Quote:
Originally Posted by whell
That's right Pio. See, you can't point out the "value" of government spending spear-heading the westward expansion of the railway system and leave out the key element of why government policy saw fit to fund the expansion.
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We were supposed to expand west without any governmental involvement?
How in the heck do you accomplish that, when much of these territories are controlled by other governments?
As I understand it, the slave-owning states (Now Republican strongholds, BTW.
) supported westward expansion with the intent to create more slave owning states. The industrial states saw the opportunity to expand railroads to establish western ports for commerce with the Far East. Not to mention the vast natural resources to the west such as lumber and mining.