 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |   | ||||||
 |
The Provisional Government of Nebraska Territory and the Journals of William Walker Provisional Governor of Nebraska Territory 79 would be glad if you would take a little pains to let [me] hear how my family are and how they are getting along.1 I shall write to you presently again and may then try to entertain you with a little gossip. My best respects to Mrs Walker Believe me I arrived here the day before the opening of the session being eleven days after leaving home.2 The weather is mild as June. How is it in Wyandot? A. G. ABELARD GUTHRIE'S ADDRESS. (Wyandotte Gazette, Oct. 4, 1862.) The following is an extract from an Address to the voters of the Congressional District. He was at that time an Independent candidate for Congress. The whole address is printed in the Gazette; the following is the only portion of it which has any reference to historical matters: "Eighteen years ago I became a resident of what is now the State of Kansas. Ten years ago 'solitary and alone' I proposed to the people of the then Territory to make an effort to secure a Territorial Government.3 This was the first act in that great national drama in which the whole American people are now actors, and the whole civilized world intensely interested spectators. "The Republican party owes its existence to this movement. My proposition met with much opposition from Government officials and others. One of them, Col. Fauntleroy,4 commanding officer at Fort Leavenworth (and now I believe of the rebel army) threatened to arrest me if I should attempt to hold the election. However an elec- 1) Mr. Guthrie seems always to have been devoted to his family. His wife was a very intelligent and spirited woman. 80 tion for Delegate to represent the Territory in Congress was held on the 2nd Tuesday of October, 1852, and I was chosen Delegate. We christened our new Territory "Nebraska," for as yet it had no legal name.1 I proceeded to Washington and had my petition and evidence of the election presented to Congress, and virtually succeeded in my mission by getting a bill for organization passed by the House of Representatives, and a favorable report from the Committee on Territories of the Senate.2 But the opposition to the measure had been very violent and obstinate throughout, and the organization was not perfected until the next session of Congress. "The South had already taken possession of this territory, had planted its favorite institution within it, and believed itself secure in its stolen acquisition. Kansas (then Nebraska) was the arbiter of the destinies of the Republic. This was well understood by the South. Hence the desperate struggle so familiar to us all to secure it. Had she succeeded, the slave power would have been omnipotent, for the Pacific States were already strongly imbued with the Southern sentiment, and Kansas was the only link needed to perfect the chain which would unite those regions to a common destiny. I am assuming nothing more than the facts will warrant, when I say that my agency in calling public attention to this Territory, and impressing the claims upon the consideration of Congress, defeated the crafty and ambitious designs of the slave power, and opened this beautiful and fertile country to free men and free labor.3 Kansas owes her civil existence to my efforts in her behalf. I have never before appealed to her people for any acknowledgment of the services I have rendered. But the present seems a fitting opportunity to do so. . . . "ABELARD GUTHRIE. "Quindaro, Kansas 8th Sept. 1862." THE ORGANIZATION OF KANSAS AND NEBRASKA. (Copied from N. Y. Tribune, Aug. 9, 1856.) To the editor of the New York Tribune. SIR: In your remarks on the vote on Governor Reeder's claims to a seat in the House of Representatives as delegate from Kansas, you 1) "Nebraska" had been proposed as the name, in the Douglas bills for organizing the Territory. It is from the Pawnee word Ne-brath-ka--shallow river. 81 say, "Cases are frequent of the election of such delegates in the most informal and unauthorized manner. We are confident the first delegate from Kansas, (then called Nebraska), the Rev. Thomas Johnson, was so elected!' This is a mistake, but one I should pass unnoticed, were it not for the injustice it does myself. I was the first delegate elected to Congress "from Kansas (then called Nebraska)." I was elected by a spontaneous movement of the people,1 and I came to Washington in accordance with their expressed will, presented my evidences of election, and, though not admitted to a seat in the House, I pressed the interests of my Territory upon the consideration of Congress with such success that a bill for its organization passed the House of Representatives by a large majority, and would have passed the Senate had it been brought to a vote at that session; but unfortunately for the country and myself, this was not done.2 I was elected for the second session of the 32nd Congress. [Met Dec. 6, 1852] In the autumn of the succeeding year, 1853, a convention of the people of the Territory assembled at Wyandotte, and established a provisional government - a measure first suggested and the plan proposed by, myself. At this convention I was nominated for re-election. But a portion of the convention voted and another convention was called at which Mr Thomas Johnson was nominated as my competitor. The Chief of the Indian Bureau at Washington sided, both by money and personal influence, with my opponent. This I can prove. The repeal of the Missouri compromise was now first agitated, and it was thought important to success that the Territory should be represented by one favorable to that measure. Hence the interference. And as all the Indian agents were under the control of the Government, they obtained a very large Indian vote persons who were not citizens of the United States, nor willing to become such, and who voted against me, because these agents told them "if they did not do so I would be elected and bring them under the white man's laws." But a majority of actual citizens voted for me, yet the certificate of election was given to my competitor by the provisional governor. I contested the election, but the committee on elections, to 1) This is more in accordance with the facts than his expression "solitary and alone." 82 whom the subject was referred, never came to any decision thereon. Mr Johnson obtained lucrative employment in the Indian Department, and through the instrumentality of Indian treaties made himself rich, and I was taken sick and have been on the verge of the grave most of the time since. It was not the policy of the pro-slavery party to have the country, north of 36o, 30 minutes, known as Nebraska, opened for settlement at all; and for that reason it was set apart for Indian colonization, and its settlement by white men was forbidden by law under heavy penalties. The few whites there were there by sufferance and by license. But circumstances, which it is not necessary for me here to relate, impelled me to urge upon the people of the Territory the necessity of a territorial organization. I met with many difficulties, and on one occasion was threatened with imprisonment by the commanding officer of one of the military posts in the Territory, for my attempt at "revolution," as he called it. But to give a history of my early struggles in behalf of Nebraska,, then including Kansas, would take more time than I have inclination to spare. Yet I can say, without fear of refutation, that but for my efforts there would not be either Kansas or Nebraska open to the settlement of the white man. I have sacrificed much money and more time than any other living man in the cause of Kansas, and have never received one cent in return - not even the usual mileage and per diem hitherto paid to informal delegates. Then do not, I beg of you, deprive me of the honor to which I am entitled. I have paid dearly enough for it, and think I should have full credit for what I have done. In your almanac of the current year you have done me similar injustice, and I trust you will make the correction in both cases. In regard to Gov. Reeder, I entirely agree with you. He ought to have been admitted, and I so urged whenever I had a Congressman's ear, without reference to the man, I mean Reeder, who to tell the truth, is very far from being without sin, although, had he even done his duty as Governor of Kansas, the present condition of affairs could hardly have been averted - it was a foregone conclusion. Yours respectfully, Washington, D. C., Aug. 6, 1856. 83 ABELARD GUTHRIE--THOMAS JOHNSON--DELEGATE TO CONGRESS--KANSAS TERRITORY. (From Wilder's Annals, under date of July 28, 1853.) In 1855, a correspondent to the Chicago Press, made the statement that a convention was held at Wyandotte July 28, 1853, a territorial government organized, and a delegate to Congress nominated. Abelard Guthrie was put forward by a friend of Thomas H. Benton, and Rev. Thomas Johnson by the friends of D. R. Atchison. Guthrie received the nomination. Late in the fall, Thomas Johnson was brought out as a candidate, and was elected by Indian votes. He went to Washington, but the Territory was not organized, and he was not received as a delegate. The Washington Union spoke of him as "The Rev. Thomas Johnson, a noble specimen of a western man." In the New York Tribune of August 9, 1856, Mr Guthrie gives his account of this "provisional government." HADLEY D. JOHNSON'S STATEMENT. (Excerpt from a paper read before the meeting of the Nebraska State Historical Society, January 11, 1887, by Hon. Hadley D. Johnson. Taken from the Transactions and Reports of the Nebraska State Historical Society, Vol. 2, page 85 and following.) "As early as 1848, the subject of the organization of a new territory west of the Missouri river was mentioned, and in congress I think a bill was introduced in that year, but did not become a law, and in 1852 the subject having been long discussed, a bill was introduced, but again without result. In 1852, however, the railroad question having been agitated more generally during the preceding year, during the session of 1852-3, a bill was reported to congress providing for the organization of the Territory of Nebraska, within the boundaries, substantially I believe, now embraced in the states of Kansas and Nebraska. Prior to this, however, some of the citizens of western Missouri, and a few persons residing or staying temporarily in the Indian country west of the Missouri river, took steps to hold an informal election of a delegate who should attend the Coming session of congress and urge the passage of the territorial bill. This election, though not sanctioned by any law, and informal, was ordered to be 84 held by a meeting of a number of persons held in the Indian country south of the Platte river, who fixed a day on which the election was to be held, and designated certain places at which votes, would be received. Among the places named, appeared Bellevue or Traders' Point. A newspaper printed somewhere in Missouri, containing a notice of this election, accidentally came into my possession a few days prior to the date fixed for the election. On reading this announcement, I immediately communicated the news to prominent citizens of Council Bluffs, and it was at once decided that Iowa should compete for the empty honors connected with the delegateship. An election at Sarpy's was determined on; arrangements made with the owners of the ferry-boat at that point to transport the impromptu emigrants to their new homes, and they were accordingly landed on the west shore of the Missouri river a few hundred yards above Sarpy's trading house, where, on the day appointed, an election was held, the result of which may be learned from the original certificate hereto annexed, a copy of which was sent to the Honorable Bernhart Henn, the member of the house of representatives from Iowa, by him submitted to the house, and referred to the committee on elections, but for reasons obvious to the reader of the proceedings of congress immediately following, no report was ever made by that committee in the case.1 "I may remark here that I consented with much reluctance to the use of my name in this connection, and for several reasons: I was poor and could not well afford to neglect my business and spend a Winter at Washington; the expenses of the trip I knew would be a heavy drain upon my limited exchequer; besides I had so lately neglected my private affairs by my service at Iowa City. However, I 1) BELVIEW, NEBRASKA TERRITORY, Oct. 11, 1853. Be it known that at in pursuance of Resolutions heretofore adopted an election was held at this place on this the Eleventh day of October 1853 being the second Tuesday in said month for delegate to Congress for the Territory of Nebraska at which the undersigned were duly appointed Judges and Clerks. And we do hereby certify that the number of votes cast at said election was three Hundred fifty-eight Votes of which Hadley D. Johnson received Three Hundred fifty-eight votes. MARSHALL FINLEY Judges FRANKLIN HALL Clerks OF NEBRASKA TERRITORY 85 finally yielded to the earnest request of a number of my personal friends, who were also ardent friends of the new scheme, and consented to the use of my name, at the same time pledging my word that I would proceed to Washington if chosen and do the best I could to advance the cause we had in hand. In addition to the ballots cast for me for delegate at this election, the Rev. William Hamilton received 304 votes for provisional Governor; Dr. Monson H. Clark received 295 for Secretary, and H. P. Downs 283 for Treasurer. "These proceedings at Sarpy's landing were followed by various public meetings in Iowa, (and also in Missouri) at which resolutions were adopted, urging the organization of Nebraska territory. Amongst others, meetings were held at Council Bluffs, St. Mary's, Glenwood, and Sidney, at which the actions at Sarpy's were endorsed. Earnest and eloquent speeches were made by such leading citizens as Hon. W. C. Means and Judge Snyder of Page county, Judge Greenwood, Hiram P. Bennett, Wm. McEwen, Col. J. L. Sharp, Hon. A. A. Bradford, L. Lingenfelter, C. W. McKissick, Hon. Benjamin Rector, Charles W. Pierce, Dan. H. Solomon, ----- Downs, I. M. Dews, George Hepner, Wm. G. English, Geo. P. Stiles, Marshal Turley, Dr. M. H. Clark, and others. "In the month of November, Council Bluffs was visited by Hon, Augustus C. Dodge, Col. Samuel H. Curtis, and other distinguished citizens of other states, who attended and addressed meetings of the people of the town, warmly advocating the construction of our contemplated railroads, and the organization of Nebraska territory. In its issue of December 14, 1853, the Council Bluffs Bugle announced that 'H. D. Johnson, delegate elect from Nebraska, passed through our place on his way to Washington last week.' "In compliance with my agreement, I set about making arrangements to visit the national capital, which, as you may suppose, was not easily accomplished. Before starting, however, a number of our citizens who took such a deep interest in the organization of a territory west of Iowa, had on due thought and consultation agreed upon a plan which I had formed, which was the organization of two territories west of the Missouri river, instead of one as had heretofore been contemplated, and I had traced on a map hanging in the office of Johnson & Cassady a line which I hoped would be the southern boundary of Nebraska, which it finally did become, and so continues to the present time. 86 "In starting out upon this second pilgrimage, I again faced the dreary desolate prairies of the then sparsely settled Iowa, but not as a year before, solitary and alone. B. R. Pegram, then a young and enterprising merchant of Council Bluffs, being about to visit St. Louis, it was agreed that we should travel in company to Keokuk, he with a horse and buggy, I with a horse and saddle. The trip was accomplished in safety, and on arriving at Keokuk, we took a steamer for St. Louis, shipping the horses and buggy. "On arriving at St. Louis, I tried in vain to sell my horse for a satisfactory price, and leaving him with a friend to be sold afterwards, I took a steamer bound for Cincinnati, whence I boarded a railroad train for Washington. (I remark in parenthesis that my horse was not sold, but subsequently died, to my great grief and considerable loss.) "On my arrival at Washington (early in January, 1854,) I found that a bill had already been introduced in the senate, and I think referred to the committee on territories, of which the Hon. Stephen A. Douglas was chairman. This bill provided for the organization of the territory of Nebraska, including what is now Kansas and Nebraska, or substantially so. I also found, seated at a desk, in the House of Representatives, a portly, dignified, elderly gentleman, who was introduced to me as the Reverend Thomas Johnson. He was an old Virginian; a slave holder, and a Methodist preacher. This gentleman had also been a candidate for delegate at the informal election, and was credited with having received 337 votes. He had preceded me to Washington, and together with his friends, ignoring our Sarpy election, had, through some influence sub rosa, been installed in a seat at a desk aforesaid, where being duly served with stationery, etc., he seemed to be a member of the house. "Previous to this time, in one or two instances, persons visiting Washington, as representatives of the settlers in unorganized territory, and seeking admission as legal territories, had been recognized unofficially, and after admission had been paid the usual per them allowance as well as mileage, and in the present case I think my namesake had looked for such a result in his own ease, but for my part I had no such expectation. "On being introduced to Mr Johnson, who seemed somewhat stiff and reserved, I alluded to the manner of my appointment to the pres- 87 ent mission, which, like his own, was without legal sanction, but was for a purpose; told him there was no occasion for a contest between us for a seat to which neither of us had a claim; that I came there to suggest and work for the organization of two territories instead of one; that if he saw proper to second my efforts, I believed that we could succeed in the objects for which we each had come. "After this explanation the old gentleman thawed out a little, and we consulted together upon the common subject. "Hon. A. C. Dodge, senator from Iowa, who had from the first been an ardent friend and advocate of my plan, introduced me to Judge Douglas, to whom I unfolded my plan, and asked him to adopt it, which, after mature consideration, he decided to do, and he agreed that, as chairman of the committee on territories, he would report a substitute for the pending bill, which he afterwards did do, and this substitute became the celebrated 'Nebraska Bill,' and provided, as you know, for the organization of the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. "The Hon. Bernhart Henn, at that time the only member of the house from Iowa, who also was my friend and warmly advocated our territorial scheme, finding that the Rev. Thomas Johnson was seated in the house and posing as a member and not wishing to see him more honorably seated than myself, interceded, I presume with one of the doorkeepers, who admitted me into the house and seated me at a desk beside my friend, the minister, who it afterwards appeared was, like myself, surreptitiously admitted to the seat occupied by him, unknown to the speaker, or perhaps to the chief doorkeeper. "The fates decreed, however, that we were not to hold our seats a great while, for one day the principal doorkeeper approached me as I sat in my seat, and politely inquired who I was, and by what right I occupied the seat; and being by, me answered according to the facts, he informed me that as complaint had been made to the speaker, he was under the necessity of respectfully asking me to vacate the seat, as such was the order of the speaker. I replied to him, that of course I would do so, but, I added, as my neighbor on the left occupied his seat by a right similar to my own, I felt it to be my privilege to enquire why I should be ousted while he was permitted to remain. On this the doorkeeper turned to Mr Johnson, who corroborated my statement, whereupon the 'two Johnsons,' as we were called, were incontinently bounced and relegated to the galleries. 88 "I never learned, nor did I care to know, whether I was removed at the instance of the friends of Mr Johnson, or whether a Mr Guthrie, who had also been a candidate for delegate, had fired a shot at his adversary, the Rev. Thomas. If the latter, was the case, in firing he hit two birds. I did not feel hurt by this event, but believe that the dignity of the other Johnson was seriously touched, and himself mortified. "I ought perhaps to mention the fact, that in our negotiations as to the dividing line between Kansas and Nebraska, a good deal of trouble was encountered, Mr Johnson and his Missouri friends being very anxious that the Platte river should constitute the line, which obviously would not suit the people of Iowa, especially as I believe it was a plan of the American Fur Company to colonize the Indians north of the Platte river. As this plan did not meet with the approbation of my friends or myself, I firmly resolved that this line should not be adopted. Judge Douglas was kind enough to leave that question to me, and I offered to Mr Johnson the choice of two lines, first, the present line, or second, an imaginary line traversing that divide between the Platte and the Kaw. After considerable parleying and Mr Johnson not being willing to accept either line, I finally offered the two alternatives - the fortieth degree of north latitude, or the defeat of the whole bill, for that session at least. After consulting with his friends, I presume, Mr Johnson very reluctantly consented to the fortieth degree as the dividing line between the two territories, whereupon Judge Douglas prepared and introduced the substitute in a report as chairman of the committee on territories, and immediately, probably the hardest war of words known in American history commenced." HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, DECEMBER 16, 1850. Agreeably to notice, Mr. BENTON asked leave to bring in a bill for the location and construction of a great central national highway from St. Louis, on the Mississippi, to the Bay of San Francisco, on the Pacific ocean; and said that, not being of the committee to which the consideration of the bill might be referred, he took occasion to explain its leading features before it was referred, so that its object 89 might the better be understood in the committee. It conforms, he said, to all the ideas of a national highway. First centrality. I deem this a cardinal idea in every conception of a national road; and my bill conforms to it. It is central under all aspects. It is to begin and to end between the parallels 38o and 39o of north latitude, and, with slight deflections, to follow these latitudes from the Mississippi to the Pacific. These are the middle latitudes of the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They cover the central parts of the Atlantic States, the centre of the valley of the Mississippi, cut the centre of all the territory west of the Mississippi, and strike the Pacific coast both at the central point of our possessions, and that of the whole North American coast. Beginning and ending between these latitudes, and following, with little variation, the route which the bill proposes fulfills with rigorous exactitude the essential condition to every national highway - that of centrality. Secondly. It is to be national in its form and use, consisting not of a single road adapted to a single kind of transportation, but of a system of roads adapted to all kinds of traveling, and of all kinds of carrying, free from monopoly and private interests, and free from tolls. It proposes a railroad and a common road, to be begun at once, and the common road finished next summer; with such other roads, either macadamized, plank, or additional tracks of railroad; and a margin for lines of magnetic telegraphs, all running parallel to each other, and at sufficient distances apart to avoid interference, and yet near enough together to admit of easy transition from one to the other. This fulfills another requisite of nationality; for a nation must contain people of all conditions, rich and poor; and of all tastes and tempers, and addicted to all the modes of traveling. Some, to whom time is everything and money nothing, and who demand rapidity, without regard to cost. Others, to whom money is an object, and time a subordinate consideration, and who want a cheap conveyance, no matter how slow. Others, again, who may choose to carry themselves, going on a horse, or in a vehicle, or on foot. All these will be accommodated, and without crowding or jostling; a mile wide for the whole, and an ample track for each, gives room for all. Thirdly. Accommodation to the different parts of a nation is another requisite of nationality. This projected highway fulfills that condition. It accommodates all the populations west of the Missis- 90 sippi. Its straight line would accommodate California and Utah, and the Territories hereafter to be formed on the Kansas and Arkansas. A short branch at or near Bent's Fort would lead to Santa Fe; another branch would lead to the Mormon settlements on the Great Salt Lake, if the main way does not pass it; and a branch, still lower down in the Great Basin; would lead to Oregon. Thus, a straight line, and two or three branches, will accommodate all our populations west of the Mississippi - California, Oregon, New Mexico, and Utah - and also the valuable Territories which may soon be formed on the Kansas and Arkansas. Fourthly. Nationality requires the work to be done by the National Government, and owned by it when it is done: and so the bill provides. The construction and the jurisdiction of the highway are both to be in the hands of the General Government; and these are the hands in which every public and national consideration would require them to be. The means are to come from the public resources; and, what amounts to a particular propriety in this case, they are to come from the places where the roads are to go; they are to come from beyond the Mississippi - from beyond the frontier of Missouri so as to leave untouched all the present sources of revenue, now needed for the payment of the principal and interest of the new national debt. The means proposed in my bill are: 1. A strip of land from the frontiers of Missouri to the Bay of San Francisco, one hundred miles wide and sixteen hundred long, for the main highway. 2. A strip fifty miles wide and about two hundred long, from a point on the main road, on the upper Arkansas, to Santa Fe, for the New Mexican branch. 3. A strip fifty miles wide and about five hundred long from some point on the main highway in the great basin to the mouth of the Columbia, for the Oregon branch. 4. The income from the customs and the sales of the public lands in California, Oregon, New Mexico, and Utah, over and above the expenditures in those places. 5. Loans in anticipation of these resources, founded upon their hypothecation. In these strips, a breadth of one mile wide is to be reserved for the main, leading highway in the reservation of one hundred miles wide; and one thousand feet each is to be reserved for the branch roads in the reservations of fifty miles wide. These are the resources for constructing this great national highway 91 - all of them national - all to be derived from the new countries to which the highways are to go - and amply sufficient in my opinion for the speedy accomplishment of the work. The lands set apart in the three slips will be about one hundred and fifty millions of acres, or the one tenth part of the public lands belonging to the Federal Government; in which, after deducting for the tracts of the highways, and for donations to first settlers, and for private claims, and gold mines, and for that which may be unfit for sale, it is probable that one third, or fifty millions of acres, may be made available at the present minimum price for constructing the roads. That would be about sixty millions of dollars. The income from the customs would be considerable and immediate. San Francisco alone would probably yield $2,000,000 the ensuing fiscal year; and increase forever. The public lands to be sold in California and the three Territories, after all deductions for liberal donations to first settlers, will still be large, amounting in a few years to some millions of dollars per annum. The proceeds of the whole - the reserved slips, the custom-house revenue, and the income from the land sales - will soon be eight or ten millions per annum; which, with loans in anticipation of these avails, will yield enough to have the system of roads commenced at all points - both ends and the middle, and all along - at the same time; and with men enough at work upon every section to finish the whole in as short a time as any one section of it could be finished. These are the leading features of the bill, every, one fulfilling the condition of nationality, and preserving to this highway the exalted, beneficent, and disinterested character of a public work. No tolls, or local jurisdictions, or private interests to debase or injure it; none such should ever be allowed to degrade the character, impede the use, or diminish the utility of such a work. Practicability, and upon the parallels indicated, is the only question; and that the concurrent voice of experienced men enables me to answer. The men of the mountains - the men who have spent their fifteen, twenty, or thirty years in the region of the Rocky Mountains, and in the regions beyond - they answer the question, and say that the loaded wagon can now go upon that route, with a little assistance at a few points - some axes and pickaxes - to remove some obstructions. These men say there is a way for a straight road across the continent; and they can show it, and mark it out, and that about as 92 fast as a horse can trot. There is an idea become current of late - a new-born idea - that none but a man of science, bred in a school, can lay off a road. That is a mistake. There is a class of topographical engineers older than the schools, and more unerring than the mathematics. They are the wild animals buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, bears, which traverse the forest, not by compass, but by an instinct which leads them always the right way - to the lowest passes in the mountains, the shallowest fords in the rivers, the richest pastures in the forests, the best salt springs, and the shortest practicable lines between remote points. They travel thousands of miles, have their annual migrations backwards and forwards, and never miss the best and shortest route. These are the first engineers to lay out a road in a new country; the Indians follow them, and hence a buffalo road becomes a war-path. The first white hunters follow the same trails in pursuing their game; and after that the buffalo road becomes the wagon road of the white man, and finally the macadamized or railroad of the scientific man. It all resolves itself into the same thing - into the same buffalo road; and thence the buffalo becomes the first and safest engineer. Thus it has been here, in the countries which we inhabit, and the history of which is so familiar. The present national road from Cumberland over the Alleghanies was the military road of General Braddock, which had been the buffalo path of the wild animals. So of the two roads from Western Virginia to Kentucky - one through the gap in the Cumberland Mountains, the other down the valley of the Kenhawa. They were both the war-path of the Indians and the traveling route of the buffalo, and their first white acquaintances the early hunters. Buffaloes made them in going from the salt springs on the Holston to the rich pastures and salt springs of Kentucky; Indians followed them first, white hunters afterwards and that is the way Kentucky was discovered. In more than an hundred years no nearer or better routes have been found; and science now makes her improved roads exactly where the buffalo's foot first marked the way, and the hunter's foot afterwards followed him. So all over Kentucky and the West; and so in the Rocky Mountains. The famous South Pass was no scientific discovery. Some people think Fremont discovered it. It had been discovered forty years before - long before be was born. He only described it, and confirmed what the hunters and traders had reported, and what they showed 93 him. It was discovered - or rather first seen by white people - in 1808, two years after the return of Lewis and Clark, and by the first company of hunters and traders that went out after their report laid open the prospect of the fur trade in the Rocky Mountains. An enterprising Spaniard of St. Louis, Manuel Lisa, sent out the party; an acquaintance, and old friend of the Senator from Wisconsin, who sits on my left, [General Henry Dodge,] led the party - his name Andrew Henry. He was the first white man that saw that pass; and he found it in the prosecution of his business, that of a hunter and trader, and by following the game, and the road which they had made. And that is the way all passes are found. But these traders do not write books and make maps, but they enable other people to do it. There are plenty of these men in the Great West at present - men who know every pass in the mountains, every ford in the rivers, every spot fit for cultivation, and the best and shortest way from any one point to another - who know every buffalo road and every Indian war trail, between the Mississippi and the Pacific ocean - and these men can go and mark out a road from the frontier of Missouri to the bay of San Francisco, as fast as a horse can trot. And they can cut out a common road, passable for wagons and carriages, with the aid of some axemen and some pickaxes, in the course of next summer, and upon the parallels which I have mentioned, with occasional slight deflections. There is a good route for the system of roads which should constitute the national central highway from the Mississippi to the Bay of San Francisco - a good way and central - a better way than any one not central that can be found in the United States. It is up the main branch of the Kansas, along the Upper Arkansas, along the Huerfano river, the Utah Pass, out at the head of the Del Norte, through Roubidoux's Pass, and thence across the valley of the Upper Colorado, and through the Great Basin, crossing the Sierra Nevada near its middle, or turning it on the south; the whole way nearly free from obstructions, a great part of it fertile, with wood and water fit for inhabitation, and brushing the present settlements of New Mexico and Utah. I have the map, and the description of the country, but cannot use it because the author is not here. I know what I say, and stake myself upon it. It will cross the Rocky Mountains between three and four degrees south of the South Pass, (now a misnomer, so called at the time because it was south of Lewis & 94 Clark's route,) and can be traveled earlier in the Spring, and later in the Fall, on account of grass, and easier all the Winter. This route, besides fulfilling all the requisites of a national highway, fulfills another condition of high and national treaty obligation. It traverses the ground which the protection and defence of the country requires to be occupied - to be garrisoned - that country which lies about the heads of the Arkansas and Del Norte - the hunting ground and war ground of the Utahs, Arapahoes, Navahoes, and other tribes which make war upon New Mexico and upon us. We are bound by treaty stipulations to protect Mexico against these Indians, and are bound by duty to protect our own people against them. A line of military posts is necessary through their country to give that protection: and this bill provides for it as a part of the road system, and also provides for the settlements which are to support the posts. I have demonstrated the nationality of this work - its practicability - and the means in our bands for making it; I do not expatiate upon its importance. When finished it will be the American road to Asia, and will turn the Asiatic commerce of Europe through the heart of our America. It will make us the mistress of that trade - rich at home and powerful abroad - and reviving a line of oriental and almost fabulous cities to stretch across our continent - Tyres, Sidons, Palmyras, Balbecs. Do we need any stimulus for the undertaking? Any other nation, upon half a pretext, would go to war for the right of making it, and tax unborn generations for its completion. We have it without war, without tax, without treaty with any power; and when we make it all nations must travel it - with our permission - and behave themselves to receive permission. Besides riches and power, it will give us a hold upon the good behavior of nations by the possession which it will give us of the short, safe, and cheap road to India. The work is great, but nothing compared to our means, and to the magnitude of the object, or to what was done by the Incas of Peru before the New World was discovered. Their two roads from Quito to Cuzco (to say nothing of many shorter ones) were each nearly as long, both over more difficult ground, equal in amount of labor required, and more commodious than the proposed system of roads from the Mississippi to the Pacific ocean. One of our classic historians (Prescott) thus describes them: 95 "There were many of these roads traversing different parts of the kingdom; but the most considerable were the two which extended from Quito to Cuzco, and, again diverging from the capital, continued in a southern direction towards Chili. One of these roads passed over the grand plateau, and the other along the lowlands on the borders of the ocean. The former was much the most difficult achievement, from the character of the country. It was conducted over pathless sierras buried in snow; galleries were cut for leagues through the living rock; rivers were crossed by means of bridges that swung suspended in the air; precipices were scaled by stair-ways hewn out of the native bed; ravines of hideous depth were filled up with solid masonry; in short, all the difficulties that beset a wild and mountainous region, and which might appal the most courageous engineers of modern times, were encountered and successfully overcome. The length of the road, of which scattered fragments only remain, is variously estimated, from fifteen hundred to two thousand miles; and some pillars, in the manner of European milestones, were erected at stated intervals of somewhat more than a league, all along the route. Its breadth scarcely exceeded twenty feet. It was built of heavy flags of freestone, and, in some parts at least, covered with a bituminous cement, which time has made harder than the stone itself. In some places where the ravines had been filled up with masonry, the mountain torrents, wearing it for ages, have gradually eaten a way through the base, and left the superincumbent mass - such is the cohesion of the materials - still spanning the valley like an arch. Over some of the boldest streams it was necessary to construct suspension bridges, as they are termed, made of the tough fibers of the maguey, or of the osier of the country, which has an extraordinary degree of tenacity and strength. These osiers were woven into cables of the thickness of a man's body. The huge ropes, then stretched across the water, were conducted through rings or holes cut in immense buttresses of stone raised on the opposite banks of the river, and there secured to heavy pieces of timber. Several of these enormous cables, bound together, formed a bridge, which, covered with planks, well secured and defended by a railing of the same osier materials on the sides, afforded a safe passage for the traveler. "The other road of the Incas lay through the level country between the Andes and the ocean. It was constructed in a different manner, 96 as demanded by the nature of the ground, which was for the most part low, and much of it sandy. The causeway was raised on a high embankment of earth, and defended on either side by a parapet, or wall of clay; and trees and odoriferous shrubs were planted along the margin, regaling the sense of the traveler with their perfumes, and refreshing him by their shades, so grateful under the burning sky of the tropics. All along these highways, caravansaries were erected at the distance of ten or twelve miles for the accommodation of travelers, militarily constructed for security, and supplied with water brought in aqueducts when not found at the place. Couriers, in relieves, and running swiftly, carried dispatches the whole extent of these long routes at the rate of one hundred and fifty miles a day; and, besides dispatches, often carried fish from the distant ocean, and fruits and game from the hot regions on the coast, to be served up fresh at the Inca's table in the imperial capitals." The Baron Humboldt, "the Nestor of Scientific Travelers," thus speaks of the remains of the same roads from his own personal observation: "As we were leading our heavily-laden mules with great difficulty through the marshy ground on the elevated plain del Pullal, our eyes meanwhile were continually dwelling on the grand remains of the Inca's road, which, with a breadth of twenty-one English feet, was there remaining by our side. It had a deep understructure, and was paved with well cut blocks of blackish trap-porphyry. Nothing that I had seen of the remains of Roman roads in Italy, in the South of France, and in Spain, was more imposing than those works of the ancient Peruvians, which are situated, according to my barometric measurements, 13,258 English feet above the level of the sea - or more than a thousand feet higher than the summit of the Peak of Teneriffe. There are two great artificial paved roads, or systems of roads, covered with flat stones, or sometimes even with cemented gravel; one passes through the wide and and plain, between the Pacific ocean and the chain of the Andes, and the other over the ridges of the Cordilleras. Milestones, or stones marking the distances, are often placed at equal intervals. The road was conducted across rivers and deep ravines by three kinds of bridges-stone, wood, and rope bridges; and there were also aqueducts for bringing water to the resting places (caravansaries) and to the fortresses. Both systems of roads
ABELARD GUTHRIE. 97 were directed to the central point, Cuzco, the seat of government of the great empire, in 13o 31' south latitude, and which is placed, according to Pentland's map of Bolivia, 13,378 English feet above the level of the sea. The two important capitals of the empire, Cuzco and Quito, thus connected by two different systems of roads, are 1,000 English geographical miles apart, in a straight line - (S. S. E. N. N. W.) - without reckoning the many windings of the way; and, including the windings, the distance is estimated by Garcilasso de la Vega and other conquistadores at 500 leagues." Such were the roads constructed on our own continent before the discovery of the New World, and by a people whom we consider uncivilized, and who certainly had but few of the helps of civilization knowledge of iron - no mechanical powers - no beast of burden but a sort of sheep - the lama - too light for the draught, and too weak for the burden-only carrying an hundred pounds ten miles in a day; and yet a people who constructed two such roads, each near about as long as from the Missouri to the Pacific - one at a mountainous elevation only about a thousand feet lower than the summit of Mont Blanc, and the other in the arid sands of the lowlands, under a tropical heat, and both in a direction to cross successive mountains or rivers, and both executed in a style of accommodation that we do not pretend to rival: military protection, safe lodging, water, shade, baths, the perfume of odoriferous shrubs! and mails, messages, and -small burdens transported upon them at the rate of one hundred and fifty miles a day, without horses and without steam, by men running on foot alone. After seeing such a system of roads on our own continent, devised and established by such a people, what is there to prevent us, the vanguard of the Anglo-Saxon race, and the descendants of the elite of Europe, to open the system of roads which my bill proposes - a common road, on which the mail stage is to run one hundred miles in twenty-four hours, and a letter horse mail two hundred Miles in the same time - a railway on which the cars are to fly, like the express trains in England, forty-two miles to the hour - an electric line along which, and across the continent, people are to communicate as they would hold converse across a room ? Mr. President, if there ever was a time when nationality and centrality, should pre-eminently govern the action of Congress in great 98 measures, this is that time; and the system of roads I propose is one of those measures. I now ask leave to bring in the bill. Leave was granted, and the bill was read. A BILL to provide for the location and construction of a central national highway from the Mississippi river, at St. Louis, to the Bay of San Francisco, on the Pacific ocean. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That a district of territory one hundred miles wide, and extending from the western frontier of Missouri to the Pacific ocean, and corresponding as nearly as may be to the central latitudes of the United States, together with the revenue from lands and customs in California, Oregon, New Mexico, and Utah, so far as not required for expenditures therein, shall be set apart and reserved for opening communications with California, Oregon, New Mexico, and Utah, by means of a central national highway from St. Louis to the Bay of San Francisco, to connect with ocean navigation in that bay; with a branch of said highway to Santa Fe, in New Mexico; and a branch to the tide-water region of the Columbia river, so as to connect with Ocean navigation at that point; and also a branch to the city of the Great Salt Lake, if said central highway should not in its proper course pass that city; and a breadth of fifty miles shall be set apart and reserved for the location and construction of said branch roads respectively. SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That the said central national highway shall consist of a system of parallel roads adapted to different modes of travel and transportation, and a margin for lines of electro-telegraphic wires, whereof one common road and one iron railroad shall be immediately opened and constructed; and much other roads shall be hereafter opened and constructed as Congress from time to time may authorize; and in order that the said national central highway may be constructed on a scale commensurate to its importance, and adapted to the wants of present and future time, and in order to allow convenient space for all the parallel lines of road which commerce and travel may require thereon, a breadth of one mile shall be allowed through the reserve of one hundred miles; and the said branch roads shall equally consist of a common road and a railway, and such other roads as Congress may from time to time authorize and direct, with a margin for a line of electro-telegraph wires, and a breadth of one thousand feet shall be allowed through the reserve of fifty miles for such branch roads each, respectively; and each track for a road shall be entitled to a space of one hundred feet wide, 99 and when finished the said iron railway, or ways, shall never be subject to any toll or tax beyond that which may be necessary to provide repairs; and the said common roads shall be forever free from any toll or tax, and shall be kept in traveling order by the care and expense of the Federal Government, SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That the President be authorized and requested to cause all the authentic information in possession of the Government, or in its power to procure, necessary to show the practicability of a route for said central highway, to be collected and digested into brief memoirs, illustrated by topographical and profile maps, to be laid before Congress as soon as possible; also, that be be authorized and requested to cause further surveys and examinations to be made, and the results to be laid before Congress as soon as possible; and for that purpose to employ as many citizen civil engineers as may be necessary. SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That as soon as Congress shall fix upon the routes of said central highway and branches, the President shall be and hereby is authorized and requested to cause the Indian title to be extinguished upon a breadth of one hundred miles, to cover the route of said central highway; and also to extinguish the Indian title upon suitable breadths of fifty miles each, covering the said branch roads; and the location and construction of the central highway shall immediately be commenced, both for the common road and the railway, and with a force calculated to finish the common road in one year, so as to be passable for wagons and carriages, and the railway in ten years. SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That as soon as the said common road is finished, the same shall be a post road, and a daily mail carried thereon in wagons, or coaches, or sleighs, when necessary, at the rate of at least one hundred miles in twenty-four hours; and a daily horse mail for light letters and printed slips, at the rate of at least two hundred miles in twenty-four hours. SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That as soon as said railway, or any sufficient part thereof, shall be completed and fit for use, the use thereof shall be granted, for a limited time, to such individuals or companies as shall, by contract with the Government, agree to transport persons, mails, munitions of war, and freight of all kinds, public and private, in vehicles furnished by themselves, over the same, at such reasonable rates as shall be agreed upon: Provided, That if other roads shall hereafter be constructed on the ground reserved for roads by this act, the same company or persons shall not be allowed to have the contract for transportation, or any interest in more than one road at the same time. SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That military stations shall be established on the line of the central highway and its branches, at such places as the President shall direct. 100 SEC. 8. And be it further enacted, That donations of land, to the extent of one hundred and sixty acres, shall be made to each head of a family, widow, or single man over eighteen years of age, who shall be settled on the line of said central highway and branches, and within the bounds of the extinguished Indian claim, within twelve months after the time of such extinction of title; and pre-emption rights, to the same extent, shall be allowed to all similar settlers after twelve months; and the residue of said reserved districts, except gold mines and placers, and private claims, or donations or pre-emption rights, shall be sold, and the proceeds applied to the construction of the roads. SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, That the sum of three hundred thousand dollars, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, shall be and the same hereby is appropriated, and placed at the disposition of the President, to defray the expenses of carrying into effect the third and fourth sections of this act, for the collection and preparation of information and the extinction of Indian titles necessary to the selection and location of the route for said central national highway and branches. SEC. 10. And be it further enacted, That it shall and may be lawful for the President of the United States to contract with the Mississippi and Pacific railroad Company for their interest in so much of said road as shall be within the State of Missouri, and to purchase the same at a price not exceeding their actual expenditures, the said purchase to be subject to the ratification of Congress. The bill was read a first and second time by its title, and referred to the Committee on Roads and Canals, and ordered to be printed. [From the Congressional Globe, 2d Session, 31st Congress, 1851, page 66.] | ||||||
  ©2002-08 Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma  2004 Silver ADDY Winner for design excellence | |||||||
