s presented by the overland emigration to
California. Military protection for the emigrant, a telegraph line,
and an overland mail were among the ostensible objects. The military
force was to be a volunteer corps, which would construct military
posts and at the same time provide for its own maintenance by tilling
the soil. At the end of three years these military farmers were each
to receive 640 acres along the route, and thus form a sort of military
colony.[419] Douglas pressed the measure with great warmth; but
Southerners doubted the advisability of "encouraging new swarms to
leave the old hives," not wishing to foster an expansion in which they
could not share,[420] nor forgetting that this was free soil by the
terms of the Missouri Compromise. All sorts of objections were trumped
up to discredit the bill. Douglas was visibly irritated. "Sir," he
exclaimed, "it looks to me as if the design was to deprive us of
everything like protection in that vast region ... I must remind the
Senate again that the pointing out of these objections, and the
suggesting of these large expenditures show us that we are to expect
no protection at all; they evince direct, open hostility to that
section of the country."[421]

It was the fate of the Nebraska country to be bound up more or less
intimately with the agitation in favor of a Pacific railroad. All
sorts of projects were in the air. Asa Whitney had advocated, in
season and out, a railroad from Lake Michigan to some available harbor
on the Pacific. Douglas and his Chicago friends were naturally
interested in this enterprise. Benton, on the other hand, jealous for
the interests of St. Louis, advocated a "National Central Highway"
from that city to San Francisco, with branches to other points. The
South looked forward to a Pacific railroad which should follow a
southern route.[422] A northern or central route would inevitably open
a pathway through the Indian country and force on the settlement and
organization of the territory;[423] the choice of a southern route
would in all likelihood retard the development of Nebraska.

While Congress was shirking its duty toward Nebraska, the Wyandot
Indians, a civilized tribe occupying lands in the fork of the Kansas
and Missouri rivers, repeatedly memorialized Congress to grant them a
territorial government.[424] Dogged perseverance may be an Indian
characteristic, but there is reason to believe that outside
influences were working upon them