Page "Pacific Scandal" Paragraph 2

For a young and loosely defined nation, the building of a national railway must be put within the context of active attempts at state-making.

Canada, a nascent country with a population of 3. 5 million in 1871, lacked the practical means to exercise meaningful de facto control within the de jure political boundaries of the recently acquired Rupert's Land -- building a transcontinental railway was national policy of high order in changing this situation.

Moreover, the post civil war era was a period of rapid expansion for the American frontier, as land hungry settlers poured west, exacerbating talk of annexation.

Indeed, sentiments of Manifest Destiny were abuzz in this time: in 1867, year of Confederation, US Secretary of State W. H.

Seward surmised that the whole North American continent " shall be, sooner or later, within the magic circle of the American Union.

" With sentiments of this nature in mind, it is little wonder that national interest fell within preventing the infusion of American investment into the project.

Established by this point was the purposeful alignment of an " all Canadian route " -- within the rubric of national interest, the federal government refused to consider a less costly route bypassing the rugged Canadian Shield of northern Ontario by passing south through Wisconsin and Minnesota.