He is the Projector of the Illinois Central Railroad-His Wonderful Prediction regarding the Growth and Magnitude of Railways in the United States.

Until the death of Judge Breese it had never been quite understood who was justly entitled to the credit of projecting the Illinois Central Railroad, which has added untold wealth to the prairie State. Judge Breese himself lays claim to having projected the enterprise. In the elaborate memorial address of Melville W. Fuller, of Chicago, before the Illinois Bar Association, at Springfield, in January, 1879, on the life and services of Judge Breese, we find this definitely satisfactory statement regarding the origin of the great enterprise. Said he:

"In October, 1835, Judge Breese called the attention of the public to the importance of a direct connection of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, then in course of construction, with the lower Mississippi at Cairo, by a railroad, proposing that the road should start from the termination of the

canal, and proceed as near as might be by the route of the third principal meridian, through Bloomington, Decatur, Vandalia, Carlyle, Nashville, Pinckneyville, Brownsville and Jonesboro, and pointing out how it could be done and by what means, and from that time until the great result was achieved he labored steadily to bring it about, opposing, however, the act of February, 1837, for a general system of internal improvements.

In Congress, his first movement in favor of the project was marked by great sagacity. He introduced, in January, 1844, and obtained the passage of, a resolution instructing the Committee on Naval Affairs to provide for an examination of the locality at, or near, the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, with a view to the establishment of a naval depot and dockyard, which he supported in an elaborate letter, under date of February 29, 1844, to Hon. R. H. Bayard, of Delaware, chairman of that committee, which was printed by order of the Senate, and, among other things, contained the following: At some period, not distant, the projected railroad will be constructed from the iron mountains and copper mines in Missouri to the Mississippi river, opposite the mouth of the Ohio. From the cars which bring metal from the mines, transported across the river in ferry boats, it will be deposited in public stores for use, or in private stores for transportation to more distant markets. Nor will it be long before the Central or Great Western Railway of Illinois will be constructed, opening a route toward the lakes, never to be obstructed by low water or ice. Commencing at the site of the proposed depot, and running near five hundred miles through a region of unsurpassed fertility, it will not only bring in supplies inexhaustible, but open a communication through which naval stores may be sent to the lakes, it being connected with the projected canals in Illinois and Indiana, without transhipment from boats on the rivers, or the interposition of other causes, which would render their transportation from other points more dilatory and expensive.

"This was the entering wedge which opened up an inquiry, resulting, to use Judge Breese's language a few years after, 'in the growth of a great city at that point, of which our State will be proud. Like another queen, she will yet rise in splendor from the waters.'

"In March, 1844, a bill for a grant for railway purposes was introduced in the House by Col. McClernand, than whom,' writes Judge Breese, 'our State never had an abler

member;' and Senator Breese, in addition to a bill offered in December, 1844, introduced one in January, 1846, to grant to the State of Illinois alternate sections of land to aid in the construction of the road, making as Chairman of the Committee on Public Lands, to which the bill was referred, the first full report ever made to Congress on the subject. In January, 1848, Senator Breese made an elaborate report upon a bill of Senator Douglas, and in July, 1848, reported the bill of Senator, afterward VicePresident, King, in favor of Alabama.

"In December, 1848, Senator Breese made another report upon a bill of Judge Douglas, going fully into the whole subject, and endeavoring to obviate all constitutional and other objections to such grants, and the argument contained in it was made the basis of all the subsequent grants to this and other States.

"In September, 1850, after Judge Breese left the Senate, a bill was passed which consolidated his original bill of 1846, with that of Senator King, of 1848, and under this we obtained the land.

"In 1851, when Judge Breese was a member of the General Assembly, and Speaker of the House, the act was passed incorporating the Illinois Central Railroad Company, and giving it the benefit of the grant, and Judge Breese thus witnessed the close of his long labors in this direction, labors, to some of which only this is but a mere reference, and it was in that year that he published a letter in which he says: 'I claim to have first projected this great road in my letter of 1835, and in the judgment of impartial and disinterested men my claim will be allowed. I have said and written more in favor of it than any other. It has been my highest ambition to accomplish it, and when my last resting place shall be marked by the cold marble which gratitude or affection may erect, I desire for it no other inscription than this, that he who sleeps beneath it projected the Central Railroad.'"

As an evidence of the master foresight of Judge Breese, regarding the benefits which were to follow the path of the iron horse, we transfer to these pages an extract from a report he made in July, 1846, when a Senator in Congress and Chairman of the Committee on Public Lands. It relates to a memorial of A. Whitney, for a grant of land

to enable him to build a railroad from Lake Michigan to the Pacific ocean. Summing up the whole question of railroad construction, he said:

"Our whole country will be brought together at the grand centre in the short space of four days, allowing us not only to transport passengers, but all descriptions of merchandise and produce, from the grand center to New Orleans, Savannah, Charleston, Richmond and Norfolk, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston, and to the Pacific, in the same time, four days; and from the Pacific to any of the above cities in less than eight days, and to China in twenty days; so that we can bring our vast country together in four days, and the extremes of the globe in thirty days. A cargo of teas from China may then be delivered in any of our Atlantic cities in thirty days and in London or Liverpool in less than forty-five days."

Judge Breese was one of the truly great men of his day, and his highest ambition seemed to be to do something that would benefit his country and mankind, and few men have accomplished more in that direction than he.

From the first advent of Judge Breese into the State to the day of his death, he held public office, but it is also true that the office sought him more that he sought it. He was a native of New York, born July 15, 1800; and in company with Samuel D. Lockwood, came to Illinois in 1818, arriving at Shawneetown by a flat-boat, and from thence he made his way across the country to Kaskaskia, then the seat of government, where he was made Assistant Secretary of State, under Elias Kent Kane, who had been a schoolmate in New York, and at whose solicitation he came West. One of his earliest achievements was the compilation and publication of the Reports of the Supreme Court from the years 1818 to 1831; and it is said of him that he personally superintended their printing, and actually set much of the type. He was Postmaster of Kaskaskia, Circuit Attorney under the administrations of Governors Bond and Coles; U. S. District