Lincoln and the transcontinental railroad

[David Lockmiller]

(05-04-2019 11:26 PM)Christine Wrote:  We are gearing up to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the joining of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads at Promontory Point, Utah. I am hoping the ceremony gives due credit to Lincoln and his vision. I think the ceremonies and Tabernacle Choir concert will be available to see online. I was visiting with someone today about how the excitement about the railroad helped heal some of the divisions and sorrows of the Civil War by uniting the country and providing something else to focus on. I would love to hear your thoughts! I am also proud of the part my great great grandfather and his crew played in building it!

As was customary on the last day of the session [July 1, 1862], the president traveled to the Capitol, stationing himself in the vice president’s office, where he signed the spate of bills rushed through in the final days of the term. It had been an extraordinary productive session. Relieved of Southern opposition, the Republican majority was able to pass three historic bills that had been stalled for years: the Homestead Act, which promised 160 acres of free public land largely in the West to settlers who agreed to reside on the property for five years or more; the Morrill Act, providing public lands to states for the establishment of land-grant colleges; and the Pacific Railroad Act, which made the construction of a transcontinental railroad possible. The 37th Congress also laid the economic foundation for the Union war effort with the Legal Tender bill, which created a paper money known as “greenbacks.” A comprehensive tax bill was also enacted, establishing the Internal Revenue Bureau in the Department of the Treasury and levying a federal income tax for the first time in American history.

(Source: Team of Rivals, by Doris Kearns Goodwin, pages 461-62.)

Ironic, all of this progress in forming a truly nation-state, the United States, would not have been immediately possible but for the “secession” of the Southern states to protect the state institution of slavery. It was President Abraham Lincoln who affected and signed into law the aforementioned progressive national legislation and who also “kept” the Southern states within the Union, both by war and politics.