“To provide for a survey of the Isthmus of Darien, under the direction of the War Department, with a view to the construction of a ship-canal, in accordance with the report of the Superintendent of the Naval Observatory to the Navy Department, $40,000.”
In the debate that ensued, Mr. Sumner remarked:—
I have had the advantage of cursorily examining the able and interesting report on this work by Admiral Davis. It is learned and instructive, and develops the importance of such a canal to the commerce of the United States. I need not remind you that California is necessarily interested, because it is across the Isthmus of Darien that we reach the distant part of our own country. Therefore this is to increase and extend the facilities of communication with a part of our own country. Unhappily, we are obliged to go outside of our own borders, but I do not know that it becomes on that account any the less important.
The Senate will easily see not only its practical value, but also its grandeur in an historical aspect. From the time of Charles the Fifth, one of the aspirations of Spain, and indeed of all adventurers and navigators in those seas, has been to find what was often called “the secret of the strait,” being a natural gate by which to pass from ocean to ocean. The proposition now is, not to find, but to make, a gate by which this object may be accomplished.
We may well be fascinated by the historic grandeur of the work; but I am more tempted by its practical value in promoting relations between distant parts of our own country and in helping the commerce of the world. But the pending proposition is simply to provide for surveys. There is no appropriation for the work. We do not bind ourselves in the future. Such an appropriation, whether regarded in a practical, scientific, or historic light, is amply commended. I shall gladly vote for it.
The amendment was agreed to,—Yeas 22, Nays 13.
INQUIRY INTO THE TITLE OF A SENATOR TO HIS SEAT.
Remarks in the Senate, on the Credentials of the Senator from Tennessee, July 26, 1866.