A comparison of this vote with that on the earlier bill shows a change of three votes in the Middle States, one in the South, ten in the Gulf States, and five in Tennessee and Kentucky.[340] This was a triumphant vindication of Douglas's sagacity, for whatever may have been the services of his colleagues in winning Eastern votes,[341] it was his bid for the vote of the Gulf States and of the landless, intervening States of Kentucky and Tennessee which had been most effective. But was all this anything more than the clever manoeuvering of an adroit politician in a characteristic parliamentary game? A central railroad through Illinois seemed likely to quell factional and sectional quarrels in local politics; to merge Northern and Southern interests within the Commonwealth; and to add to the fiscal resources of State and nation. It was a good cause, but it needed votes in Congress. Douglas became a successful procurator and reaped his reward in increased popularity. There is an aspect of this episode, however, which lifts it above a mere log-rolling device to secure an appropriation. Here and there it fired the imagination of men. There is abundant reason to believe that the senior Senator from Illinois was not so sordid in his bargaining for votes as he seemed. Above and apart from the commercial welfare of the Lake Region, the Mississippi Valley, and the Gulf Plains, there was an end subserved, which lay in the background of his consciousness and which came to expression rarely if ever. Practical men may see visions and dream dreams which they are reluctant to voice. There was genuine emotion beneath the materialism of Senator Walker's remarks (and he was reared in Illinois), when he said: "Anything that improves the connection between the North and the South is a great enterprise. To cross parallels of latitude, to enable the man of commerce to make up his assorted cargo, is infinitely more important than anything you can propose within the same parallels of latitude. I look upon it as a great chain to unite North and South."[342] Senator Shields of Illinois only voiced the inmost thought of Douglas, when he exclaimed, "The measure is too grand, too magnificent a one to meet with such a fate at the hands of Congress. And really, as it is to connect the North and South so thoroughly, it may serve to get rid of even the Wilmot Proviso, and tie us together so effectually that the idea of separation will be impossible."[343]