, the
allowances of claims upon flimsy and untenable grounds, and other
extravagant and unnecessary expenditures that are granted by Congress
and the executive departments, while you have an overflowing treasury,
will amount to the half of that sum annually. The enormous sum of two
millions is proposed to be paid out of the treasury annually, when
this great road shall be completed! It is a tremendous undertaking,
truly! What a scheme! What extravagance! I understand the cost of
the New York and Erie road alone, constructed principally by private
enterprise, has been not less than thirty millions--between thirty
and thirty-three millions of dollars. That work was constructed by a
single State giving aid occasionally to a company, which supplied the
balance of the cost. I understand that the road from Baltimore to
Wheeling, when it shall have been finished, and its furniture placed
upon it, will have cost at least thirty millions. What madness, what
extravagance, then, is it for the government of the United States to
undertake to expend forty millions for a road from the Mississippi
to the Pacific.

Mr. President, one honorable Senator says the amount is not
sufficient to induce a capitalist to invest his money in the
enterprise. Others, again, say it is far too much; more than we can
afford to give for the construction of the work. Let us see which is
right. The government is to give twenty millions in all out of the
treasury for the road; or we issue bonds and pay five per cent,
interest annually upon them, and twenty millions in lands, which, if
regarded as money, amounts to a cost to the government of two
millions per annum.

What are the objects to be accomplished? A daily mail from the
valley of the Mississippi to the Pacific; the free transportation of
all troops and munitions of war required for the protection and
defense of our possessions on the Pacific; which we could not hold
three months in a war either with England or France, without such a
road. By building this road we accomplish this further object: This
road will be the most effective and powerful check that can be
interposed by the government upon Indian depredations and
aggressions upon our frontiers or upon each other; the northern
tribes upon the southern, and the southern upon the northern. You
cut them in two. You will be constantly in their midst, and cut off
their intercommunication and hostile depredations. You will have a
l