Chapter 40 - Ted & Anna Judah vs. the Associates on the Transcontinental Railroad
In the decade before the Civil War, Northern and Southern politicians locked in a fierce battle over the proposed routes of a railroad that would cross the whole country, joining the rich new state of California to the East.
Thousands of Americans were dying every year on the perilous routes to the West. Only the wealthy could afford the slightly safer passage on one of the sea routes; or the provisions, oxen, horses, wagons, that would increase the odds of survival on the land route.
The chief obstacle to a transcontinental railroad was the intensifying hostility between North and South over the issue of the expansion of slavery. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis used his power to propose a railroad plan that would pass through only slave states. Such a route would ensure the economic and political domination of the slave economy.
Brilliant railroad engineer Theodore Judah was determined to prove the viability of a central route that would keep the railroad out of the hands of the slave powers. His partner in the mission was his wife, Anna: a talented artist whose paintings and drawings illustrating Ted’s proposals—and her powers of persuasion—helped bring congressmen around to supporting Ted’s route.
To the idealistic Judahs, a railroad would mean safe, affordable travel for the masses, and a greater equality of opportunity for all. And with the election of former railroad lawyer Abraham Lincoln and the eruption of war, Ted and Anna knew the odds had finally shifted in their favor.
After the Gold Rush: Chapter 40
Summer, 1861: Sacramento, California
Ted & Anna Judah, The Associates
Ted was working on the railroad. He’d begun the survey on Sacramento’s Front Street in January, with assistant surveyors to help. By March he had made it all the way up to Dutch Flat.
And since the Confederate firing on Fort Sumter in April, all the Associates knew there would be no more question of a Southern route. Their time to push the Central Pacific was now.
In the summer Mark Hopkins called a board meeting and Ted came down from the mountains for the election of Central Pacific officers, where he voted for Leland Stanford as president, James Bailey as secretary, Hopkins as treasurer, and Collis Huntington as vice-president.
“Huntington, Vice-President?” Anna repeated, with a frown, as Ted recounted the board meeting. “And Huntington had nothing to say of it?”
Ted responded confidently. “He understands that politics will be the key to getting the railroad built. There is a good chance Stanford will be elected governor. A great deal depends upon it, for the prestige of electing a Republican ticket will go a great way to getting us what we want.”
Privately, Anna had her doubts about the extent of Huntington’s “understanding.” And as usual, Anna could not have been more correct. Huntington was in a fury about Judah voting for Stanford for Central Pacific’s president, and he would devise many ways in the coming year to take his revenge. But he also realized the momentum that a Republican president and Congress would be for the new venture, and he and the Associates threw all their influence behind Stanford’s candidacy. The day before the nominating convention, the Sacramento Daily Union reported that “The friends of Stanford have been working like beavers, anxious to go ahead with the nomination for Governor, as they are confident of succeeding.”
On June 10, Stanford won the Republican nomination.
He accepted the honor with a large dose of false modesty: “This is the first time I have really and willingly consented that my name go before the Convention, and even now, gentlemen, permit me to say it is not altogether voluntary on my part. My friends insisted that my name should come before the people.”
Then he gave a rousing speech in which he flayed the aristocracy of the South versus the virtues of democracy in the Union.
Two weeks later, the Central Pacific Railroad Company filed incorporation papers, with Leland Stanford listed as President.
There was no public criticism of this conflict of interest.
The Reverend Starr King added campaigning for Stanford to his already brutal schedule of events supporting the Union.
And Stanford and Jennie celebrated his nomination by buying a mansion.
They had lived for more than a decade in a modest home near the waterfront on Second Street. Together they’d built the furniture from crates, and Jennie had made the curtains and hung the wall fabric herself. Now they moved uptown to a four-thousand-square foot Renaissance Revival–styled house at Eighth and N Streets, one of the finest in the city.
On September 4, 1861, Stanford was elected Governor of California.
And San Francisco investors suddenly started to worry about the Central Pacific.
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