But with regard to what is due from this generation to itself, or what may be left to the next generation, I say it is for the present generation that we want the road.  As to our having acquired California, and opened this new world of commerce and enterprise, and as to what we shall leave to the next generation, I say that, after we of this generation shall have constructed this road, we will, perhaps, not even leave to the next generation the construction of a second one.  The present generation, in my opinion, will not pass away until it shall have seen two great lines of railroads in prosperous operation between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and within our own territory, and still leave quite enough to the next generation—­the third and fourth great lines of communication between the two extremes of the continent.  One, at least, is due to ourselves, and to the present generation; and I hope there are many within the sound of my voice who will live to see it accomplished.  We want that new Dorado, the new Ophir of America, to be thrown open and placed within the reach of the whole people.  We want the great cost, the delays, as well as the privations and risks of a passage to California, by the malarious Isthmus of Panama, or any other of the routes now in use, to be mitigated, or done away with.  There will be some greater equality in the enjoyment and advantages of these new acquisitions upon the Pacific coast when this road shall be constructed.  The inexhaustible gold mines, or placers of California, will no longer be accessible only to the more robust, resolute, or desperate part of our population, and who may be already well enough off to pay their passage by sea, or provide an outfit for an overland travel of two and three thousand miles.  Enterprising young men all over the country, who can command the pittance of forty or fifty dollars to pay their railroad fare; heads of families who have the misfortune to be poor, but spirit and energy enough to seek comfort and independence by labor, will no longer be restrained by the necessity of separating themselves from their families, but have it in their power, with such small means as they may readily command, in eight or ten days, to find themselves with their whole households transported and set down in the midst of the gold regions of the West, at full liberty to possess and enjoy whatever of the rich harvest spread out before them their industry and energy shall entitle them to.  It will be theirs by as good a title as any can boast who have had the means to precede them.  We hear much said of late of the justice and policy of providing a homestead, a quarter section of the public land, to every poor and landless family in the country.  Make this road, and you enable every poor man in the country to buy a much better homestead, and retain all the pride and spirit of independence.  Gentlemen here may say that the region of California, so inviting, and abundant in gold now, will soon be exhausted, and all these bright prospects for the enterprising poor pass away.  No, sir; centuries will pass—­ages and ages must roll away before those gold-bearing mountains shall all have been excavated—­those auriferous sands and alluvial deposits shall give out all their wealth; and even after all these shall have failed, the beds of the rivers will yield a generous return to the toil of the laborer. ...