No Southern Secession: whither the Transcontinental Railroad?

Hendryk

Banned
Apparently one reason that work on the US Transcontinental Railroad had to wait until 1862, was because until then, every time the matter was brought to the attention of Congress, the southern states voted against it. One side-effect of the Secession was therefore to remove parliamentary opposition to the initiative, and the Union government could give it the green light.

From generalcontractor.com:

By the mid 1800s, American pioneers dreamed of building a railroad that would cross the American continent. One such pioneer was Asa Whitney, a New York tea merchant who began to promote the idea of a transcontinental railroad in 1844 after returning from China. Fully aware of the benefits such a railroad promised for trade with China and East India, Whitney declared his intention to build a railroad from Lake Michigan through the South Pass to the Pacific, backed with a land grant 60 miles wide along the length of the road.

Whitney brought his proposal to Congress in 1848, but it was voted down due to its unrealistic construction scheme. Another, better-prepared proposition was presented to Congress in 1850 and again in 1851, but it failed to earn sufficient support because of conflicting interests between the Northern and Southern states. The Southern states were opposed to the project altogether. Whitney then turned to the English government and proposed a similar plan for a transcontinental railroad through Canada. This attempt failed as well.

Asa Whitney ran out of money and finally gave up his campaign in 1852. However, his dream of the Pacific Railroad stayed alive. The discovery of gold in California not only created the market for the first important transcontinental traffic, it also significantly changed the public attitude towards the West. The West was no longer considered a wasteland of mountains and plains. It was seen as the land of opportunity. Scores of people wanted to travel beyond the Mississippi, through the territories that stretched to the Pacific Coast.

In 1853, Congress passed an act providing for the survey of possible railroad lines from the Mississippi to the Pacific. At least five routes were surveyed, and each received support from a different sector. Unfortunately, the multitude of diverse interests among the supporters and an increasing rift between the North and the South rendered agreement on a route impossible.

In 1860, Republican Abraham Lincoln won election to the White House on an anti-slavery ticket. His election almost immediately caused the longstanding rift between the North and the South to intensify, and very shortly thereafter the Southern states followed South Carolina into secession. The violent conflict that would later be known as the Secession War, or the American Civil War, had begun.

However, with the Southern states out of the picture the major antagonism to the transcontinental railroad was gone, and both the Senate and House of Representatives were able to pass the Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862 and 1864. These laws granted rights of way and use of building materials along the way, a 20-million-acre land grant and government support for loans of 60 million dollars to companies that would build the transcontinental railroad and its feeder lines.

So, if for whatever reason the Secession was butterflied away, what would be the consequences for Western expansion? How much slower would the conquest of the Western frontier proceed without the Transcontinental Railroad, and how long would it be until one is built?
 
What that article really doesn't mention is that it wasn't that the Southern states were opposed to a transcontinental railroad, but they wanted a southern transcontinental railroad, while the North wanted a more northern one.

How the railroad issue develops also depends on how the Southern secession issue is removed; is it part of a deal? A consequence? Is there a compromise railroad straight through the middle? Is the Southern railroad thrown as a bone to the South? Are both railroads built at the same time, or sequentially?

The railroad itself is going to take longer, of course, but people were and could still go west by wagon or ship. More railroads will follow eventually anyways, so you aren't going to see a stop of immigration westward. There's also the somewhat self-correcting aspects over time; if there are fewer workers for California industry and farms, then it becomes more attractive to move there, and so larger numbers of migrants will come to fill in the slack.
 
What that article really doesn't mention is that it wasn't that the Southern states were opposed to a transcontinental railroad, but they wanted a southern transcontinental railroad, while the North wanted a more northern one.
Which was actually an easier road to build (mountains aren't so bad).

Note that the middle route was chosen. Possibly because of Lincoln's railway connections in Illinois, etc. (IIRC he bought a whole bunch of land in Council Bluffs or Omaha.)
 
It would have been foolish for the railroads to build their main route in the South. The cities were in the North so that is where the real money was. Connecting cities is worth more then connecting plantations.
 

Thande

Donor
Also significant is I was reading the other day that a Southern railway was part of the deal that led to the Southern states supporting the Republican candidate in the election of 1876 (the one which ended Reconstruction). Of course, that part ended up not actually being followed through because the West ended up lobbying harder.

Maybe in TTL a Southern railway is instead part of a deal which succeeds the Compromise of 1850 and avoids the Kansas-Nebraska Act, or is awarded in exchange for the South being less rabid about opening up the West to slavery?
 
It would have been foolish for the railroads to build their main route in the South. The cities were in the North so that is where the real money was. Connecting cities is worth more then connecting plantations.
That would be true... if it were regional only. But the north was already building an extensive regional trainnetwork for that reason.

But!

One, Southern cash crops, especially cotton, were the US's biggest exporter and money maker. And two, the midwest and Pacific are still largely empty, so who the initial transcontinental railroad is built from doesn't really affect that. On the other hand, though, the speed with which the railroad would have let the US consolidate its hold on the west coast, and the additional benefit to the South's own nascant transportation network, could have a very real effect.
 
Doubtful, cotton can't compete with all the industrial production of the North. There is just too much industry in the North for the South to compete.
 
Doubtful, cotton can't compete with all the industrial production of the North. There is just too much industry in the North for the South to compete.
The demand for such material to the west, while certainly there, wasn't enough to really warrant a direct northern route. If a southern route were made, good could still be shipped down the Mississippi to whatever the eastern terminus of the route would be, and then sent west.

Not that much could or would go that way- the Transcontinental Railroad was a rickety, hastily-built affair that wasn't even double-tracked. Speeds would be low and more money would still have to be spent afterwards to redo most of the track.

Curious- how would US-Native American relations change because of this? The rail companies would have to build through solid Apache and Navajo country if a southern route was ever taken. Hell, US-Mexico relations could go screwy because of this, too.
 
Curious- how would US-Native American relations change because of this? The rail companies would have to build through solid Apache and Navajo country if a southern route was ever taken. Hell, US-Mexico relations could go screwy because of this, too.
US-Mexican relations already went screwy: the Gadsden Purchase was made just so the US could have the ability to make a Southern route. The land was bought after the Mexican-American war for that ability, and the sale is credited in part with toppling Santa Anna and leading Mexico into a period of upheaval.
 
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