Even such achievements as these were regarded as make-shifts which the coming railway should set aside. That and that only would solve the problem how permanently to unite and hold together such remote sections of the Union. In the East the country has always been settled before railways were built: in the West railways are expected to bring settlement with them, or even to go before it in a case like the present one. But without a country to support it, the proposed Pacific Railway[4] was something too vast for private enterprise to grapple with. From the time it was first talked of, the enterprise, therefore, assumed a national character and importance.
But the slavery question had now brought on a national crisis. Too long it had hung over the land like a storm-cloud that is to overwhelm it with ruin. The election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency (1860) was followed by the secession of most of the slave-holding States (1861), secession by civil war, and civil war by the abolition of slavery in the land. All the resources of the country being needed to carry on the war, it would seem, at first sight, no time could be worse chosen for pressing the claims of the Pacific Railway than when men so doubted and feared for the nation itself.
The people, however, thought otherwise, and they were to rule. Indeed, at the moment the Union was most seriously threatened with dissolution, the idea of binding the Great West more firmly to it seemed dictated by a wise forecast, since, if remoteness were to be an element of weakness to the nation, then the sooner that remoteness were done away with, the better for its security.
Congress made liberal offers of moneys and lands, and work began both in California (1862) and Nebraska[5] (1863). The route from the Missouri first begun followed the old emigrant trail up the Platte Valley, thence crossing the mountains into the Utah Basin, where the road from the west was expected to join it. As the Platte Valley is nearly a dead level from the Missouri to the mountains, the work went on rapidly over this part of the line. Twelve thousand men were employed on it. In front gangs of laborers shovelled up the loose earth to form the embankment; after these came the tie-layers and track-layers; who were again closely followed by the locomotive, with the cars in which the workmen slept and ate since leaving the settlements behind them.
When the track neared the Black Hills, the Indians tried to stop its farther progress. They looked upon its coming as destined to drive away the buffalo from their old feeding-grounds, and so starve them out of their country. In this belief they attacked the laborers, tore up the tracks, and so harassed the builders that the work could only go on under the protection of United States soldiers. Some well-meaning people thought it wrong thus to invade the Indians' hunting-grounds for any purpose whatsoever, and Wendell Phillips rejoiced that they had risen in defence of them. Said he, "All hail and farewell to the Pacific Railroad! Haunt that road with such dangers that none will dare use it!"
TRACK-LAYING, PACIFIC RAILROAD.
The work, however, steadily went on. On the 10th of May, 1869, the two ends came together at Promontory Point, Utah, and with impressive ceremonies the Pacific Railway was opened to the traffic of the world. The way to the Indies had been found. Senator Benton's prophecy was fulfilled.