Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis, 1858 | Page 6

our
case. Each State having sole charge of its local interests and domestic
affairs, the problem which to others has been insoluble, to us is made
easy. Rapid, safe, and easy communication and co-operation among all
parts of our continent-wide republic. The network of railroads which
bind the North and the South, the slope of the Atlantic and the valley of
the Mississippi, together testify that our people have the power to
perform, in that regard, whatever it is their will to do.
We require a railroad to the States of the Pacific for present uses; the
time no doubt will come when we shall have need of two or three; it
may be more. Because of the desert character of the interior country the
work will be difficult and expensive. It will require the efforts of an
united people. The bickerings of little politicians, the jealousies of
sections, must give way to dignity of purpose and zeal for the common
good. If the object be obstructed by contention and division as to
whether the route to be selected shall be northern, southern or central,
the handwriting is on the wall, and it requires little skill to see that
failure is the interpretation of the inscription. You are a practical people
and may ask, how is that contest to be avoided? By taking the question
out of the hands of politicians altogether. Let the Government give such
aid as it is proper for it to render to the Company which shall propose
the most feasible and advantageous plan; then leave to capitalists with

judgment sharpened by interest, the selection of the route, and the
difficulties will diminish as did those which you overcame when you
connected your harbor with the Canadian Provinces.
It would be to trespass on your kindness and to violate the proprieties
of the occasion, were I to detain the vast concourse which stands before
me, by entering on the discussion of controverted topics, or by further
indulging in the expression of such reflections as circumstances
suggest.
I came to your city in quest of health and repose. From the moment I
entered it you have showered upon me kindness and hospitality.
Though my experience has taught me to anticipate good rather than evil
from my fellow man, it had not prepared me to expect such unremitting
attention as has here been bestowed. I have been jocularly asked in
relation to my coming here, whether I had secured a guaranty {sic} for
my safety, and lo, I have found it. I stand in the midst of thousands of
my fellow citizens. But my friend, I came neither distrusting, not
apprehensive, of which you have proof in the fact that I brought with
me the objects of tenderest affection and solicitude--my wife and my
children; they have shared with me your hospitality, and will alike
remain your debtors. If at some future time, when I am mingled with
the dust, and the arm of my infant son has been nerved for deeds of
manhood, the storm of war should burst upon your city, I feel that,
relying upon his inheriting the instincts of his ancestors and mine, I
may pledge him in that perilous hour to stand by your side in the
defence of your hearth stones, and in maintaining the honor of a flag
whose constellation though torn and smoked in many a battle, by sea
and land, has never been stained with dishonor, and will I trust forever
fly as free as the breeze which unfolds it.
A stranger to you, the salubrity of your location and the beauty of its
scenery were not wholly unknown to me, nor were there wanting
associations which bust memory connected with your people. You will
pardon me for alluding to one whose genius shed a lustre upon all it
touched, and whose qualities gathered about him hosts of friends,
wherever he was known. Prentiss, a native of Portland, lived from
youth to middle age in the county of my residence, and the inquiries
which have been made, show me that the youth excited the interest
which the greatness of the man justified, and that his memory thus

remains a link to connect your home with mine.
A cursory view, when passing through your town on former occasions,
had impressed me with the great advantages of your harbor, its easy
entrance, its depth, and its extensive accommodation for shipping. But
its advantages, and if facilities as they have been developed by closer
inspection, have grown upon me until I realize that it is no boast, but
the language of sober truth which in the present state of commerce
pronounces them unequaled in any harbor of our country.
And surely no place could be more inviting to an invalid who sought a
refuge