1st Session. RAILROAD-BOSTON TO THE MISSISSIPPI. MEMORIAL OF AMASA WALKER AND 445 OTHERS, CITIZENS OF BOSTON IN FAVOR Of granting land in aid of the continuous line of railroads from Boston to the Mississippi river. MAY 18, 1840. Referred to the Committee on Roads and Canals. To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of Your memorialists, citizens of Boston and its vicinity, feeling a deep interest in the completion of a railroad from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, would respectfully submit to your honorable body a few of the prominent considerations which present themselves in favor of this great enterprise. A continuous line of railroads is in progress from Boston to Buffalo, and the work of construction so far advanced as to ensure a speedy completion of the entire line between those points. A railroad is also advancing from New York to intersect the former near Albany. An extension of the road from Buffalo to the Mississippi river, would be of great national importance in a military point of view, as means of transporting the mails, and in creating a unity of interests, thus binding the eastern and western States in as indissoluble bonds as the western and southern States are now bound by the Mississippi river. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad would be continued to meet this extension in Ohio, and nearly all the important public works in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, would be intersected by it, and a large amount of work has already been done in the State of Illinois, upon this route. The different public works intersected by it, would prove valuable auxiliaries, and add to its importance. But in affording a certain, cheap, speedy, and safe conveyance, at all times, between the maritime cities of the east and the great Mississippi of the west, at a point near the centre of the many thousand miles of steamboat navigation, afforded by it and its tributaries, would give it its national character, and constitute its chief importance. The benefits that would arise to the citizens of our common country from its use as an avenue of trade and travel, in facilitating exchanges, &c., could not be numerically estimated; and its cost of construction would be incon siderable in comparison to the vast beneficial results produced. The route that the road would pursue from Buffalo to the Mississippi, near the mouth of the Missouri river, is nearly a right line, peculiarly favorable, and well adapted to the location and construction of a railroad of great capacity. The shores of Lake Erie, so far as the route would conform to it, is level and not broken, or indented by streams. Upon leaving the lake, level table lands extend to the Mississippi, in the direction of the point above alluded to, interrupted only by the Wabash river. Your memorialists, therefore, respectfully ask Congress to make a suitable donation of land to the several States through which the road would pass, to aid them in constructing it; or to take such other action in reference to the subject, as the Representatives of the people, in their wisdom, shall think proper, to promote an object of such vast national importance, and so pregnant with the interests of millions of the citizens of this Union. And, as in duty, they will ever pray, &c. 1st Session. CANAL-FALLS OF NIAGARA. RESOLUTION OF THE LEGISLATURE OF NEW YORK, CONSENTING To the construction of a ship-canal around the Falls of Niagara by the General Government. MAY 18, 1840. Referred to the Committee on Roads and Canals. STATE OF NEW YORK. IN ASSEMBLY, February 15, 1840. Resolved, (if the Senate concur,) That the consent of this Legislature is hereby given to the construction by the Government of the United States of a ship-canal around the Falls of Niagara; and that the Senators and Representatives of this State in the Congress of the United States be requested to use their best efforts to procure the passage of a bill for this purpose. Resolved, (if the Senate concur,) That the Governor of this State be requested to transmit to each of the Representatives of this State in Congress of the United States a copy of the foregoing resolution. By order: P. B. PRINDLE, Clerk. IN SENATE, April 18, 1840. Resolved, That the Senate do concur with the Assembly in their said resolutions. By order: SAML. G. ANDREWS, Clerk. THE LEGISLATURE OF NEW YORK, IN FAVOR OF The passage of a law on the subject of bankruptcies. IN SENATE, March 12, 1840. Resolved, (if the Assembly concur,) That the Congress of the United States is imperiously called upon, by the embarrassments which have prostrated the business of the country, to exercise that power conferred by the constitution, which authorizes them to establish uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies of natural persons throughout the United States. Resolved, That his excellency the Governor be requested to transmit copies of the foregoing resolution to the respective Senators and members of Congress from this State. SAML. G. ANDREWS, Clerk. By order: IN ASSEMBLY, March 20, 1840. Resolved, That the Assembly do concur with the Senate in the above resolutions. By order: P. B. PRINDLE, Clerk. |