Excerpt from Speech of Hon. Aaron A. Sargent, of California, on the Pacific Railroad, as a Military Necessity: Delivered in the House of Representatives, January 31, 1862

Sir, the argument that this Government is ever too poor to do equal justice to all the members of its family is not a fair argument. But it can be shown clearly that this assumed additional debt will not become a burden upon the Treasury of the country. There are two methods by which Government can consistently lend its aid, and by which that aid will prove effectual, both of which contemplate a future reimbursement of the sums advanced; while from the enhanced value of the lands along the line, the development of mineral wealth, and from the rapid settlement of the country, now a wilderness, through which the road will pass, the Government will prove a grainer in, a business point of view.

The bill which I have had the honor to introduce in this House con templates the issuance of United States bonds to be loaned to the com pany at a fixed amount per mile, being about one half the contemplated cost of the road, upon the completion of continuous sections of twenty-five and fifty miles also a grant of alternate sections of the public lands for six miles upon either side of the road.

Although I have long been in favor of a different plan or mode of granting aid, yet inasmuch as the scheme I have named appears to have been the one adopted by the committee at their last or thirty-sixth ses sion, it having been thoroughly discussed and finally approved by the House, I felt almost instructed to conform to the thus expressed ideas of the House upon the subject, and accordingly introduced a bill in conform ity thereto. Under that bill I think it can be successfully demonstrated that no great additional burden will be laid on the Treasury of the United States for many years to come.

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