Wagon roads, canals,
railroads, telegraphs, are all so many political unitizers; but the
railroad, with its accompaniment, the telegraph, may be regarded as the
chief of all.
Let us notice for a moment the political value of our rivers, with the
improved navigation of the same, and of our railroads, in the
suppression of the existing rebellion.
Had there been no navigable rivers and no railroads uniting the North
and South, the chances for the local division of our country would be
far greater than they are under existing circumstances. The South would
have been comparatively isolated from the North, and our armies could
not have reached her territory with the facility they now do. Prolonged
for years, as the war must have been under such circumstances, the North
would have grown weary of prosecuting it; the chances for intervention
would have been greater, and the establishment of a Southern nation by
no means an impossible thing.
With facilities for penetrating the country, it may be easier to reduce
a dozen rebel States than one quarter of the territory if held by
uncivilized Indians. We were longer subjugating the Seminole Indians
than we are likely to be in putting down the rebellion. The facilities
of transportation in the one case, and their absence in the other, make
part of the difference.
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