There is not space to trace the development of the railways in all the individual states. In all natural growths, increases at first are slow, then accelerated until a maximum is reached, followed by a gradual retardation. So with the railway growth. The number of miles of railroad constructed up to 1830 was 41; 1835, 918; to 1840, 2797; in small widely scattered locations, but from that time on to the Civil War the work went on rapidly. By 1860 about 31,000 miles had been constructed and was going on at the rate of 5000 miles per year. Seven trunk line roads had passed through the Appalachian Mountain system; at eight places they and their connections touched the Ohio River, and the Mississippi at ten.[99] By 1850 there was railway connection between Boston and the east end of Lake Erie, and from the west end of Lake Erie to Lake Michigan with steamboat connection across the two lakes; before 1860 there was a network of rails between the Atlantic seaboard and the Mississippi River. Construction lagged behind in the South. Up to 1856 the building was approximately as follows:
| Northeastern States | 4000 | miles |
| Northern Central States | 7500 | „ |
| South Atlantic States | 2750 | „ |
| Southern Interior | 2150 | „ |
And the very fact that few of these were north and south roads, that travel and intercourse were east and west, that the people of the North did not fraternize with the people of the South, that they grew apart and worshiped at the shrine of different ideals, furnished at least one cause for the cruel Civil War. There are still too few north and south trunk lines of travel and commerce, too little trade and friendly intercourse to heal the differences engendered by a century of separation. There lies one of the hopes of the interchange of summer and winter automobile visitors.
The building of railroads offered an opening for surplus capital; the opportunity for fortune and fame was attractive; but above all the people were crazed with the idea of improvement; every town wanted to grow bigger and a railroad was an absolute necessity; scores of companies were formed with the intention of beginning construction, then deeding the improvement to some established line to operate. Many communities subscribed stock, others voted bonds, others paid for right of way by private subscription in order to secure a railroad. Mob psychology had got in its work; the people were frenzied. The result was often overbuilding, parallel lines, too many roads attempting to occupy the same territory, with the result that branch lines often never paid interest on the cost of construction. On the other hand the gambling instinct was rampant, many roads were overcapitalized, stock was voted influential persons without money consideration, and stock sold to others for more than it was worth.
As there had been for turnpikes, as there had been for canals, once again there came a popular call for governmental aid. Land was then plenty and the general belief was that the prosperity of the country demanded its settlement. If railways could be induced to go out into the open prairies and by their selling agencies bring about the occupation and tillage of these lands, other lands owned by the Government would soon be in demand. There would be no particular hardship on anyone, since Government land was sold to actual settlers for such a small sum, the railroads would be unable to dispose of their land at a much larger price. As a matter of fact the land was sold by the railroads for whatever it would bring; the prices increased as settlement became more dense. In Iowa railroad land sold from $5 to $50 per acre during the ’sixties and ’seventies. The remaining land held by the government was ordinarily increased in price from $1.25 to $2.50 per acre.
Congress, evidently influenced by the demand for railroads, and falling back upon the precedent of the National Highway, heretofore mentioned, granted in 1850 to the State of Illinois a strip of land about 12 miles wide lengthwise through the state to be transferred by it to the Illinois Central Railroad. The act gave six sections per mile on each side of the track, amounting, as certified to later, 2,595,053 acres. In consideration of this and in lieu of all other taxes, the company agreed to pay the state an amount equal to 7 per cent of the gross earnings from freight and passenger traffic. The company had received from the sale (principal and advanced interest) of 2,250,633 acres, up to January 1, 1873, $24,296,596;[100] an average of about $11 per acre.
Other companies were quick to take advantage of this precedent. Each had its representative in Congress. For over twenty years there was scarcely a Congress that did not make one or two such grants. More than a hundred such grants[101] were made between 1850 and 1872, aggregating 155,000,000 acres.[102] Several roads did not comply with the conditions of the grants hence the donation lapsed. Up to June 30, 1880, grants amounted to 155,504,994.59 acres, according to Donaldson, of which there had been patented to the same date, 35,214,978.25 acres.
Pacific Roads.
—The most gigantic land grants made by the Government were for the benefit of the trans-continental or Pacific roads. The idea of a transcontinental railroad has been traced back practically to the beginning of railroad building in the United States.[103] During the ’fifties the debates in Congress waxed strong. Should the states’ sovereignty idea prevail and federal aid be first granted to the states and dealt out by them to the builders as had been done with the Illinois Central and numerous other cases, or should the National Government undertake the work itself or grant the aid to a company for that purpose? Where would the road be built: in the North, which would give an advantage to the abolitionists, or in the South, with corresponding advantage to slavery partisans? The two classes were absolutely antagonistic to each other’s desires. Then there was a middle class, who desired to prevent separation and war who refused to vote upon either side for fear it would create trouble with the other.
As a compromise a bill was passed in 1853 to have the country west of the Mississippi River surveyed to determine the most feasible region for building the transcontinental railroad. The report of the survey is contained in eleven volumes, and was made by the War Department, of which Jefferson Davis was the Secretary. This cabinet officer reported in favor of “the route of the 32d parallel” as the “most practical and economical from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean.”[104] A line this far south, of course, was not acceptable to the North. The election and Civil War coming on changed the status of affairs and on July 4, 1862, President Lincoln signed the bill by which the first transcontinental road should be constructed by two companies: the Central Pacific working from the west, and the Union Pacific working from the Missouri River at Omaha westward. A grant of land of approximately 35,000,000 acres was made, namely, the odd sections lying contiguous to the line on either side. This was not quite a return to the position of the Government when it built out of the funds from the sale of public lands the National Road westward from Maryland, through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, into Illinois. Then the construction was done under the direction of the federal Government and the road remained the property of the Government. Now federal aid was given to private companies to be operated for their own benefit. What might have been the result in this country had the Government taken a firm stand for national ownership is problematical, but the fact that it has made a success of the construction and operation of the Panama Canal leads many to believe that the railroad question would have been handled as easily if that system had grown up from the beginning. Opponents of government ownership point to the roads of continental Europe as being less efficient than those of England and the United States under private ownership. And more recently the fiasco of Government operation under war emergency is considered a strong argument against public ownership.