W. H. Seward.


LXXVI.

A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC.

Mr. President, I go for a national highway from the Mississippi to the
Pacific. And I go against all schemes of individuals or of companies, and
especially those who come here and ask of the Congress of the United States
to give themselves and their assigns the means of making a road, and taxing
the people for the use of it. If they should make it, they are to tax us
for the use of it--tax the people eight or ten millions a year for using a
road which their own money built. A fine scheme, that! But they would never
build it, neither themselves nor their assigns. It would all end in
stock-jobbing. I repudiate the whole idea, sir. I go for a national
highway--no stock-jobbing.

We find all the localities of the country precisely such as a national
central road would require. The Bay of San Francisco, the finest in the
world, is in the centre of the western coast of North America; it is
central, and without a rival. It will accommodate the commerce of that
coast, both north and south, up to the frozen regions, down to the torrid
zone. It is central in that respect. The commerce of the broad Pacific
Ocean will centre there. The commerce of Asia will centre there. Follow the
same latitude across the country, and it strikes the centre of the valley
of the Mississippi. It strikes the Mississippi near the confluence of all
the great waters which concentrate in the valley of the Mississippi. It
comes to the centre of the valley;--it comes to St. Louis. Follow the
prolongation of that central line, and you find it cutting the heart of the