ents of commerce and prosperity would speedily flow strong and healthy from the sentre to the extremities.

The bill lingered in the legislature much longer than its ardent riends had anticipated, to their no little anxiety. Many amendnents were offered and rejected, such as requiring payment for the right of way to pre-emptionists, or settlers upon the government land, the same as to actual owners, though their benefits, and the enhanced value of their lands by the building of the road would be 500 per cent. The point of divergence for the Chicago branch was strenuously attempted to be fixed, but was finally left with the company anywhere "north of the parallel of 39d. 30 m. of north latitude." Much discussion was had upon the location of the main stem, what towns it should touch between its termini designated in the congressional grant, but all intermediate points failed of being fixed in the act except a single one, the N. E. corner of T. 21 N., R. 2 E. 3d P. M., from which the road in it course should not vary more than five miles, which was effected by Gen. Gridley, of the senate, and by which the towns of Decatur, Clinton and Bloomington were assured of the road.

A scheme was also developed, but never yet explained, by which it was proposed to place this grand enterprise into the hands of the state bondholders, adding a bank. It was known as the bond. holders' plan. Early in January the legislature received a voluminous printed bill for a charter, the provisions whereof, closely scrutinized, contained about as hard a bargain as creditor ever offered bondsman. It was coolly proposed, among other provisions, that the State appoint commissioners to locate the road, survey the routes for the main stem and branches, and select the lands granted by congress, all at the expense of the State; agents were further to be appointed by the governor to apply to land-holders along the routes, who might be benefited by the road, for subscriptions, also at the expense of the State.

"All persons subscribing and advancing money for said purpose, shall be entitled to draw interest upon the sums advanced, at the rate of per cent. per annum from the day of said advance, and shall be entitled to designate and register an amount of 'New Internal Improvement stock of this State' equal to four times the amount so advanced, or of stock of this State known as 'Interest Bonds,' equal to three times the money so advanced; and said stock, so described, may be registered at th eagency of the State of Illinois, in the city of New York, by the party subscribing, or by any other persons to whom they may assign the right at any time after paying the subscription, in the proportion of the amount paid; and said stock shall be endorsed, registered and signed by the agent appointed by the governor for the purpose, and a copy of said register shall be filed in the office of the auditor of public accounts, as evidence to show the particular stock secured or provided for as hereinafter mentioned." The lands were to be conveyed by the State to the managers of the road; to be by them offered for sale upon the completion of sectious of 60 miles, expenses to be paid by the State; the money was to go to the managers, but the State was to receive certificates of stock for the same; two of the acting managers were to receive salaries of $2,500 and the others $1,500-large sums at that time; the company, with the sanction of the governor, to purchase iron, &c., pledging the road for payment; and the road, property and stock, to be exempt from taxation. The bill also embraced a bank in accordance with the provisions of the gen

enral free banking law adopted at that session, making the railroad stock the basis. It also provided that if the constitution was amended (which failed to carry,) changing the 2 mill tax to a sinking fund to be generally applied in redemption of the State debt, that then the stock registered under this act should also par ticipate in the proceeds thereof.

Here was a scheme to fasten upon the State treasury a horde of high-salaried officials to eat out the substance of the people. empowering the company to create additional officers and fix their compensation at pleasure; no limit was fixed for the completion of the road; extended advantages were offered to holders of interest bonds, then low in market, to control the road to an amount of four times their actual outlay, mortgage it for iron, attach a wild-cat bank to the enterprise, and strangle it to death. But the measure was so preposterous that it received little counte nance.*

The next apprehensions of the friends of the measure were the efforts interposed early in February, through the Holbrook influence, to delay action at the then session of the general assembly, which would revive the Cairo city company's charters by the terms of their release. To this end a resolution was offered in the senate instructing the committee on internal improvements to prepare and bring in a bill providing for the appointment of agents to locate the road, with a view to future construction, and to select the lands under the grant of congress. It is one of the unfortunate features incident to representative forms of government that for selfish and partisan ends men will entail large losses indirectly upon a tax-ridden community. So now men were not wanting who exerted themselves to create a hobby for their future political advancement by efforts to delay a work which would in a short time render the central portion of the State populous by pouring into it a flood of immigration to build towns and cities and improve the country, create wealth and increase by millions, annually, the aggregate taxable property of the State-so badly needed to relieve her of an oppressive debt. For "the State might own, in fee simple, many millions of acres of land and yet be all the poorer for it, unless the lands by settlement and improvement were rendered capable of yielding a revenue." Such were some of the arguments held up to these men.

It will be remembered that the memorialists, in their proposi tion to the legislature to obtain the charter, offered, among other things, to pay the State of Illinois annually a certain per centum of the gross earnings of the road, without deduction for expense or other cause. The amount was left blank, to fix which, how ever, became subsequently a matter of no little scheming and trouble. In the first gush of desire to obtain the splendid grant of land from the State, it is said, the corporators would have readily consented to fill this blank at 10 per centum of the gross earnings. But unfortunately for the tax payers and the treasury of the State, as was charged in the press of the day, the shrewd

"The origin of the bondholders' plan was involved in mystery. Dr. Holford, the largest of the Illinois bondholders, denounced it, and declared he had no hand in it. Mr. King, of New Jersey, the next largest, also refused to endorse it. It was a ques tion from whom did it emanate; who was it that wanted to rob Illinois and grind her farther in the dust? It was manifestly an underhanded scheme for purposes of spec ulation. Had the bill become a law, the beneficiaries would doubtless have avowed themselves readlly enough.

capitalists employed a gentleman as their attorney-a citizen of linois and member of congress at the time, than whom none was more popular and wielded a greater influence at home-an orator, statesman and soldier of renown-who had within the year emerged from an affair of honor with no little eclat, which gained him national notoriety-who left his seat in congress and attended at Springfield in the capacity of a lobbyist for the company, and the result was the State conceded a deduction of 3 per cent. from that figure, the amount being fixed at 7 per centum, and that in lieu of all taxes, State or local. The State's proceeds from that source now amount to about half a million dollars annually. No little effort has been made to get rid of the payment of this percentage into the State treasury, but since the lands turned over to the company have yielded so well in price, repaying the cost of the road perhaps twice over, the people set their faces against it, and have been exercised by no little anxiety that this now wealthy corporation would succeed in buying up enough members of the legislature at some future session to relieve it of this percentage. To satisfy the popular clamor a limitation has been irrevocably fixed in the organic law of 1870, which places the subject beyond the control of further legislative meddling, and the public anxiety is allayed.ț

In the legislature, after procrastinating action until the heel of the session, Mr. J. L. D. Morrison, of the senate, brought in a substitute for the pending bill, which, after being amended in several important particulars-that by Gen. Gridley has already been noticed-was passed finally with but two dissenting votes; and shortly after, the house took up the senate bill and passed it without amendment, also by two dissenting votes, and it became a law February 10, 1851. The law is so accessible that it is unnecessary to give a synopsis of it. The final passage of the bill was celebrated in Chicago by the firing of cannon and other civic demonstrations in honor of the glorious event.

But in the spring following, when the surveys of the Chicago branch were under way, there arose quite a fever of excitement in that city, fearing that the branch road would be carried to the Indiana line to form a junction with the Michigan Central, and thus practically become an extension of the latter road to Cairo, leaving Chicago northward of this thoroughfare a bout 20 or 30 miles. Prominent gentlemen addressed a letter to Mr. Douglas, requesting his opinion respecting the power of the company to make such a divergence from a direct line. Mr. Douglas replied at length, denying the power of the company to do so; citing the language of the charter that the Chicago branch should diverge "from the main trunk at a point north of the parallel of 39 deg. 30 min., and running on the most eligible route into the city of Chicago;" that one object in the grant of land by Congress was to render saleable the public land in Illinois which had been 20 or 30 years in market; that the union with another road negatived the provision of free transportation of United States troops

*See Chicago Democrat, Aug. 1853.

While the State treasury is doubtless largely benefited by this permanent arrangement, it is a question whether the company is not after all the gainer in being rid of all taxes for State, county, township, school aud municipal purposes along the entire line of its roads, and whether this is just to the localities concerned..

and property forever from Chicago to Mobile-from the lakes of the north to the Gulf of Mexico, &c.

There was some delay in commencing the work, occasioned by the Commissioner of the General Land Office at Washington, Justin Butterfield. The company had negotiated a loan of $400,000, but before it could be consummated it was necessary that there should be a conveyance of the lands from government. The commissioner, who was from Chicago, construed the grant as entitling the company to lands for the branch on a straight line to Chicago, which would avoid the junction with the Michigan Central. But this construction was reversed by the President and Secretary of the Interior. In March, 1852, the necessary documents of conveyance were finally secured, contracts were let, and the work carried forward. The road was completed with little interruption.

As an instructive example of how money may quicken other property into manifold life, scattering its gains in many unex pected directions, the Illinois Central railroad is a subject in point. This work was one of the most stupendous and ingenious speculations of modern times. By means of it a few sagacious capitalists became the owners of a first-class railroad, more than 700 miles long, in full running order, complete in rolling stock and every equipage, and millions of acres of land, worth in the aggregate perhaps, $40,000,000, without the actual outlay of a cent of their own money. This project was among the first to illustrate the immense field there was opening up in this country for bold and gigantic railroad operations by capitalists; and as contrasted with the State internal improvement scheme of 1836-7, it was furthermore an example of the superiority of private enterprise over State or govermental undertakings. The State at that time, with a population of about 350,000, mostly small farmers, authorized a loan exceeding $10,000,000, to construct public works. One of these was the Central Railroad, upon which a considerable sum was expended. Hard times and a general collapse followed in rapid order. Now, with this grant of land from the general government, not far short of 3,000,000 acres within a belt of 15 miles along the route of the road, to aid its construction, these gentlemen, backed by credit and capital, step forward, propose to take the lands and build the road, which is to belong to them when built. The State accepts the offer, incorporates the gentlemen's scheme by perpetual charter, and endows them with this munificent domain and all the property and remains of the old Central road. After the road is put in operation, the company pays the State annually 7 per centum of its gross earnings in lieu of all taxes forever. Having acquired a vested right, the State has no other than police control over the company, and as it is a foreign corporation, disputes between them must be settled in foreign, i. e. U. S., courts. The minimum valuation of the lands acquired, so soon as the road should be completed, was $20,000,000, exceeding by $6,000,000, the cost of the road, estimated at $20,000 per mile, which in Illinois, was liberal, because she presented the most uniform and favorable surface for the construction of railroads of any other State in the Union. Two-thirds of the land was stipulated as security for the principal of the construction bonds; 250,000 acres to secure the interest fund, and the remain.

der as a contingent fund. The construction bonds found ready sale at par, and built the road. The land sales yielded interest to set off in part the accruing interest on the bonds. The redemption of the bonds completed, the road and all its appurtenances remains the property of the fortunate gentlemen who had the sagacity to see how it could be built without costing them a cent.

But they did not reap all the developed benefits of this grand enterprise. The alternate sections of land reserved by the federal government within 15 miles of the route of the road, numbered as many acres as the grant to the State; it had been for 20 odd years in market at $1 25 per acre without sale, but now when again put in market in the fall of 1852, it was eagerly taken up and readily brought from $3 to $7 per acre, and more, had not settlers and speculators combined not to bid against each other. As it was, the sales averaged $5 per acre. The government thus realized a profit of some $9,000,000 by its munificent policy of giving away half its lands in this locality. This was indeed casting bread upon the water, which after many days returned several fold. The lands in the railroad belt, so long neglected by buyers, were situated as follows: In the Kaskaskia land office district, 23,681 acres, over 30 years on the market; Shawneetown, 401,873 acres, over 30 years; Vandalia, 344,672 acres, over 25 years; Danville, 345,702 acres, over 20 years; and in the Dixon 465,949 acres, over 10 years.

But besides the general government, the State too, was at the same time benefited by having its unsettled interior opened up to tides of thronging immigrants; its rich soil brought into cultivation; population increased, and its resources and taxable wealth augmented by many millions of dollars. The products of the newly developed region found a ready avenue to the markets or the world. Chicago, too, was thus furnished with another iron tentaculum to reach far into the interior of the State for commercial food to give increase to her marvelous life. But the greatest immediate benefit resulting from the building of the road and branches, accrued to the lands within due and proper marketing distance of the lines, estimated at the enormous amount of 10,000,000 acres in private hands, selected early because of their choice quality, which were directly enhanced at least $4 per acre and rendered more saleable. Here was an increase of wealth, amounting to $40,000,000.

[NOTE.] Reference has already been made to the jealousy which the success of obtaining this subsidy from Congress, excited among some of our public men as to who was entitled to the meed of praise for carrying the measure through, and the honor of originally suggesting the plan or line of such a railroad. It was a conception and labor worthy the pride and ambition of any man. Visions of office, emolument and fame were doubtless discovered in it. While some apparently shunned it but to make it sure, others boldly claimed the credit. In this connection we are tempted to extract from the piquant correspondence between the Hons. Sidney Breese and S. A. Douglas. The former had been a senator in congress up to March 4th, 1849, when he was succeeded by Gen. Shields. In 1850 he was elected to the Legislature. Under date of December 23, 1850, among other things in reply to the Illinois State Register, regarding his favoring the "Holbrook Charters," he says:

"The Central Railroad has been a controlling object with me for more than 15 years, and I would sacrifice all my personal advantages to see it made. These fellows who are making such an ado about it now have been whipped into its support. They are not for it now, and do not desire to have it made because I get the credit of it. This is inevitable. I must have the credit of it, for I originated it in 1835. and, when in the senate, passed three different bills through that body to aid in its construction. My successor had an easy task, as I had opened the way for him. It was the argument contained in my reports on it that silenced all opposition, and made its passage easy. I claim the credit, and no one can take it from me."