The following appeared with the announcement of President Garfield's death. "In the history of the United States, President Garfield will be remembered as he whose nomination by the National Republican Convention strangled imperialism in its cradle, and as he whose assassination was quickly followed by an outburst of sorrow and sympathy which manifested to the North the true nature of the South, and do more than the arguments, the prayers and the common intercourse of thrice five years to bring together the peoples whom war had made separate. By the shedding of blood the North and South were sundered; and through the shedding of blood they are united.... In his wounding unto death passed away the alienation, the estrangement which prevented this country from being truly one, although men and millions had made it in appearance indivisible."[181] Railroads, both because they allowed sentiment to become solidified in the South, and afforded great currents of intercourse with the North, were of first importance. And in the railroads, with the encouragement they gave to manufactures, and the stability they lent to trade in furnishing a strong commercial backbone,[182] appear early hints of the unifying force of Northern capital itself. A railroad, in which Northern men chiefly were interested, which proposed running up the James River Valley to Clifton Forge, was hailed by Richmond as bringing new prosperity. "We welcome the Northern gentlemen who are to co this invaluable work for Virginia, and we trust and believe that they may never have cause to regret the investment of their capital here. Every such investment is a new band around the States of the Union binding them more closely together."[183] CHAPTER IV _CAPITAL_