resolutions.

The Senate Committee on public lands made a report recommending his
proposition. Thus strongly endorsed, his plan was brought before
Congress in 1848 in a bill entitled "Authorizing Asa Whitney, his
heirs or assigns, to construct a railroad from any point on Lake
Michigan or the Mississippi River he may designate, in a line as
nearly straight as practicable, to some point on the Pacific Ocean
where a harbor may be had." The road to be six foot gauge, sixty-four
pound rails. The Government to establish tolls and regulate the
operation of the line, Whitney to be the sole Owner and receive a
salary of four thousand dollars per year for managing it.

The proposition was debated for days in the Senate and then was tabled
on a vote of twenty-seven to twenty-one. The opposition dwelt largely
on the length of time Whitney would necessarily require. Say he could
colonize and sell a million acres a year, this would only be funds
enough to build one hundred miles and consequently the two thousand
miles would require at least twenty years. The defeat was largely
owing to the opposition of Senator Benton of Missouri, the most
pronounced friend of the West in the House, who used the argument of
the power and capital it would put in the hands of one man, Whitney's.
This he characterized as a project to give away an Empire, larger in
extent than eight of the original states, with an ocean frontage of
sixty miles, with contracting powers and patronage exceeding those of
the President.

Upon the defeat of Whitney's project, Benton brought forward in 1849
one of his own for a great national highway from St. Louis to San
Francisco, straight as may be, with branches to Oregon and Mexico. The
Government to grant a strip one mile wide, so as to provide room for
every kind of road, railway, plank, macadamized, and electric motor,
or otherwise constructed where not so practicable or advantageous.
Sleighs to be used during those months when snow lay on the ground.
Funds for its construction to be provided by the sale of public lands.
Bare in mind this was only fifty-six years ago, but eighteen years
before the Union Pacific Railway was completed, and was the
proposition advocated by the recognized leader of the Senate in
matters western.

Up to the year 1846 when by the treaty of Guadeloupe-Hidalgo, Mexico,
ceded to us California, our only territory on the Pacific Coast was
Oregon and Washington. The acquisition of California