Mr. KELLEY. Mr. Speaker, what all other nations have done, and what they are doing, we are asked to do, except that they sometimes assume a positive and enduring liability, while there will e no ultimate liability here. The immense grant of land, with high market values imparted to it by the completion of the railroad, will indemnify us against loss by our guarantee; for is there any gentleman here who doubts that this magnificent grant of land made available to emigrants from the East an Europe, will be adequate security for the loan of an annual amount of interest, limited as it is in this bill? To doubt that “it will be ample is to deny value to the richest portion of our country, or that increased wealth will follow enteiiprise and industry bestowed on raw may teria. Sir, it is said that this measure will, if not bankrupt the country, at least impair its credit DO lyou bankrupt a country by increasing its proactive industry? Do you bankrupt a country by expanding its habitable territory and carrying civilization to a broad empire teeming with resources but now a wilderness? No, sir. it will not bankrupt the country. It will enrich it; it will expand and strengthen its credit. In the darkest hours of the war I stood here and advocated the grant of land to the Central Pacific railroad, and I then said in substance to those who listened to me, “Let us proclaim to the nations of Europe that now, in the veryagony of our country, we project and launc for completion an enterprise for which none of them have the territory. Let us show them that, while our country is torn and almost rent asunder by civilWar, such is the confidence in its power and endurance that we engage in enterprises which may not bless us, but of which our posterity shall reap the rich reward, and the very commencement of which will bring to us millions of dollars with which to pay for their construction.” The war is over, and I now appeal to gentlemen to increase the resources oi the country by developinga region greaterin length and breadth and natural wealth than western Europe, and making it populous, thrifty, productive, and a market for the consumption of the products of other regions, and above all by making it the cat highway of the world. Let the capital rats of England, of France, of Frankfort on the Main, an elsewhere, understand that their bills of exchange, representing and moving the commercial wealth of the world, traverse the continent of a democratic republic that can convert its wilderness into teeming farms and thriving cities by taking their upers and the most abject of their people an elevating them into sovereign citizens of a free republic, and you will not impair the credit of the country. I can conceive no enterprise which would more surely guaranty the speedy and easy payment of our national debt than the deve opment of that empire which is drained by the Missouriand the Columbia, by the up lication of the rule invariably practiced in building railroads, to wit, the use of credit while capital is being made productive by the conotruction of the road. I apprehend that the money could be obtained wrtiiout this legislation. I apprehend that an application to Sir Morton Pete and other British capitalists, with a stipulation to make this road a link in a grand international road, would bring the requisite capital. But I want no international railroad binding as still more closely to the Provinces of our proudest and most powerful enemy. I do not want the British line practically brought down from the fort “8th to the 42nd degree of latitude. This should be an American road, and should be under the guardian ship of the American Congress. It should be in the hands of American men, so that if the colonists make lateral roads, those roads shall feed our main line, and if discriminations are to be made as to rights or rates over the road, they shall be made against those who are not our fellow citizens, and not against the interests of our country or countrymen. I implore gentlemen to rise above the petty and local considerations that have animated this debate so far. I ask them to contemplate this as a great national scheme. Especially do I ask them to guard the country against a monopoly whose footfalls were, in my judgment, heard here yesterday. It is said NewJersey is but a province of the Camden and Amboy Railroad Company. Men say that the Pennsylvania Central road governs that State. I have heard similar suggestions in regard to some of the States of NewEngland and the West. I hear it stated sometimes that the Illinois Central railroad domineers the State of Illinois. We have granted a charter and a liberal donation to one Pacific railroad, and we must relieve ourselves from its power as a mo nopoly by adequately aiding other roads. I am in favor of a northern route, and should I stand here when the country is restored and the loyal men of the South are represented in this Hall, i if they ask a grant like this for a southern Pacific railroad, my voice shall be raised to give them subsidies renter than are asked here. With the Atlantic and the Pacific connected upon our northern boundary, upon the central line embracing Illinois, Missouri, and my own great State, and on a southern route, there will be no monopoly cominv here to impel gentlemen to insinuate slander s against those who may present great undertakings to the consideration of Congress and the nation. My arguments, Mr. Speaker, have been of a general character. They may all be Familiar to gentle meu. But they have been uttered in the interest of my country and mankind; and in aid of those interests I hope this bill willbe passed.