When the Constitution was adopted, the chief source
of apprehension for its permanence with men like Patrick Henry, and
other wise statesmen, was the extent of our territory. The Alleghanies,
it was thought, had put asunder communities whom no paper constitution
could unite. But at that early day, when Ohio was the far West, and no
steamboat had yet gone up the Mississippi, Astor looked beyond the Ohio,
beyond the Mississippi, and the Rocky Mountains, and saw the whole
American territory, from ocean to ocean, the domain of one united
nation, the seat of trade and industry. He saw lines of trading posts
uniting the Western settlements with the Pacific; following this line of
trading posts, he saw the columns of a peaceful emigration crossing the
plains, crossing the mountains, descending the Columbia, and towns and
villages taking the places of the solitary posts, and cultivated fields
instead of the hunting-grounds of the Indian and the trapper.
"No enterprise, unless it be the Atlantic telegraph, engages more deeply
the public attention than a railroad communication with the Pacific
coast.[A] The rapid settlement of Oregon and California, the constant
communication by steam to the Pacific coast, render it easy now to feel
the nearness of that region, and the oneness of the nationality which
covers the continent.
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