Lincoln and the transcontinental railroad

[Christine]

Here is a brief recap of Meachem's speech. Still looking for the full text since it was so fabulous and I know you people would love it.

"Meacham began by saying “everything was falling apart” in America in 1862, a year into the Civil War, when Abraham Lincoln signed the legislation to create the rail line from the then-fractured Union states to the distant California coast. Approving the railroad was, Meacham said, “a far-sighted act for a commander-in-chief buffeted by the winds of war.”

"Lincoln and those who envisioned the railroad “knew that a nation connected just might be a nation united,” Meacham said. When the railroad was completed on May 10, 1869, four years after the Civil War’s end and Lincoln’s assassination, Meacham said, “the nation was united at [Promontory], if not in spirit, then in fact.”

"Meacham said the fact that the transcontinental railroad was accomplished while the nation remained sharply divided — it was, he said, “an era of prevailing white supremacy,” and before women had the vote — is something Americans today can take to heart.

"Many of the elements that brought divided people together to make the transcontinental railroad happen, Meacham said, “seem all too elusive in our own time. … We, you and I, are caught in a moment of reflexive dispiritedness.” Still, he said, “our common welfare depends not on what separates us … but what unites us.”

“If people want to know what is possible, come here,” Meacham said, pointing to the ground where the Jupiter and No. 119, replicas of the locomotives that met 150 years ago, stood and blew their steam whistles."

https://www.sltrib.com/news/2019/05/10/t...niversary/