Pilots of the Republic: The Romance of the Pioneer Promoter in the Middle West

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A. C. McClurg & Company, 1906 - Canals - 368 pages
 

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Page 94 - My advice to you, Sir, is, to come or send as soon as possible. Your company is desired greatly, for the people are very uneasy, but are willing to stay and venture their lives with you ; and now • is the time to flusterate their (the Indians') intentions, and keep the country, whilst we are in it. If we give way to them now, it will ever be the case.
Page 123 - I doubt whether one single law of any lawgiver, ancient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct, marked, and lasting character than the Ordinance of 1787.
Page 70 - ... we be with them if the Spaniards on their right or great Britain on their left, instead of throwing stumbling blocks in their way as they now do; should invite their trade and seek alliances with them? What, when they get strength, which will be sooner than is generally imagined...
Page 303 - You make my feet heavy with burdens of gifts, and my moccasins will grow old in carrying them, but the book was not among them. When I tell my poor blind people, after one more snow in the big council, that I did not bring the book, no word will be spoken by our old men or by our young braves. One by one they will rise up and go out in silence.
Page 210 - I cannot do justice, that at no very distant day the waters of the great western inland seas would, by the aid of man, break through their barriers and mingle with those of the Hudson.
Page 63 - I could not help taking a more contemplative and extensive view of the vast inland navigation of these United States, and could not but be struck with the immense diffusion and importance of it ; and with the goodness of that Providence which has dealt his favors to us with so profuse a hand. Would to God we may have wisdom enough to improve them! I shall not rest contented until I have explored the Western country, and traversed those lines (or a great part of them) which have given bounds to a...
Page 286 - He began his career, of course, on the narrowest scale ; but he brought to the task a persevering industry, rigid economy, and strict integrity. To these were added an aspiring spirit that always looked upward ; a genius bold, fertile, and expansive ; a sagacity quick to grasp and convert every circumstance to its advantage, and a singular and never wavering confidence of signal success...
Page 114 - Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness — That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Power from the Consent of the Governed...
Page 244 - UR first national impulse to solve the modern transportation problem brought a clash between railways and canals. It was on July the Fourth, 1828, that the fight began. On that day, with imposing ceremony, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, signer of the Declaration of Independence, "laid the corner-stone" of the Baltimore & Ohio Railway at Baltimore — the new road to the West.
Page 295 - and had the management of affairs, I would defy them all; but as it is, every thing depends upon you and your friends about you. Our enterprise is grand, and deserves success, and I hope in God it will meet it. If my object was merely gain of money, I should say, think whether it is best to save what we can, and abandon the place ; but the very idea is like a dagger to...

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