of his colleagues in winning Eastern votes,[341] it was his
bid for the vote of the Gulf States and of the landless, intervening
States of Kentucky and Tennessee which had been most effective. But
was all this anything more than the clever manoeuvering of an adroit
politician in a characteristic parliamentary game? A central railroad
through Illinois seemed likely to quell factional and sectional
quarrels in local politics; to merge Northern and Southern interests
within the Commonwealth; and to add to the fiscal resources of State
and nation. It was a good cause, but it needed votes in Congress.
Douglas became a successful procurator and reaped his reward in
increased popula