AHC: No secession from U.S., PoD must be after Mexican cession, July 1848

One result of no secession is the US government will face a financial crisis, perhaps even going bankrupt. The Crash of 1857 left the South relatively untouched, but it had a big effect on the North's economy. Tariff income, the major source of government revenue had dropped by about 1/3 and government debt was accumulating rapidly. The Morrell Tariff was a revenue tariff endorsed by President Buchanan to curb the spiraling national debt. It was tabled by southern obstructiionists in Congress who didn't care that the country's credit had become so bad public lands had to be pledged as collateral for Treasury notes.

That's not the only area where Southern congressmen were being obstructionist. Even when there wasn't blatant fraud to try to make Kansas a slave state, Southern obstructionists were voting down any entry of additional free states. These obstructionists were also voting down any proposal for a transcontinental railroad that didn't route it through Arizona-New Mexico.
 
That's not the only area where Southern congressmen were being obstructionist. Even when there wasn't blatant fraud to try to make Kansas a slave state, Southern obstructionists were voting down any entry of additional free states. These obstructionists were also voting down any proposal for a transcontinental railroad that didn't route it through Arizona-New Mexico.
Why did the Congress need to vote on a transcontinental railroad?
 
The New Mexicans have no say in the matter - they probably numbered 5K ... the non-Indians, that is.
Unless I understood it incorrectly, President Taylor was sympathetic to them because he was antagonistic to the Texans. Because Taylor did not want to expand slavery, the Spanish/Mexican settlements along the northern Rio Grande could be used as an integral component in a free territory. Probably going to be a multiple nucleus state stretched out over a very large area.
 
Private business did not want to - or could not
I'm not sure they weren't fleecing the Congress with that. Do you, or anyone, know if there were legal minutia that required Congress to okay passage through non-State territory?

There was a private demand for such a development, I wonder how long it would take to complete the transcontinental railroad if it was a purely a private venture.
 
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