In the years before Zachary Taylor became president, America had extraordinary territorial growth. This included California which became part of America in 1848. America had struck gold, and people were looking for faster ways to get there. If the government wouldn't do it, then commercial enterprises would. In the fall of 1849 two separate private conventions were held to discuss the building of such railroads. One advocated a southern route, and the other a northern route. This was pre-civil war America, and such geographical divides were of intense interest to the Union. Zachary Taylor in his address to congress recommended a reconnaissance mission of the proposed routes and to let science decide which route is best:
"The great mineral wealth of California and the advantages which its ports and harbors and those of Oregon afford to commerce, especially with the islands of the Pacific and Indian oceans and the populous regions of eastern Asia, make it certain that there will arise in a few years large and prosperous communities on our western coast. It therefore becomes important that a line of communication, the best and most expeditious which the nature of the country will admit, should be opened within the territory of the United States from the navigable waters of the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific. Opinion, as elicited and expressed by two large and respectable conventions lately assembled at St. Louis and Memphis, points to a railroad as that which, if practicable, will best meet the wishes and wants of the country. But while this, if in successful operation, would be a work of great national importance and of a value to the country which it would be difficult to estimate, it ought also to be regarded as an undertaking of vast magnitude and expense, and one which must, if it be indeed practicable, encounter many difficulties in its construction and use. Therefore, to avoid failure and disappointment; to enable Congress to judge whether in the condition of the country through which it must pass the work be feasible, and, if it be found so, whether it should be undertaken as a national improvement or left to individual enterprise, and in the latter alternative what aid, if any, ought to be extended to it by the Government, I recommend as a preliminary measure a careful reconnaissance of the several proposed routes by a scientific corps and a report as to the practicability of making such a road, with an estimate of the cost of its construction and support.."Taylor never lived to see such a reconnaissance mission carried out let alone a transcontinental railroad. He was the second president to die in office after only one year. But later, in 1853, hundreds of soldiers, scientists, surveyors and artists did fan out across the unknown western territories to find a railroad route to the pacific. This was the largest such survey since Napoleon had studied his short-lived conquest of Egypt.
Transcontinental Railroad
Zachary Taylor's drive for a transcontinental railroad may have been less for gold and more for military reasons. Taylor was a military man and a hero of the Mexican-American war. He learned a valuable lessons from the war. One, there was clearly a need to explore the west more fully and two, there was a need for transcontinental railroad system, if for no other reason than to ensure the quick movement of troops across the vast American west.http://
https://sites.google.com/
http://www.octa-trails.org/arti.../iron-horses-over-the-ruts
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/California_gold_rush_1948_U.S._stamp.1.jpg
No comments:
Post a Comment