Done and you are welcome.
History of the Transcontinental Railroad
The Railroad has a very interesting part in the Civil War.
http://www.bushong.net/dawn/about/college/ids100/history.shtml
The Route
None of the bills passed, because a route could not be decided on. Congress was split along geographical lines; northerners wanted a northern route and southerners wanted a southern route. This was because of the issue of slavery in the “New West” [Howard 57]. Since the “New West” really was new, there really wasn’t any slavery there yet. Congress was split over whether slavery should be permitted at all in these new states.
The railroad surveying teams finished in autumn of 1854. The results of their research was reviewed by the Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi. He concluded that the southern route, running through the newly purchased Gadsden lands, would be the most cost-effective [Howard 84]. Jefferson Davis, of course, who went on to become the president of the Confederate States of America after the secession, had vested Southern interests.
Because of the bad blood involved, no action was taken on his decision; votes taken went against funding the Southern route, because of the split in Congress between Northern and Southern interests. Then, in 1861, the Southern congressmen left Congress as a precursor to Southern secession, whereupon action and funding progressed immediately to begin work on the Northern route. The North’s final decision on a route, the central route through Nebraska, hinged greatly on analyses of how use of the Railroad would impact the impending Civil War, which had just broken out [Gordon 151].
Letter requesting ministers petition Congress against passing the Kansas-Nebraska Bill
Perception of separation of church and state was different before income tax was established.
TO THE CLERGY OF NEW ENGLAND.
Dear Brethren:
Upon another page you find a Protest which explains itself. It is sent simultaneously to every Clergyman of every name in New England. It is earnestly hoped that every one of you will append your name to it, and thus furnish to this nation and this age the sublime and influential spectacle of the great Christian body of the North united, as one man, in favor of freedom and of solemn plighted faith. It can hardly be doubted, that if this Protest can go immediately to Washington, carrying upon it the names of the entire Clergy of New England, it will exert there a moral influence of incalculable weight—possibly, in connection with other influences—sufficient in the good Providence of God, to avert the impending evil.
Permit us, then, to commend the following suggestions to your notice, and, so far as they agree with your own convictions, to your immediate action.
1. Please tear off, sign, fold, seal and return to us this annexed Protest BY THE NEXT MAIL to this city, directed to “Rev. John Jackson, Boston, Mass.†He will combine all the answers received into one great Protest, which will be immediately forwarded to Congress.
If you have already—either as a private citizen or as a clergyman—signed any other similar document, PLEASE SIGN THIS ALSO; as it is earnestly desired to embrace in this movement (as far as possible,) the unanimous clerical voice of New England.
2. If deemed judicious, please exert your influence to get up and send immediately on to your Representative in the House, a similar protest from your own neighborhood. It is believed that a great number of such protests—even if less than one hundred legal voters should sign each one—will be of great consequence in indicating the general arousal of the slumbering sentiment of the North, on this fearfully important subject.
3. It is respectfully submitted whether the present is not a crisis of sufficient magnitude and imminence of danger to the liberties and integrity of our nation, to warrant and even demand the services of the clergy of all denominations in arousing the masses of the people to its comprehension, through the Press and even the Pulpit.
4. It is affectionately urged that it find frequent remembrance in all Christian supplications to Him who holds the hearts of all rulers in his hand, and, as the rivers of water, can turn them whithersoever He will.
Affectionately yours,
CHARLES LOWELL, COMMITTEE OF
LYMAN BEECHER, CLERGYMEN
BARON STOW, OF
SEBASTIAN STREETER. BOSTON.
Boston, February 22, 1854.