BRANCH ROADS. 81

have many advantages over its more northern rival. San Diego is a
little more than five degrees east of San Francisco.

If ever Mexico is to be redeemed from anarchy and misrule, it must
be effected through some such agency as this. The conviction is
fastening itself upon the public mind that, at an early day, we shall
be compelled to exercise a controlling influence in that country; and
were our people made to comprehend how quickly and easily that
could be done through the instrumentality of this road, by its exten-
sion into Mexican territory as proposed, it would give great satisfac _
tion, especially when they reflect that no violence will be required,—
nothing which can either humble Mexico or excite the jealousy of
other nations,— that the object of their desires can be aceomplished
in the pursuit of legitimate and mutually beneficial commerce, free
from interruption by foreign powers, and exempt from all rivalry ex-
cept that which would arise among our citizens. For our manufac-
tures, we should be paid in wool, hides, animals and minerals, and
after a little time, when labor becomes more settled and secure, we
should receive the more valuable products of a tropical growth, and
have the satisfaction of impressing upon these people our principles
of justice, our system of government, and an enlightened Christian
civilization.

Avoiding the malarious belt which stretches along the entire east-
ern seaboard of Mexico, we can reach the great interior basin and the
western coast by a route eminently healthy and salubrious. In this
way we may expect the bulk of the commerce of that great basin to
be carried on through the United States, and over the system of roads
of which this will be the forerunner and main trunk. Many trains,
conveying passengers and merchandise, not more than five or six days
from St. Louis or Chicago, will daily cross the line of Mexico en route
for all parts of the interior and the western coast, and south to the
regions of the tropics, where cotton, sugar, coffee, and all the tropical
fruits are, or may be, with our energy, produced in abundance.
Those regions may be reached as easily as San Francisco, and a trade
may, and certainly will, be established equally valuable, to be enjoyed
by this road without a successful competitor. It would be a great
error, if, in the projection of our continental railroad system, we
should neglect to construct the main line in the direction go plainly
marked out by nature by which this trade may be commanded.

I have thus, with the best lights I could obtain, traced the entire
line of this magnificent national road, this world’s highway, from the

Missouri to the Bay of San Francisco. My aim has been to deal with
6