Public Money and Private Power

The scandal was not simply about railroad investors making a lot of money.

Crédit Mobilier became a larger political problem because the same insiders could influence both sides of construction contracts, federal support helped make those contracts possible, and stock transactions brought the conflict into Congress.

Taken together, those connections blurred the line between private investment, public money, and political power during Reconstruction. The scandal showed both the possibilities and the risks created when the expanded federal role that grew out of the Civil War depended on private corporations to carry out national projects.

1869 wood engraving of Union Pacific and Central Pacific locomotives meeting at completion of the transcontinental railroad. — “Completion of the Pacific Railroad—Meeting of Locomotives of the Union and Central Pacific Lines,” 1869. Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-116354. No known restrictions on publication. Library of Congress record.

Sources: Wilson Report, 1873; Poland Report, 1873; Richard White, Railroaded; Paul Kens; Mark Wahlgren Summers.

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