Mr. Lincoln served on the Committee on Finance, and was a most laborious member, instant in season and out of season, for the great measures of the Whig party. It was to his individual exertion that the Whigs were indebted in no small degree for the complete success of their favorite schemes at this session. A railroad from Galena to the mouth of the Ohio was provided for; another from Alton to Shawneetown; another from Alton to Mount Carmel; another from Alton to the eastern boundary of the State towards Terre Haute; another from Quincy by way of Springfield to the Wabash; another from Bloomington to Pekin; another from Peoria to Warsaw,--in all about thirteen hundred miles. But in this comprehensive "system," "commensurate with the wants of the people," the rivers were not to be overlooked; and accordingly the Kaskaskia, the Illinois, the Great Wabash, the Little Wabash, and the Rock rivers were to be duly improved. To set these little matters in motion, a loan of eight millions of dollars was authorized; and, to complete the canal from Chicago to Peru, another loan of four millions of dollars was voted at the same session,--two hundred thousand dollars being given as a gratuity to those counties which seemed to have no special interest in any of the foregoing projects. Work on all these roads was to commence, not only at the same time, but at both ends of each road, and at all the river-crossings. There were as yet no surveys of any route, no estimates, no reports of engineers, or even unprofessional viewers. "Progress" was not to wait on trifles; capitalists were supposed to be lying in wait to catch these precious bonds; the money would be raised in a twinkling, and being applied with all the skill of "a hundred De Witt Clintons,"--a class of gentlemen at that time extremely numerous and obtrusive,--the loan would build the railroads, the railroads would build cities, cities would create farms, foreign capital would rush to so inviting a field, the lands would be taken up with marvellous celerity, and the "land-tax" going into a sinking fund, _that_, with some tolls and certain sly speculations to be made by the State, would pay principal and interest of the debt without ever a cent of taxation upon the people. In short, everybody was to be enriched, while the munificence of the State in selling its credit and spending the proceeds would make its empty coffers overflow with ready money. It was a dark stroke of statesmanship, a mysterious device in finance, which, whether from being misunderstood, or from being mismanaged, bore from the beginning fruits the very reverse of those it had promised. A Board of Canal Commissioners was already in existence; but now were established, as necessary parts of the new "system," a Board of Fund Commissioners and a Board of Commissioners of Public Works.