MEMORIAL

FOR A

NATIONAL RAIL-ROAD,

FROM THE

MISSOURI RIVER TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN.

To the Senate and House of Representatives

of the United States, in Congress Assembled:

The undersigned memorialist in presenting himself before your Honorable body, to beseech the adoption of measures for the construction of a National Rail Road to the Pacific Ocean, begs leave to premise that in the repeated efforts he has made to urge this project upon the attention of The People of the United States, he has been moved alone by the natural desire which inspires every patriotic citizen, to contribute his efforts towards the glory and happiness of his country.

In the sincerity of this design, and from the impulse of convictions which he had long previously entertained, the undersigned memorialist, early in 1844, prepared an essay on the project of a National Rail-Road to the Pacific and then wrote a "History of Oregon," for the purpose of its introduction to the Public. Since the issue of that work, he has made three subsequent publications of the same project for gratuitous distribution throughout the country, the last of which is herewith subjoined, and he respectfully prays that it may be considered a part of this memorial. A few of the results of these, his efforts, may be said to have already appeared to your Honorable body, in the shape of numerous petitions from Western States, which have taken up his views and prayed for the NATIONAL Pacific Rail Road, in contradistinction to any private scheme. An extensive petition of this character from the City of New York is herewith superadded, to give weight to the prayer of this memorial.

Thus emboldened to assume the high privilege of appearing before your Honorable body, the undersigned memorialist earnestly prays that your Honorable body will, as soon as may be, before the end of the present session, adopt measures for the early construction of a NATIONAL RAIL-ROAD from some eligible point on the Missouri river to the Pacific ocean. The said road to be built and owned by the Government, and its construction and subsequent management to be placed under the superintendence and direction of a board of sworn Commissioners to be selected

from the different States by the U. States Senate, to the end that the benefits of the work may be equitably dispensed, and that its immense patronage may be equally distributed, and with a just measure of remuneration, among the artizans and laborers of the whole country, instead of being subjected to the invidious selections and arbitrary terms and sway of a chartered company.

The undersigned is moved to this petition by the full conviction that the rapid intercourse afforded by the NATIONAL RAIL-ROAD between the Atlantic and the Pacific, will confer upon the United States the command of both oceans and the commerce of the East; that it will open our waste interior to agricultural emigrations, and turn the desolate prairies into golden fields; that it will lead their teeming products to a western market of six hundred millions of People on the opposite coasts of Asia; that it will make us the Common Carrier of the world for the enormous commerce of the western ocean; and while it thus places in our hands the trident of the seas, will bring the proudest nations of the earth as suppliants to our gates, for the benefits of this great avenue of nations.

As a ready evidence in favor of these conclusions, the undersigned refers your Honorable body to the illustration of our central position in the Universe, as represented by the foregoing map; and he next refers to the whole character of the proposed work, to its immense patronage, its mighty revenues, its revolutionizing effects upon commerce, nay, even upon Governments, to show that it should be NATIONAL in its character, and not left to the mercy of the weak powers and uncertain guarantees of private individuals.

In conclusion, the undersigned memorialist, in the hope that it may save our country from being forestalled in the design, and defeated of the advantages of the proposed work by enterprising monarchies;-by England, who is endeavoring to find a westward passage by the Arctic sea, who meditates the direct penetration of the East from the shores of the Mediterranean, and who even proposes a rival rail-road westward through the Canadas; by Russia, who hopes to bind the Asian surface from the Gulf of Finland to the boundaries of China; or by France, who is at this moment upon the point of despatching her engineers to pierce the Isthmus in the Gulf of Mexico; does most earnestly urge upon your Honorable body the immediate construction of the NATIONAL RAIL-ROAD TO THE PACIFIC, not only that we may secure in advance, and for ourselves, the vast objects in view, but that we may be spared the mortification of seeing ourselves outstripped upon our own continent, and of beholding the pre-eminence and power which Destiny offers to a Republic devoted to the enlargement of the boundaries of freedom, pass into other hands, for other and opposite purposes.

Relying upon the deliberate judgment of your Honorable body, your memorialist will every pray.

December 4th, 1846.

GEORGE WILKES.

AN INQUIRY

INTO THE

PRACTICABILITY AND BENEFITS

OF A

NATIONAL RAILROAD TO THE PACIFIC,

WITH A FEW CONSIDERATIONS

OF THE DISADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OF A PRIVATE SCHEME,

ALSO,

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE

SUCCESSIVE EFFORTS MADE BY VARIOUS NATIONS

TO ACCOMPLISH

A SHORT WESTWARD ROUTE TO THE INDIES.

As an examination of the grand design to which these pages are devoted is filled with considerations of the greatest moment, it will be necessary to treat the subject with a method which its merits demand, and also with a particularity that will ensure for it a ready and accurate appreciation. The examination seems to separate itself, at the outset, into two grand divisions, and these are: What is the value of the thing we seek? and next, how shall we get it? Having thus disposed the inquiry, our first attention appears to be called to the importance of the India trade; our second, to the advantages of a direct westward route to the Pacific and Indian oceans, and our third, to glance at the most obvious of the results that will accrue to the United States, from the adoption of prompt measures and proper means to secure it.

It is not necessary to dwell at any length upon the value of the Commerce of the East. For ages it has stood pre-eminently precious above that of all other portions of the globe, and has conferred both

opulence and power upon every nation which has engrossed it. By a silent and almost imperceptible operation benighted India, with all her pagan darkness, has been for centuries the secret and active cause of the advancement of mankind, and while lying apparently inert in her voluptuous clime, has changed the maritime balances of Europe with the visit of every new nation that has sought the riches of her shores. Her alluring trade imparted the first bold impulse to timid navigation. It revealed in the direction of its enchanted coasts region after region before unknown. It found for the guidance of the mariner new planets in the sky, and its restless spirit after triumphing over the abyss, has not even been content with the discovery of another world. Like the Geni of the fable, it still sits enthroned amid misleading avenues, each showering upon its seekers spices and barbaric gold, but each denying the unbounded mine that is the common source of every issue, and which is only to be reached by the blank but direct approach, whose simple rudeness has escaped the eyes of all. In turn Phoenecia, Israel,* Carthage, Greece, Rome, Venice, Pisa, Genoa, Portugal, Holland and England, have held the sole control of all the open routes to India, and each has maintained a maritime pre-eminence during the monopoly of its trade; but Destiny, having run the monarchial category down without success or satisfaction, now for the first time reveals the vital avenue and offers the ocean diadem to Us.

To shorten, by a western passage, the route to the Indies, which now runs circuitously around the fearful barriers of Cape Horn and Southern Africa, is a design which has long occupied the attention and aroused the exertions of all maritime nations. The first and most remarkable effort to effect it was made in the latter part of the Fifteenth Century by Columbus, which resulted in the discovery of another world, and the search has been maintained by the interven

*Envying the success of the Phoenicians, David and Solomon, after having seized upon Idumea as a preparative, sent their fleets through the Arabian Gulf to Tarshish, Ophir, and other parts of Africa and India, and by this means diffused throughout the land of Israel "the wealth of Ormus and of Ind." It is to this cause, doubtless, that the latter monarch specially owes his vast reputation for sagacity, as well as the splendor of his reign.

ing ages, with but little intermission, ever since. Exploring expeditions to both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts have pryed in every sinuosity of shore from the latitude 50° South, to the borders of the Frigid Zone, and in the defeat of their exertions, projects have been formed even to pierce the continent to accomplish the design. As early as the Seventeenth Century, a company was organized in Scotland by William Patterson, afterwards the founder of the bank of England, to improve the advantages offered by the Isthmus of Darien and Panama for trade in the Pacific; but the project having been discountenanced by England, at the violent remonstrances of her powerful East and West India Companies, which trembled for their monopolies, the subscriptions were withdrawn and the enterprise temporarily dropped. It was revived soon after by its indefatigable projector, who, with 1200 men, set sail in five ships to found a colony, but being denounced and abandoned by their government, and attacked by a Spanish force while its reduced numbers were suffering under disease and famine, the adventurers sunk under their accumulated misfortunes, and abandoned the enterprise in despair.

While the above remarkable expedition was in course of prosecution, La Salle, the celebrated founder of the French colony in the valley of the Mississippi, had also conceived the idea of going west to India. Under the belief that the Upper Missouri connected with a chain of lakes which would lead by an easy route to the waters of the Paciffc, he set out upon his undertaking, but he unfortunately perished about the year 1681, in the valley of the Arkansas by the hands of his own followers, who dismayed at his great views, put him to death as the only means of escaping the threatened dangers of his daring enterprise.

From that time till the period of President Jefferson's despatch of Lewis and Clarke across the Rocky Mountains in 1803, to trace some stream to the Pacific which, with the upper Missouri, might afford a direct and practicable water communication across the

†William Patterson was supposed to have been, in early life, a South-American buccaneer, and to have ravaged several South-American districts, contemporaneously with the exploits of Sir Henry Morgan in the same quarter of the globe.