During the summer, Douglas canvassed the State, speaking repeatedly in behalf of this larger project.  For a time he hoped that Senator Breese would co-operate with him.  Numerous conferences took place both before and after Congress had assembled; but Douglas found his colleague reluctant to abandon his pre-emption plan.  Regardless of the memorials which poured in upon him from northern Illinois, Breese introduced his bill for pre-emption rights on the public domain, in behalf of the Holbrook Company, as the Great Western Railway Company was popularly called.  Thereupon Douglas offered a bill for a donation of public lands to aid the State of Illinois in the construction of a central railroad from Cairo to Galena, with a branch from Centralia to Chicago.[332] Though Breese did not actively oppose his colleague, his lack of cordiality no doubt prejudiced Congress against a grant of any description.  From the outset, Douglas’s bill encountered obstacles:  the opposition of those who doubted the constitutional power of Congress to grant lands for internal improvements of this sort; the opposition of landless States, which still viewed the public domain as a national asset from which revenue should be derived; and, finally, the opposition of the old States to the new.  Nevertheless, the bill passed the Senate by a good majority.  In the House it suffered defeat, owing to the undisguised opposition of the South and of the landless States both East and West.  The Middle States showed distrust and uncertainty.  It was perfectly clear that before such a project could pass the House, Eastern and Southern representatives would have to be won over.[333]

After Congress adjourned, Douglas journeyed to the State of Mississippi, ostensibly on a business trip to his children’s plantation.  In the course of his travels, he found himself in the city of Mobile—­an apparent digression; but by a somewhat remarkable coincidence he met certain directors of the Mobile Railroad in the city.  Now this corporation was in straits.  Funds had failed and the construction of the road had been arrested.  The directors were casting about in search of relief.  Douglas saw his opportunity.  He offered the distraught officials an alliance.  He would include in his Illinois Central bill a grant of land for their road; in return, they were to make sure of the votes of their senators and representatives.[334] Such, at least, is the story told by Douglas; and some such bargain may well have been made.  Subsequent events give the color of veracity to the tale.

When Douglas renewed his Illinois Central bill in a revised form on January 3, 1850, Senator Breese had been succeeded by Shields, who was well-disposed toward the project.[335] The fruits of the Mobile conference were at once apparent.  Senator King of Alabama offered an amendment, proposing a similar donation of public lands to his State and to Mississippi, for the purpose of continuing the projected central railroad from the mouth of the Ohio to the port of Mobile.  Douglas afterward said that he had himself drafted this amendment, but that he had thought best to have Senator King present it.[336] Be that as it may, the suspicion of collusion between them can hardly be avoided, since the amendment occasioned no surprise to the friends of the bill and was adopted without division.